Moma okgo/Shutterstock Active noise cancellation (ANC) is one of the major reasons people are drawn to AirPods. ANC is effective at blocking out background noise, whether it's the traffic or people around you. So, when the feature stops working, the entire AirPods experience goes downhill. The noise that was blocked out earlier suddenly becomes audible, and your AirPods start to feel like any other wireless earbuds. The good news is that the problem isn't usually tied to something big, but rather, a small misconfiguration or adjustment. And it's almost always easily fixable. Common reasons your AirPods' active noise cancellation isn't working include using ear tips that don't fit, blocked microphones due to dust or earwax accumulation, running outdated firmware, not using both AirPods, and misconfigured settings. In some of these cases, ANC won't feel as effective, and in other instances, the feature won't work at all. But with the right set of fixes, you can get it working perfectly in minutes.…