Stock Music App songs stuttering slightly

mc_365 · Apr 1, 2014

Hello all,
I got My VZW branded M8 on launch day and have been getting used to it and checking 20 times a day to see if a perm root solution has been found or better yet an S-Off method. On to my issue in the past few days I've had some time to listen to some mp3s from an SD card on the M8's stock music app and I have found that there is an audible stutter randomly occurring 3-5 times per song. The same mp3 played in poweramp plays smooth. The same SD card played the same songs smoothly in my DNA. So I'm lead to believe there some issue with the stock music app. I tested with screen timeout disabled, motion gestures disabled and still got the same thing.

Did anyone notice the same issue or is it just my phone.
It sounds like song skipped a beat or someone bumping a CD player, not really a sound but just the timing got out of sync for an instant. The first time I just thought it was a error in mp3 then I picked up that it was happening continually but could not be reproduced by replaying the same section of music. I love poweramp but the stock music player should function correctly on a flagship phone and IMO. I like the HTC stock music app as it lets me stream music from my DLNA server on my network, so I like it to function properly.

Kind Regards,
mc

deeznuts · Apr 1, 2014

Maybe try a factory reset since its obviously not a hardware issue if a third party app is working perfectly. Only music player i use is the stock HTC Music app and never had any issues with it across the board. Works perfect here even streaming over BT in the car or BT stereo headsets.

ihavenolife008 · Apr 1, 2014

No stuttering here, but i've had tracks reset to start after short inactivity. I listen to audiobooks and had to go use Google Play Music because my chapters kept starting over after pausing them.

compir99 · Apr 1, 2014

mc_365 said:
Hello all,
I got My VZW branded M8 on launch day and have been getting used to it and checking 20 times a day to see if a perm root solution has been found or better yet an S-Off method. On to my issue in the past few days I've had some time to listen to some mp3s from an SD card on the M8's stock music app and I have found that there is an audible stutter randomly occurring 3-5 times per song. The same mp3 played in poweramp plays smooth. The same SD card played the same songs smoothly in my DNA. So I'm lead to believe there some issue with the stock music app. I tested with screen timeout disabled, motion gestures disabled and still got the same thing.

Did anyone notice the same issue or is it just my phone.
It sounds like song skipped a beat or someone bumping a CD player, not really a sound but just the timing got out of sync for an instant. The first time I just thought it was a error in mp3 then I picked up that it was happening continually but could not be reproduced by replaying the same section of music. I love poweramp but the stock music player should function correctly on a flagship phone and IMO. I like the HTC stock music app as it lets me stream music from my DLNA server on my network, so I like it to function properly.

Kind Regards,
mc

I've actually been having this issue but over Bluetooth only but my audio never skips when I have a 3.5mm jack plugged in. I'm getting a new Bluetooth device and I'll report back on my findings.

sitlet · Apr 2, 2014

Have not had this issue with my Verizon M8. I have all my music (about 20gb) on the sd card, and normally play through the 3.5mm jack.

The one thing I did notice is, with my old htc phone, when playing music and a notification came in, it would interrupt the music and play the notification. I liked this because I would know to look at my phone. With this one, there is NO interruption of the music. So I can be in my car for a half hour playing music, and not know of any texts or emails unless I look at the phone. Anyone know a solution?

compir99 · Apr 2, 2014

UPDATE: I tried using another Bluetooth device and the same problem occurred. Also to note, I'm having this issue with the stock music app & PlayerPro. However, if I reboot my phone the problem does not occur and I'm able to play music through my Bluetooth device without stutters.

@mc_365: Trying to see if we have anything in common. When music stutters, are you connected via Bluetooth? By any chance are you rooted & did you freeze any apps? Do you have the problem while connected to a 3.5mm jack?

UPDATE (9:32a PT): I just tried a factory reset & I'm still having the problem. Anybody have any other suggestions?

bloodiedwraith · Apr 2, 2014

compir99 said:
UPDATE: I tried using another Bluetooth device and the same problem occurred. Also to note, I'm having this issue with the stock music app & PlayerPro. However, if I reboot my phone the problem does not occur and I'm able to play music through my Bluetooth device without stutters. I have not tried a factory reset yet.

@mc_365: Trying to see if we have anything in common. When music stutters, are you connected via Bluetooth? By any chance are you rooted & did you freeze any apps? Do you have the problem while connected to a 3.5mm jack?

I'm not rooted and trying to play music through my Camaro bluetooth from Play Music it just constantly skips. I am running on ART and will switch back to dalvik to see if that fixes it. If not, I'm going to exchange my phone or return it all together.

UPDATE:
I switched back to Dalvik and did a factory reset to make sure everything was done properly. Now Google Play Music doesn't skip when I play music through my car. Are any of you on ART runtime by chance?

compir99 · Apr 3, 2014

I just came back from Verizon & exchanged my M8; I'll have to check to see if that helped.

mc_365 said:
Hello all,
I got My VZW branded M8 on launch day and have been getting used to it and checking 20 times a day to see if a perm root solution has been found or better yet an S-Off method. On to my issue in the past few days I've had some time to listen to some mp3s from an SD card on the M8's stock music app and I have found that there is an audible stutter randomly occurring 3-5 times per song. The same mp3 played in poweramp plays smooth. The same SD card played the same songs smoothly in my DNA. So I'm lead to believe there some issue with the stock music app. I tested with screen timeout disabled, motion gestures disabled and still got the same thing.

Trying to see if we have anything in common. When music stutters, are you connected via Bluetooth? By any chance are you rooted & did you freeze any apps? Do you have the problem while connected to a 3.5mm jack?

deeznuts said:
Maybe try a factory reset since its obviously not a hardware issue if a third party app is working perfectly. Only music player i use is the stock HTC Music app and never had any issues with it across the board. Works perfect here even streaming over BT in the car or BT stereo headsets.

Are you playing music from your SD card or internal memory?

bloodiedwraith said:
I'm not rooted and trying to play music through my Camaro bluetooth from Play Music it just constantly skips. I am running on ART and will switch back to dalvik to see if that fixes it. If not, I'm going to exchange my phone or return it all together.

UPDATE:
I switched back to Dalvik and did a factory reset to make sure everything was done properly. Now Google Play Music doesn't skip when I play music through my car. Are any of you on ART runtime by chance?

I never messed around with changing Dalvik/ART; I checked and I'm running Dalvik. Are you playing music off your SD card or internal memory over Bluetooth when you're having this problem?

mc_365 · Apr 3, 2014

I'm just playing mp3s from SD card on a regular pair of earphones. I think maybe my issue is the HTC decoder just doesn't like the CD rip I was playing, maybe the bitrate or the error handling within the app or something like that. I've played other mp3s now and can't say that this is something that is consistently happening.

deeznuts · Apr 3, 2014

I have all my songs on external sd card. I can try streaming Pandora in my car and see if any stuttering If that makes a difference? I did though download a few so to internal storage and played over Bluetooth in my car on the way home without stuttering. Played the same as the songs on my external sd card.

wtoj34 · Apr 3, 2014

I have an obnoxious stutter on the Netflix app through speakers and headphone jack. Noticed it through play movies today also. Reset did nothing. Sadly it isn't noticeable for it to pass through the replacement check

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

broprah · Apr 3, 2014

I get the occasional skip when streaming over bluetooth from my SD card. I'd suspect it has more to do with the I/O read ahead or scheduler than anything. It seems to happen whether or not the screen is on, so I don't think it's a processor hang or anything like that.

compir99 · Apr 4, 2014

I hope this update helps anyone with the same issue. :fingers-crossed:

*knock on wood

I noticed that the skips were less and far between if I was playing music over Bluetooth using the internal memory. So what I did is take another SD card and played music on that. This resulted in no skips that I could tell. Perhaps it might be a defective SD card or bad format so I reformatted the SD card completely (full not quick) and so far I'm having less skips in music. I ordered up the 128 GB SanDisk card & hopefully I won't have any skips using that card.

I'm thinking once we get a permanent root & S-Off we can try putting AOSP on our M8s & see if that eliminates the issue completely. :fingers-crossed:

If anybody else can share any suggestions on what to try, that would be great!

furious78 · May 22, 2014

sitlet said:
Have not had this issue with my Verizon M8. I have all my music (about 20gb) on the sd card, and normally play through the 3.5mm jack.

The one thing I did notice is, with my old htc phone, when playing music and a notification came in, it would interrupt the music and play the notification. I liked this because I would know to look at my phone. With this one, there is NO interruption of the music. So I can be in my car for a half hour playing music, and not know of any texts or emails unless I look at the phone. Anyone know a solution?

This is the problem I'm experiencing that brought me to this thread. Did you ever find a solution? Both Google Play Music and Stock HTC Music play over the notification. My podcast app, Pocket Casts, appropriately gives focus to notification sounds every time.

broprah · May 23, 2014

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2732264

same problem, fix seems to be something to do with viper rom.

furious78 · May 23, 2014

broprah said:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2732264

same problem, fix seems to be something to do with viper rom.

In sum, the potential fix is to change the read-ahead buffer from 512 to 1024, and the guy said it worked for several days with no further updates. He happened to be running Viper when he made the changes... apparently it uses the stock kernel. I am running CleanROM with stock kernel, so I just installed trickster and changed my read-ahead buffer to 1024. I'll report back if that makes a difference. There was one follow-up comment that it didn't make a difference in the stock ROM (edit - ahh... from broprah... any update to that?).

FWIW, I have been noticing this issue a lot BUT I only get it when streaming to my BT earbuds (with HTC Music, Google Play Music, and Pocket Casts). This stuttering does not happen when I use wired earbuds or playing over BT in my car. I understand the scenarios are different for everyone, but that's my own situation.

broprah · May 23, 2014

furious78 said:
In sum, the potential fix is to change the read-ahead buffer from 512 to 1024, and the guy said it worked for several days with no further updates. He happened to be running Viper when he made the changes... apparently it uses the stock kernel. I am running CleanROM with stock kernel, so I just installed trickster and changed my read-ahead buffer to 1024. I'll report back if that makes a difference. There was one follow-up comment that it didn't make a difference in the stock ROM (edit - ahh... from broprah... any update to that?).

FWIW, I have been noticing this issue a lot BUT I only get it when streaming to my BT earbuds (with HTC Music, Google Play Music, and Pocket Casts). This stuttering does not happen when I use wired earbuds or playing over BT in my car. I understand the scenarios are different for everyone, but that's my own situation.

I ended up flashing Viper and I haven't experienced any stuttering since. In poking around, I see that changing the read ahead in the built in system tools only changes the internal read ahead. Further poking revealed that the external read ahead is preset to 4096kb, which could be the solution in the end.

furious78 · May 23, 2014

broprah said:
I ended up flashing Viper and I haven't experienced any stuttering since. In poking around, I see that changing the read ahead in the built in system tools only changes the internal read ahead. Further poking revealed that the external read ahead is preset to 4096kb, which could be the solution in the end.

I don't see a differentiation in Trickster. Do you know if that's just a Viper setting?

broprah · May 23, 2014

I was using FauxTool to check and change settings, regardless of kernel.

furious78 · May 24, 2014

No such luck with my read ahead change. :/

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

Stock Music App songs stuttering slightly

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