music - stuttery playback

[partridge]

I use MP3's imported to 320kb quality. Lately my Desire is stuttering during playback, the song will stop for anything from a fraction of a second to 2-3 seconds, then carry on.

I've reformatted my card and put everything back on but it still does it.

Has anyone else encountered this? I'm sure it didn't do it originally, but lately it's happening a lot.

I've read about the headphone socket occassional problem, but this stuttering occurs even if I use the phone speaker.

Do I need a faster card if my MP3's are at this quality? I'd be surprised, because most MP3 songs available to buy are now offered at this quality.

 

[kalfou]

You know what mate, im having the exact same problem, i have noticed for the last two days the music is stopping for miliseconds to seconds... I thought it was just mixzing app playing up...

 

[japester]

Mine was also doing the same thing - Currently the phone is with HTC but I did do a factory reset before i sent it back and that seemed to sort it - I know its a bit drastic, but it deffo points to a software issue rather than hardware.

 

[partridge]

I'll give that a go and see what happens. Sigh, it's annoying though, we really shouldn't have to do things like this just to keep a device working properly!

Also - interesting that it's not just the HTC music app that suffers this, it's clearly not a player problem

 

[skittc]

I have the same problem. It didnt seem to do it originally then i noticed it using the stock music player. So i downloaded a few different players from the market (cubed/mixzing/btunes etc) and tried them but still had the same problem. Then i noticed while trying to browse the internet one day while playing music at the same time that it really affected the playback. I then checked the phone whilst playing music on other days and it seems that the skipping of the music is due to the phones internet connection being used at that time. Its annoying but if you turn off the APN then it should ensure uninterrupted playback.

 

[partridge]

So it's possibly not multitasking very well?

A couple of other things that I thought might account for it are charging; the battery gets hot and I know that can affect the camera so I wondered if it affected music playback too? Then I tried turning off the network connection to see if that would help. Nether was conclusive.

II'l try a reset tonight and see if that helps. This is the first real grumble I've had with the phone

 

[jimlad]

what memory cards you chaps got? try a high class card.

 

[partridge]

I wondered about that, but it shouldn't matter, should it? I understand that the problem might be getting the MP3 data off the card in order to playback smoothly, but surely something as straightforward as playing a song shouldn't require a class 4 or above SD card?
I'd rather not spend money on a new card if that's not the problem. I'd be irritated if it is because HTC should be putting high speed cards in the phone themselves in that case.
I know a lot of people will rip music at the default quality of 160kb or whatever it is, but HTC can't assume that's the case and if you buy an MP3 it will almost certainly be 256 or 320 these days.

 

[Deleted User]

I'd rather not spend money on a new card if that's not the problem.

I'm using the 8GB Samsung card that came with the phone and it works fine. 100% of my MP3 songs are 320bps and no stuttering at all. I think it's either a software conflict or the memory card is not up to the task. Although if you can record and playback video ok, then music should not be a problem.

Have you tried a factory reset and then immediately check playback to see if it works ok then? If so, then it's a software issue.

 

[jay_kay]

I get this issue but only when the phone is doing some serious multitasking. Normally when i am listening to music, looking on the net and downloaded something. Notice it stops after the DL has finished.

Gonna be getting a class 6 card in a few days so will let you know if that sorts it

 

[williamj1]

My advice would be to get ideally a class 6 micro sd for speed, but if budget is an issue class 4 will probably do.

Also, it may be caused by the phone doing other things using sd card files. For example if i'm using copilot, my music stops for a second when I hit a button in the app. So check there aren't any apps like this in the background.

 

[Cougar]

As a test, copy an MP3 to the internal memory and see if it still does it?

 

[riki1kenobi]

Are you using the stock music player or something that has been downloaded from the market/other? Also, is the music stuttering on stuff that has been downloaded?

I had an issue like this before when I copied some files that I had downloaded over on a different device and the reason for it was to do with DRM that was deeply embedded into the file. All my music that had been ripped from a CD played perfectly!

 

[kevingaywood]

Hi All, yeah had this same problem, mentioned it a couple weeks ago:

http://androidforums.com/desire-support-troubleshooting/189177-stuttering-sound.html

Someone suggested clearing the caches out, at the time it seemed to work, but then a few days later it came back again and didn't go with a cache clearing session.

i bought a samsung 8gb class 6 card, and i havent heard a skip.

I don't listen to much music on it, so i cant tell you that it HAS fixed the problem, but only that i havent noticed it since. And now come to think of it, it definitely did coincide with me using the phone at the same time as it was skipping, so i agree with what was said earlier, that it might be caused by not multi tasking too well, or maybe using the internet connection etc.

Anyway, i'll report back if i get any stuttering with this new card etc.

 

[partridge]

Hi, thanks for all the tips.

My MP3's are all on an 8Gb class 2 card - I will move one over and see what happens

My phone isn't running any other apps while playinig music - although not that long ago I was using google satnav AND playing music and it was fine.

All a bit odd, I think today I will move a song to the phone, then try a factory reset.

The rest only affects the phone, not the SD card, yeah? All my contacts are in the google cloud so I don't think I need to back up anything, it's all retrievable.

 

[kevingaywood]

just had a couple of stutters while listening, so can confirm its nothing to do with the sd card.

so it's now a multi-tasking issue

or

the internet connection thing

???????????

 

[kevingaywood]

Ok, just enabled airplane mode. then starting messing with the phone, within a few seconds i had a stutter.

carried on messing, nothing. gave up, then pressed the on/off button on the top of the phone to go into sleep, a second later i had a stutter.

So basically it's still stuttering with NO active internet connections.

So it looks like its a Multi-Tasking issue, or maybe something running in the background is interfering with the music player maybe? (I've already removed Taskiller by the way, so thats not the culprit)

i'm getting closer...

 

[partridge]

I've reset my phone and, as detailed in another thread, I'm going to try and keep the phone "clean" by not reinstalling all the apps I had before. There are actually only a small number of essential ones and I'm going to stick with them.

I won't really be able to test the music properly until later, but it'll be interesting to see if giving the phone a clean up has helped.

 

[kevingaywood]

I've reset my phone and, as detailed in another thread, I'm going to try and keep the phone "clean" by not reinstalling all the apps I had before. There are actually only a small number of essential ones and I'm going to stick with them.

I won't really be able to test the music properly until later, but it'll be interesting to see if giving the phone a clean up has helped.

i'd be interested to know this as well. keep us updated

 

[partridge]

Well, so far, 3G has been on all the time and my battery hasn't suffered too much! My phone does seem a little bare, but I'll put some other apps on later, but again only ones that I used regularly, nothing else!

Peeps is fine for reading updates from the people I follow and Gmail and email are working just fine - I set up a peak and off peak update for my email account.

The HTC weather clock app seems to be working supremely well, finding and updating very quickly!

That's all for now, I'll be playing music during the drive home so fingers crossed that goes smoothly, if it does then my reset would appear to have done wonders! If...

 

[kevingaywood]

Well, so far, 3G has been on all the time and my battery hasn't suffered too much! My phone does seem a little bare, but I'll put some other apps on later, but again only ones that I used regularly, nothing else!

Peeps is fine for reading updates from the people I follow and Gmail and email are working just fine - I set up a peak and off peak update for my email account.

The HTC weather clock app seems to be working supremely well, finding and updating very quickly!

That's all for now, I'll be playing music during the drive home so fingers crossed that goes smoothly, if it does then my reset would appear to have done wonders! If...

Great, also try "taxing" your phone, starting loads of apps, one after another, and then using the internet email client, sms etc etc. if it fails to skip then it sort of rules out multi-tasking issues.

 

[partridge]

Just got home having listened to stutter free music the whole way! It worked, I've added three more apps but that's it. I'm not messing with the phone now

Should it ever develop a fault, I'll know what to do though

 

[robogo]

I had that problem with both my Android phones (Hero 2.1 and Desire 2.2). It went away by itself. 8 GB SD/HC.

Still confused.

 

[Euphobia]

I had slight stuttering as well when I had played some music on the micro SD card that came with a phone, which is just a class 2. Bought a class 6 16GB one and not had any stutter, even if I'm using my phone for other stuff.

 

[beyond]

i have this problem too and i think i've only noticed it since getting the official tmobile froyo update on my non rooted desire.

a little bug in froyo?