Develop Bugs

[Q] Google music (v4.0.9) stutters when phone asleep

Hey guys,
Have searched a while, but found no solutions for this, so here goes.
Have stock Galaxy Nexus with ICS 4.0.1, build ITL41F, installed Google Music v4.0.9 (with online sync).
Music is synced with google's online music service (even though I'm in UK, worked-around US-only restriction), and plays nicely when the screen is on. Once I switch the screen off (press power button), one of two things happen:
- if sampling rate of a song is below 48,000 Hz -- everything continues as normal.
- if sampling rate is 48,000Hz and up -- every one/couple of seconds music stutters, and jerks. Feels like I'm listening to dusty ol' record!
The 48kHz part is my theory, compared a few mp3s that stutter and some that don't. This seems to happen irrespective of bps rate and other parameters (albeit haven't checked all).
Few people on the forum with similar symptoms (on other phones) suggested it has something to do with cpu throttle during sleep, and that by forcing it to higher frequencies during sleep this could be solved.
Installed setCPU (which required rooting) and forced phone to 1,200MHz in sleep as a trial, and the songs still were stuttering.
Anyone with a similar experience?
Prime suspect would be google_music.apk which is in beta i believe, and... well, i guess then I'm out. What do you guys think? Any idea what might be causing this?
This is my first android phone, so I'm not sure even how I'd go about submitting a bug, if that's indeed the beta version of music at fault here. Any pointers?
Ta,
Dan

omgrtm said:
Hey guys,
Have searched a while, but found no solutions for this, so here goes.
Have stock Galaxy Nexus with ICS 4.0.1, build ITL41F, installed Google Music v4.0.9 (with online sync).
Music is synced with google's online music service (even though I'm in UK, worked-around US-only restriction), and plays nicely when the screen is on. Once I switch the screen off (press power button), one of two things happen:
- if sampling rate of a song is below 48,000 Hz -- everything continues as normal.
- if sampling rate is 48,000Hz and up -- every one/couple of seconds music stutters, and jerks. Feels like I'm listening to dusty ol' record!
The 48kHz part is my theory, compared a few mp3s that stutter and some that don't. This seems to happen irrespective of bps rate and other parameters (albeit haven't checked all).
Few people on the forum with similar symptoms (on other phones) suggested it has something to do with cpu throttle during sleep, and that by forcing it to higher frequencies during sleep this could be solved.
Installed setCPU (which required rooting) and forced phone to 1,200MHz in sleep as a trial, and the songs still were stuttering.
Anyone with a similar experience?
Prime suspect would be google_music.apk which is in beta i believe, and... well, i guess then I'm out. What do you guys think? Any idea what might be causing this?
This is my first android phone, so I'm not sure even how I'd go about submitting a bug, if that's indeed the beta version of music at fault here. Any pointers?
Ta,
Dan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That, is weird - because I am facing this with Winamp so I've switched to Google Music to play my music.
Does anyone else face something similar?

Can you do me a favor and play something you know that stutters, and then try it over a bluetooth connection.
I'm curious if this is also related to the static I get when the screen is off and output is analog outputs - digital (bluetooth) works fine.

same here with poweramp... switched to googlemusic... now i have only stutters over the phone speaker..

Same thing happen to me with google music and pandora. Thought it was the connection.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I get the same using the Music app (have WinAmp but doesn't seem to integrate with the lockscreen so don't use it) as soon as the screen goes off (either timeout or manual) you can hear the music slow down and start to stutter, tap the power button, screen comes on and music goes back to normal.
Have noticed it's not all songs, but have't looked into the differences between those that do and those that don't.

Are these locally stored songs that this is happening on? So far so good here but I have been streaming from the Google Music cloud.. I wonder if the CPU is struggling during the underclocked sleep condition with local files that are high bitrate...

Mine are local files, not tried from another source.

I've used both, streaming from Google cloud, and when songs are available offline in the music app -- still stuttering. Haven't tried any other method though.
As for trying to stream over Bluetooth, haven't got any speakers/earphones that could receive the stream at home. Going to try my luck with a local pcworld, if they let me.

I haven't had any problems with Google Music stuttering while the screen is off, but I have had it crash frequently while listening to music and multitasking. I experienced a similar problem with Rhapsody as well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1379600

Pyrotechnic said:
I get the same using the Music app (have WinAmp but doesn't seem to integrate with the lockscreen so don't use it) as soon as the screen goes off (either timeout or manual) you can hear the music slow down and start to stutter, tap the power button, screen comes on and music goes back to normal.
Have noticed it's not all songs, but have't looked into the differences between those that do and those that don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
totally true! thought my phone was a lemon at first.luckily i didnt return it.

yep having the same exact issue. on speaker its just fine. when i plug in headphones or aux to car stereo and screen goes off it stutters / skips or whatever you want to call it.
Turn the screen on and its fine. However doesnt happen to all music. This was streaming from google music for me.

I'm pretty positive you guys have same exact problem as many other people. So far no one has take my suggestion of playing those same songs that stutter, and play them over bluetooth. I bet you don't get any more stutters. I think it has to do with analog outputs vs digital. To output analog, the phone has to use the DAC (digital to analog converter). When it outputs over bluetooth, there is no conversion, and the music is in digital form and transmitted in digital form
If someone can try this I would appreciate it. And you'd be helping everyone find a common denominator in this problem.
Also be sure to star this bug on google code http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22444#c6

Can someone post an mp3 this is happening to them with? I have a ton of them and I have not seen this problem yet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[hfm] said:
Can someone post an mp3 this is happening to them with? I have a ton of them and I have not seen this problem yet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't I PM you a link the other day? I thought it was to you. I didn't click the box to save it to my sent box so I can't just look it up :[

Circling back. I recreated the problem with luxferro's 48KHz mp3. Seems whatever happens on this phone to play mp3 with the screen off cannot handle that sample rate. Any 44.1KHz mp3 works fine.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

There was another thread like this. The current workaround is to enable the Equalizer for Google Music. You don't have to actually use it (leave it on default) but this solves the problem.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I guess with the eq on its forcing the CPU to get involved even when in low power mode. Unfortunately I believe that was causing other issues with crashing. Since I don't use 48KHz mp3 I'll leave it off.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

For poweramp try settings... Audio engine.. Advanced tweets and change the audio buffer size.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Having the EQ turned on seems to work, just set it to flat and turned the 3d effect down. Guess it'll use less extra battery than using a 'keep awake' app like I was doing.

[Q] Do you have problems with Google Music/other Music apps?

There are several threads now detailing a problem with playing music, mainly reported when using the Google Music app. To be more specific here are some examples:
When playing music and then multitasking, the phone crashes and requires a battery pull and reboot.
Another is when playing music and then turning the screen off, the music is jerky and stutters.
People have reported this happening with apps other than Google Music, so it would appear that this isn't a problem with the Music app, but either the phone or ICS.
I wanted to start a poll to gauge how many people have this problem and establish whether it's everyone or not.
Here are some links to what I'm referring to:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1381413
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1380773
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1379600
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22669

Your poll is a bit flawed. My experience so far is that these crashes are a bit more random than being attributed to any specific apps right now. I've experienced the crash, but long story short, I am not convinced it was related to the exact app that I was using at the time.

Well just because you have experienced an unrelated crash it doesn't mean my poll is flawed, just that you have a separate issue
People have spoken of this happening repeatedly when trying to use Music and multitask so I think it is definitely an issue of it's own. Usually it is said that the sound/screen goes corrupt and then requires a battery pull. Are you not referring to a random reboot or something?

i have a couple of problems with PowerAmp, no problems with google music though.
1. PowerAmp can't see playlists that were created in google music
2. PowerAmp stutters when the screen goes to sleep. (does the clock speed lower when the screen goes off?)
i've read that increasing the buffer size in poweramp options fixes no. 2. I havent tried it due to no.1.
i'm just using google music at the moment.

WinAmp i found would often have slight cracks in the music (i.e. stop and start again quickly, almost like it was being disturbed/cpu high).
doubletwist is fine though, as is Music player

This is such a huge problem I can't believe more people haven't responded :S

I've had Google Music, Rhapsody, and Pandora all crash at one time or another.

str355 said:
i have a couple of problems with PowerAmp, no problems with google music though.
1. PowerAmp can't see playlists that were created in google music
2. PowerAmp stutters when the screen goes to sleep. (does the clock speed lower when the screen goes off?)
i've read that increasing the buffer size in poweramp options fixes no. 2. I havent tried it due to no.1.
i'm just using google music at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
increasing the buffer size in power amp fixes no.2
Sent from Mobile..

problem number 2 here for me. songs with high bit rates tends to trigger the stutter problem after the phone goes to sleep. tried on google music and playerpro

Google Music 4.0.1 (ICS stock) often crashes within a minute after I reboot the phone - without me actually using it.
Obviously it's trying to do something in the background on start-up and fails. Miserably.
Did not crash while I was using it so far, but I didn't run it for any lengths of time either. No problems with other apps crashing, just Music.

rayvioli said:
problem number 2 here for me. songs with high bit rates tends to trigger the stutter problem after the phone goes to sleep. tried on google music and playerpro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I notice it too, it's very annoying especially since I payed so much for this phone and a good set of headphones just for my high bit-rate music to constantly stutter; hopefully google fixes this. I seem to only notice this on the stock music player, but I prefer to use it over others due to its integration with the lockscreen and notification pulldown bar, especially considering the nice visuals it now has.

my 2 cents:
i can recreate the crash consistently by doing the following:
1. reboot the phone and connect a pair of headphones
2. stream a song (i.e., a song that's not already saved to the phone) using google music
3. use the home button to leave the google music app and return to the homescreen
4. while the song is playing, try to increase or decrease the volume of the music with the volume buttons and then almost immediately the phone reboots automatically.
i haven't been able to recreate the issue once with the headphones disconnected. also, the issue doesn't seem to occur if you connect the headphones after you start playing the music. i need to test that theory some more though.

I noticed this right away when I got my phone (launch day)
Since I constantly stream music from google music, I noticed pops and weird noises all the time. Very weird and SUPER annoying

The stock music app is not able to find my music at all. I use PowerAMP now and that works fine.

Music also crashes when not actively in use at all. When I open a lot of apps, i.e. multi-task a lot, Music often just force closes after a while.

I'm using PowerAmp now to listen to music stored in either .flac or the highest quality .mp3 files lame could produce. Some are 320kbps cbr others are vbr. In PowerAmp I set the process to the highest priority possible but left the buffer on auto.
I have never had any reboots or studering when locking the screen and I've been listening to music for over 3 hours now while doing some home work. Just to test it I put on one of my flac files and quickly locked and unlocked the screen. The phone took it like and champ with no studers at all.

No problems with music apps crashing, or needing to pull the battery. The only issue I have is with music or podcasts played through the native music player or Google Listen stopping at random intervals. Happens using wired speaker/headphones or bluetooth audio.
Frustrating, but not a dealbreaker yet.

I called Verizon for no other reason other than trying to create a record of the issue... They claimed to have not heard of this... Is there any way to let Samsung know directly? I know there is a google code ticket open, but Google hasn't "owned" the issue yet... I'd also say if you have the issue to let VZW know so they can get things in motion on their side as well.

kptkill said:
I called Verizon for no other reason other than trying to create a record of the issue... They claimed to have not heard of this... Is there any way to let Samsung know directly? I know there is a google code ticket open, but Google hasn't "owned" the issue yet... I'd also say if you have the issue to let VZW know so they can get things in motion on their side as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems they don't give a ****, unfortunately. Just have to live with it..

WinAMP - today while playing an album with the screen off paused (twice). I had to turn on the display, and hit the play button to continue. There was a bit of a lag (I got the FC screen, but when i hit wait the app returned a few seconds later)

Audio playback stopping/muting?

I'm having issues with the playback on my N5X when using headphones w/ remote. Bluetooth seems to work without issue.
The problem is, randomly, and usually within a minute of starting audio and putting the screen to sleep, audio playback will stop. Once I unlock the phone, it looks as if the OS still thinks audio is playing. If I toggle the play/pause button, I can get it to restart audio, but it does not pick up at the point where I heard the audio stop -- as if it continued playing while "muted". This occurs in at least 2 separate apps, which is why i'm thinking it's either an Android bug or possible a HW issue.
Anyone seen this?

Well I guess that answers my question...

tjkrz said:
Well I guess that answers my question...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had a problem playing audio using Podcast Addict over bluetooth, but it's not similar to what you're describing. In my case, playback just pauses randomly for a second or two, then continues. This can happen after 1 minute of playback, or 20 minutes. I'm assuming at this point that my problem is with the app, android 6.0 is still very new and some apps may have problems (like camera apps flipping everything upside-down).

Exactly the same issues with my Nexus 5X... Deezer and Podcast Addict. Music starts but as soon as the display is turned off, approx. one minute later the sound stopps but when I turn the phone on again the player looks like still playing... Very annoying... Have you changed someting like the "lock when power button is pushed" option ore anything which is connected to the display?

Same here with Spotify... I find that I have to unplug and replug the headphones, hit pause, then play again. :/ Have you tried disabling Doze for your music player? It may have something to do with that, but I haven't experimented with it yet.

tjkrz said:
I'm having issues with the playback on my N5X when using headphones w/ remote. Bluetooth seems to work without issue.
The problem is, randomly, and usually within a minute of starting audio and putting the screen to sleep, audio playback will stop. Once I unlock the phone, it looks as if the OS still thinks audio is playing. If I toggle the play/pause button, I can get it to restart audio, but it does not pick up at the point where I heard the audio stop -- as if it continued playing while "muted". This occurs in at least 2 separate apps, which is why i'm thinking it's either an Android bug or possible a HW issue.
Anyone seen this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I Had this problem. Mine did the exact same thing as yours. I rebooted the phone and it seemed to fix the problem. I can't tell if I would have had the problem again because I sent my phone back the next day for a replacement. My WiFi was terribly slow so they are sending me a new 5X.

I'm having the same problem when I use Google Music. I don't even have to turn the screen off. Did you have any luck figuring the problem out?

jurey said:
Exactly the same issues with my Nexus 5X... Deezer and Podcast Addict. Music starts but as soon as the display is turned off, approx. one minute later the sound stopps but when I turn the phone on again the player looks like still playing... Very annoying... Have you changed someting like the "lock when power button is pushed" option ore anything which is connected to the display?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I did deselect "Power button instantly locks". I'll try putting it back to the default to see what happens. I know this has nothing to do with the "Smart Lock" state, because it happens even when I'm away from home.
Otherwise, I've found nothing that solves the issue. It's very annoying. The good thing is it probably only happens 10% of the time when I turn off the display with audio playing.

Yeah it's happening every single time I play music. Driving me crazy

Having the same problem. Seems to only happen when I'm doing something that would trigger the motion sensors. So when walking, all audio gets muted within a few seconds of me starting to walk, then stays muted. However, if I pause the audio, after 10 seconds I hear a pop (like the sound of a speaker turning off or something similar) and audio is available again. Exact same thing happens when I'm biking. If I'm stopped, music will continue until I start biking again, pause music, ten seconds later pop, resume. Everything is fine until I stop again, then repeat.
This isn't a problem when I take the subway, or a bus.
It's not just music that's muted though, all notification noises and alarms are also muted. The phone thinks the volumes are all where they're set, but won't play anything either over headphones, bluetooth or the speaker.
A reboot has not fixed my issue. System logs haven't revealed anything. Since this doesn't seem to be a super widespread problem, I'll be RMA'ing this one and hoping it doesn't happen on my next.

I'm not the only one
I have similar issues with mine, using podcast addict and YouTube with either wired headphones or wired aux jack.
What I find weird is that I am able to continue watching the video but without sound. I am unable to reliably replicate the problem but it always happens very quickly in the car using the wird aux input.
Sometimes the headphones will be fine for a long time while I'm sitting still and other times it will seem to stop even if I have no motion happening or have not touch the headphones.
Would be interested in trouble shooting this please advise.

Putting my phone away without turning off the screen seems to make this happen less. However, since this doesn't seem to be a super widespread problem, I've RMA'd my device. Not interested in starting out with a broken handset.

Been happening to me too - think since the MDB08L update. I just turned off Google Now 'Always On' and my podcast is playing fine (so far, lol). Not ideal because I do use OK Google, but continuous audio playback is way more important to me. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon. How can we report issues like this to Google?

Interesting. I use Nova Launcher and switched off Google Now 'Always On' in the phone settings, but left it enabled in Nova Settings 'Gestures and Inputs'. I can still say 'OK Google' on any screen and so far the audio is playing without stopping every minute or so.

Getting this too. Was out running earlier with headphones in, stopped playing randomly five or six times but found skipping track made it work again. At home, had it on loud speaker, got 5 seconds in but it froze, skipped track and got 3 seconds, skipped again and just got 1 second. Gave up after that..
But it works fine when connected to a bluetooth speaker or my car!

scgf said:
Interesting. I use Nova Launcher and switched off Google Now 'Always On' in the phone settings, but left it enabled in Nova Settings 'Gestures and Inputs'. I can still say 'OK Google' on any screen and so far the audio is playing without stopping every minute or so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this - switched off the "Always On" option. Went for a 40 min run tonight with music on through headphones and it didn't stop playing once.
Even now, got the phone playing through loudspeaker and it's having no problems!

Exact same issue here .
Audio playback stops but device still thinks its playing ie speaker icon on top bar. Sometimes stopping app and restarting helps other times no joy. I have also heard the short pop sound when it stops.
So far has happened in Youtube, google music and in some games. Also intermittent loss of text alert tones too.
Only sure fire way to reset is to restart phone.
I shall give the switching google now always on off trick see if this helps and report back (never use it anyway but still it shouldn't prevent audio)

Try a reboot
droidXish said:
I have similar issues with mine, using podcast addict and YouTube with either wired headphones or wired aux jack.
What I find weird is that I am able to continue watching the video but without sound. I am unable to reliably replicate the problem but it always happens very quickly in the car using the wird aux input.
Sometimes the headphones will be fine for a long time while I'm sitting still and other times it will seem to stop even if I have no motion happening or have not touch the headphones.
Would be interested in trouble shooting this please advise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did more searching online and found enough other people are having a similar to think that there's something going on with the software. One post on a nexus 5 X subreddit had talked to Google support and went through a process of a safe mode boot as well as a reboot. I have not tried a safe mode boot but a reboot has resulted in the best playback experience I have had since owning this phone. No interruptions in audio for the last several hours . I'm on Verizon and have not received any updates as far as I'm aware. I am hoping that this will last.

My phone updated yesterday... I'm not sure but I haven't run into this problem yet with the new update. It has only happen 3-4 times before the update but we'll see

Tank87 said:
My phone updated yesterday... I'm not sure but I haven't run into this problem yet with the new update. It has only happen 3-4 times before the update but we'll see
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After updating yesterday, I had it occur again this morning with video playback and the audio muting. So wouldn't be too hopeful, sadly...

Music randomly skips songs

While listening to music on my op3, it randomly skips ahead songs, even in the middle. Usually it skips about 1-3 songs. This happening to anybody else?
I mostly use rocket player and sometimes google play music, happens in both.

Now that you mention it I think I have the same issue. I thought I had just a few bad downloaded mp3s. I will have to keep an eye now. FWIW...I am using rooted 3.2.2 stock and have viper4android installed.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using XDA-Developers mobile app

I have that happen every once in a while in Google Play Music when I'm streaming music, I've chalked it up to the app/service vs. the phone since it's happened across various ROMs I've flashed. Not familiar with Rocket, so I can't weigh in on that.

Probably unrelated to your situation, but when I had this happen recently it was because I had the forward/back gestures turned on in the settings, and I was unknowningly drawing the gestures ( < and > )on the display when the screen was off, causing the skipping.

dcdruck1117 said:
Probably unrelated to your situation, but when I had this happen recently it was because I had the forward/back gestures turned on in the settings, and I was unknowningly drawing the gestures ( < and > )on the display when the screen was off, causing the skipping.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea I had that on for a day and took it off because of that issue. Just double checked and it was still off.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Song skipping
I have the same problem with song skipping and am currently using Pi music player but songs still skip using Google play music player. I have a one plus 3t which I purchased last month and am wondering what is the best fix for this problem? I have heard that it may be something to do with the Kernel so am wondering when will one plus release a fix for this?

Are you using an adblocker?

Song skipping
No I'm not using an add blocker

Jagjoht said:
No I'm not using an add blocker
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It happens when I use adblocker (for me).

HELP: A few issues with my Galaxy Watch

I was having issues with my Bluetooth headset not automatically activating with my watch when turned on, so unpaired an repaired it. Now, whenever I hang up on a call on my phone (not even using the watch) my watch starts playing music from the spotify app. This only happens if the spotify is set to "stream over wifi". Another fix is to quit the spotify app and turn on then off power saving mode. However if the spotify app is used again the issue comes back. It was fine until I did the Bluetooth repairing. I have uninstalled/reinstalled/ unpaired/repaired etc and this issue won't go away.
I use the running app on the phone. Shortly after I start running a graphic shows on the screen telling me to wear the watch on the outside of my wrist for the HR monitor. I am already doing this and always having to quit the notification which is annoying. It didn't do this when I first got the watch so I am wondering if an update has introduced it.
When playing music while I run (I now use music stored on the watch due to the spotify issue), sometimes it won't continue on with my playlist. It tends to stop after one song so I have to press play. I doesn't always do this. Even worse sometimes it will only play one song which I then have to keep hitting play to repeat. As I'm recording my run I can't exit the app to restart the music from the music app.
I use the voice memo app on the watch which syncs memos with the phone. For some reason when it syncs a memo it plays the notification sound on the phone about 20-30 times, so quickly some of them play over each other. It's like you've just received 20 odd messages all at once and is ridiculous.
While I like the watch overall I wish these issues could be fixed. Does anyone have any suggestions for any fixes?