Root [Sprint] Default Music Player Causes Music Skips

[bennywhite]

I began having problems about a week ago with the installed default Music Player on my HTC One with Sprint service. I think this followed an OS upgrade but it may have just been an Airdroid upgrade.

The problem was music would start skipping a few seconds of recording and then skip all the way to the end of the song then all the way to the end of the album or playlist. Lost control of the Pause, Home, etc. while this was going on. Initially this was with earpiece plugged in and when I would pull the earpiece out, I regained control of Pause, or at least I thought I did. The music and searching would stop for a few minutes then it would begin again even though I had not selected Play.

After a hard reset, setup from default (no backup of course), and many attempts to use HTC Sync Manager I discovered that there were several different Music folders in Internal Storage, visible from Windows 7 Explorer.

The first thing I should have done was to go into iTunes where all of my music was stored and sort things out to make sure I had playlists for everything and the file locations were known for all of the songs. I did not do that. I called Tech Support and we deleted all the songs from HTC Sync Manager, without deleting them from iTunes, uninstalled and reinstalled HTC Sync Manager and tried to run sync again without straightening out the iTunes structure. At some point Apple changed the iTunes default from Music/iTunes/Music to Music/iTunesMedia/Music. When I found that the old /Music folder was empty and located the /iTunesMedia folder I was on the way to recovery. Sorted all of the files out in iTunes, generated playlists for everything, uninstalled and reinstalled SyncManager again but it was still screwed up because HTC Sync Manger defaults to import from both iTunes and Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player had a bunch of garbage in it that kept being imported. Unchecked that box under Music/Settings.

Many, many attempts later to get HTC Sync Manager to sync the HTC One, I gave up and simply created one Music folder in the HTC Internal Storate and copied and pasted the iTunes/iTunesMedia/Music folders into the /Music folder on the phone.

Then, of course, there were no Playlists. I generated Playlists within the Music app on the phone and then everything worked the way it was supposed to.

At some point about half way through this ordeal I installed poweramp music player. It works much better than the default Music app, or the Google Music app.

If you have this same problem and your music is stored in iTunes, start by making sure everything in your iTunes directory and the files within iTunes is straightened out. Then you can use Windows Explorer to copy and past, generate Playlists in your music player and you should be fine.

 

[bennywhite]

This problem may not have had anything to do with the file structure or the music player.

This morning I thought I had narrowed it down to an emi (electromagnetic interference) problem. My walks take me along a series of very high voltage electrical power distribution lines. When I am under these lines this problem reappears and is almost continual when I am under the lines. However, when I move away from the lines the music player continues in continual search mode.

I called HTC tech support and they told me that the problem is that the music files are not in MP3 format. I think that is bogus nonsense because there is no documentation that I can find that the HTC One music players required MP3 format. On the contrary there is quite a bit of documentation on the various music players and HTC Sync Manager itself that indicates that the music players will look for any current music format and play that. However, in order to resolve this issue I will reformat my music to MP3 and see if that solves the problem. I am doubtful.

 

[bennywhite]

I have now deleted all of the music files from the phone, converted all of the music files on my computer to MP3 format and then transferred them to the HTC One.

Same problem. Now HTC tech support tells me that I have to flush the cache. We did that. I will try again in the morning. The phone works fine in a stable environment such as on my desk. The problem only occurs when I am outside in a varying electronic environment. I still think there is an EMI problem but so far HTC does not want to go down that path.

 

[bennywhite]

It has taken me a week to resolve this issue. Tried resolving some issues with the file structure on the phone, where the music files are stored on both the phone and in iTunes, trying working with HTC Sync Manager, uninstalled and reinstalled it, could not get it to work correctly, converted all of the files to MP3 format and finally flushed the cache. Nothing resolved the problem. This morning I changed earphones from an iPod earphone I had been using to the HTC earphone that came in the box with the HTC phone. Works as advertised.

The iPod earphone jack and the HTC earphone jack appear almost identical. However, the HTC earphone jack is about 1 mm longer than the iPod jack. Thus, it appears to me that that minor difference in earphone jack may be the problem or there is a possibility that the iPod earphone wires are not shielded and the HTC earphone wires are but I strongly suspect that it is that 1 mm of jack length difference that made the iPod phone not quite making sufficient contact and that was causing a spurious input to the music player.