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Help Music streaming apps won't run in the background

rewd

Newbie
Feb 13, 2011
40
2
I've recently switched from an Atrix 4G on AT&T to a Droid 3 on Verizon. After a few weeks of use I noticed I can not run any of my most used music streaming apps in the background. This includes SiriusXM, Slacker Radio and Pandora. If I have these apps running and I switch to write a text message or use another app after a few minutes the music app will close unless I bring it back to the front screen every couple of seconds.

This never happened on my Atrix and is extremely annoying. Has anyone else seen this sort of problem?
 
I don't use any of the music 'streaming' apps like Pandora, but I know that the music players I use have settings which affect whether or not the music keeps playing when you switch to doing something else with the phone. So if there are settings in apps like Pandora, perhaps digging around in them might find you an answer.

I'm looking for some information on whether Pandora is much of a battery hog. My sister just got a Droid 3 and is wondering about this. She feels her battery isn't holding up very well during the day.
 
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I'm in the same boat as Zoandroid in terms of not streaming, but I know that PowerAmp has settings for pausing for notifications and resuming or just stopping period. There may be something you could change so it only pauses. As for them dying in the backgroud, it seems like the phone isn't recognizing it as something that can't be killed to conserve memory. Do you have an autokiller enabled? The stock task manager has one I believe.
 
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I'm in the same boat as Zoandroid in terms of not streaming, but I know that PowerAmp has settings for pausing for notifications and resuming or just stopping period. There may be something you could change so it only pauses. As for them dying in the backgroud, it seems like the phone isn't recognizing it as something that can't be killed to conserve memory. Do you have an autokiller enabled? The stock task manager has one I believe.

I have read many times over the past 18 months that task killers and Android OS don't play well together. If you are using one, I would look there first.
 
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So, go into those apps' settings and disable audio notifications.

It may depend upon the notification tone you use, but the short one I use for reminder alarms seems not to interfere too much with the music I play on PowerAmp. But if you use rather lengthy or musical ringtones for things, I suppose it can't play 2 'tunes' at the same time. :)
 
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That's the exact problem I had with those music streaming apps. I'd suggest audiogalaxy or subsonic along with an extensive music library. It basically allows you to access all your music over 3g or wifi as long as you have your home computer on. I know it's not convenient for some people but it's great for me because I have a lot of music and it'd be impossible for me to have all of it on my phones memory/sd.
 
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That's the exact problem I had with those music streaming apps. I'd suggest audiogalaxy or subsonic along with an extensive music library. It basically allows you to access all your music over 3g or wifi as long as you have your home computer on. I know it's not convenient for some people but it's great for me because I have a lot of music and it'd be impossible for me to have all of it on my phones memory/sd.

That's still streaming, right?

There is also Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive if you want access to your music over 3G or WiFi.
 
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Guys, this has absolutely nothing to do with notifications. I am talking about having a music streaming app (particularly SiriusXM and Pandora) running in the background while I switch apps to do something else. This could be as simple as going to write a text... as soon as I do this the background streaming app closes all on it's own. This never used to happen on my Atrix. It's a problem if I'm listening to a particular program on Sirius or w/e and I want to write a message or an email. Sometimes the background app doesn't cut out right away... if I finish writing a text and the background app hasn't cut out I must always bring it back to the front or it will eventually cut out at some point.

I do not use an advanced task killer programs and I have nothing on the "auto-end" list on the task manager. Is there some other setting I should try?

Again, this behavior never happened on my Moto Atrix that also had GB so I an puzzled as to why this happening in my D3.
 
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I've got some good and bad news. The good news is my sister can listen to Pandora streaming by wifi to her Droid 3 while she is typing me an email on the D3, and it doesn't cut out at all. The bad news then is that it appears your problem has something to do with your individual phone, your settings, your apps, etc. Sorry I can't be more help. But unless your phone is actually defective, you should be able to nail down the issue with a bit of sleuthing.

If you are rooted, you could make a nandroid and Titanium Backup of all your apps, then start with a 'fresh build' of no apps and work forward adding things one by one to try to see where the problem begins.

You are streaming on wifi, right?

My sister and I are both new to streaming media, but she is wondering if your issue could have any bearing on how much or how little free internal memory your phone has? Do you have a lot of files and apps stored internally? Maybe there isn't enough memory available to properly buffer the incoming stream of music? Just a thought.
 
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Thanks for the help, Zoandroidhttp://androidforums.com/members/zoandroid.html. I am starting to think you are right--this is something going on with my individual phone. No amount of Google searching is bringing up any results except for one guy who says that Gingerbread has a crazy memory management system.

All I can think of is my phone is running low on memory and when these apps go in the background it eventually shuts them down. I notice that right after a restart I can have Sirius or Pandora running in the background for a long time before it shuts down as opposied to prolonged use after having run a bunch of apps pandora will cut out really quickly.

I also have a bunch of widgets running on my various home screens which are eating up memory I assume. I'm guessing since my Atrix had 1gb of RAM would also explain why I never had this problem on that phone.
 
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You're most welcome. :)

One thing you could try, to verify your suspicions, would be to make a nandroid backup (so you can easily flash it back to where you are now), and then try running the phone with just the streaming apps installed, and see if it stays smooth. If it does, then start adding in your other widgets and apps one by one until you start to see the problem recur. That may tell you what is actually causing the problem. I don't use lots of widgets, but since they are mini apps, I would think the more you run they would also count against the ability for the phone's processor to keep up during media streaming.
 
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For pandora...I have an lg stylo pandora would stop as soon i was going to type a message, started using another app even when my phone rung i went to my phone settings nothing worked until i went on pandora where u choose what station ur going to listen to on the top it hasa tap that says setting i clicked went to advanced and turned off battery saver on pandora app now it runns perfectly on my phone while typing or using other apps even when i get a notification my phone will ring then pick up right where it left of i hope this helps anybody i know not being able to use my pandora in the background was killing me
 
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I recently encountered the same problem, this is my simple work around: Amazon Music should display in the pull down menu at the top of the Android OS (opened with a downward swipe). Simply press play and voilai, your music will resume. This issue is definitely phone / OS specific. I upgraded from a Motorola E4 to an E4 Plus and encountered this problem for the first time. I'm not going to speculate as to the cause. Oh I have theories, but if any of them were that good, I would have a solution. Best of luck!
 
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