Fantastic! I mean… it sucks, but it’s good to know that this is a general issue in Plex and not just a problem with my setup.
I posted this report in October 2020: Don’t switch audio source between tracks (NOT about gapless playback). In my case it happens when I’m using my AVR. It seems that when you’re using passthrough or “exclusive mode”, Plex always ends the session whenever you stop a track or the next track begins which causes the device (in your case - HomePod, in my case - my Pioneer AVR) to try to switch to the default (PCM?) streaming source, but the immediately switch back to direct play. This causes the gap which may last a fraction of a second or more than a second, depending on how fast the device handles source switching.
I would appreciate if you could post in my thread so they would see that it’s not just my specific setup. I recently spoke with Plex’s co-founder on Twitter and he said that they don’t have enough staff to respond to all customers and have to focus on issues that affect many users so it would be great if this issue would get some attention if multiple people report it.
