The music will intermittently get choppy during playback, pretty agitating to say the least. I've used two different players (native player and PowerAMP), and the problem is identical with both. I've also done a hard reset on the phone, still have the problem. I've thought about tinkering with some settings, but figured I'd come ask if anyone else had this problem, and if so, have you found a way to fix it? I'm using stock gingerbread and GoLauncher EX.
Choppy music playback
- Thread starter Setesh
- Start date
That is pretty disappointing, especially considering one of the perks of having a smartphone is not needing to carry another device to play music.
Yep, it has something to do with the Kernel not able to handle multitasking correctly, which is why you will get the music skipping the most like when background data is active.
Sent from my stock Atrix 2.3.4 using Tapa
Sent from my stock Atrix 2.3.4 using Tapa
Last edited:
gvndeb60
Well-known member
I am on CM7 now so I can't tell you exactly what it is called, but when I was stock the skipping was horrible when I enabled the settings like bass boost etc. I believe it was under general settings, not the individual apps them selves. I can say problem is not present in CM7, but that has a different kernel.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Setesh, you will get that problem in any device that is trying to multitask without enough resources.
It could be you are trying to run too many applications at once and the CPU cannot deal with them all. And since Android does a lot of things invisibly in the background (synchs, checks email, looks for wifi servers, uses gps) most users would have no idea where to start looking.
And it could be a bad application. There's a lot of crap on the Android Market, including apps that will crash the phone or hog the resources. Google could be a little more vigilant about "cleanup in aisle seven" and getting rid of the junk.
TURN OFF STUFF. Turn off enough stuff and it wtill stop skipping.
If the phone is not trying to do too many things at once, it could still skip if it was trying to access multiple files at the same time, on the internal sd card (which is not a card at all, but a permanently installed chip) or on an sdhc micro card that you added--especially if you added slow memory like speed "2". In theory the phone can use something like speed 6 or 8, in reality prices for 6 and 10 are about the same, buy fast memory from a reputable vendor.
You can beat the skipping, but you will have to become the master of the phone. Doesn't matter what phone, what brand, what OS, they all can have similar problems.
It could be you are trying to run too many applications at once and the CPU cannot deal with them all. And since Android does a lot of things invisibly in the background (synchs, checks email, looks for wifi servers, uses gps) most users would have no idea where to start looking.
And it could be a bad application. There's a lot of crap on the Android Market, including apps that will crash the phone or hog the resources. Google could be a little more vigilant about "cleanup in aisle seven" and getting rid of the junk.
TURN OFF STUFF. Turn off enough stuff and it wtill stop skipping.
If the phone is not trying to do too many things at once, it could still skip if it was trying to access multiple files at the same time, on the internal sd card (which is not a card at all, but a permanently installed chip) or on an sdhc micro card that you added--especially if you added slow memory like speed "2". In theory the phone can use something like speed 6 or 8, in reality prices for 6 and 10 are about the same, buy fast memory from a reputable vendor.
You can beat the skipping, but you will have to become the master of the phone. Doesn't matter what phone, what brand, what OS, they all can have similar problems.
I find that i get skipping with some players and not others.
Rred, would you suggest a "task manager" or something of that nature or how would one go about "becoming a master of the phone"? i like to tinker but not sure where to start with this one...
Thanks.
Rred, would you suggest a "task manager" or something of that nature or how would one go about "becoming a master of the phone"? i like to tinker but not sure where to start with this one...
Thanks.
A task manager might help, but really? As an old fossil I think they only way to use these damned things is to do it manually. Turn everything off, uninstall anything that won't let you turn it off manually. Then you just have to keep track of what is and isn't running.
Gingerbreak's new task manager is a PITA to me. I get nag notices "PowerAmp has been running for 45 minutes, should I kill it?" well DUH that's because it has been playing music...why should the task manager be bothering me about this? Why can't I say "ignore this app forever" ?
So I'd rather no task manager, that's just one more program running to worry about.<G>
By the way, EVERY music player for Android, except PowerAmp (the author made a fix after several of us requested it), is brain dead. None of them allow for what Apple calls "Continuous play", which they gave the ipods about 7 years ago. All the Android players insert a pause between song tracks--even when you don't want a pause to be inserted. And there's a lot of music that has been remastered very poorly onto CD. Beatles, Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, Simon & Garfunkel...there are many albums where there should be NO PAUSE BETWEEN TRACKS but when when the CDs were remastered, breaks were added in the wrong places (i.e. two or three seconds into a song instead of in the applause between two songs) and when you hear these bad breaks--it sounds like a record skipping, like a music player skipping, but that's just the cheap b*stards in the music industry not doing a good job.
In PowerAmp, there's an option in some submenu that allows you to play without inserting pauses, makes things much better. AFAIK he's the only guy who has had the good sense to put that option on an Android music player. Even the morons at MS haven't put that feature in Windows Media Player yet, they all RUIN THE MUSIC by adding breaks for no reason.
Gingerbreak's new task manager is a PITA to me. I get nag notices "PowerAmp has been running for 45 minutes, should I kill it?" well DUH that's because it has been playing music...why should the task manager be bothering me about this? Why can't I say "ignore this app forever" ?
So I'd rather no task manager, that's just one more program running to worry about.<G>
By the way, EVERY music player for Android, except PowerAmp (the author made a fix after several of us requested it), is brain dead. None of them allow for what Apple calls "Continuous play", which they gave the ipods about 7 years ago. All the Android players insert a pause between song tracks--even when you don't want a pause to be inserted. And there's a lot of music that has been remastered very poorly onto CD. Beatles, Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, Simon & Garfunkel...there are many albums where there should be NO PAUSE BETWEEN TRACKS but when when the CDs were remastered, breaks were added in the wrong places (i.e. two or three seconds into a song instead of in the applause between two songs) and when you hear these bad breaks--it sounds like a record skipping, like a music player skipping, but that's just the cheap b*stards in the music industry not doing a good job.
In PowerAmp, there's an option in some submenu that allows you to play without inserting pauses, makes things much better. AFAIK he's the only guy who has had the good sense to put that option on an Android music player. Even the morons at MS haven't put that feature in Windows Media Player yet, they all RUIN THE MUSIC by adding breaks for no reason.
I wish this was a resource issue, but this is something with the kernel as Rob has already said. There is a thread over 15 pages on the Motorola forums of people who report this issue, including me. I guess it's just a waiting game before Motorola does something about it
Can the phone play music without interruption, under certain circumstances?
Yes.
Do other computers (the Atrix is a computer, not a phone) with other OSes, other kernels, and other hardware and software have similar issues, i.e. with music playback being interrupted?
Yes.
Do they all suffer from the same problem, i.e. a multi-tasking OS is unable to continue streaming music when it gets too busy?
Yes.
As Chairman Mao said, "Black cat, white cat, all same, Catch mice."
Doesn't matter if you use the Ynglitch word "resource" or the programmer's jargon "resource" which has different meanings. The problem is the same in all cases. The computer, as a system, cannot juggle that many balls in the air at once.
Can Motorola speed up the kernel code or the cpu to improve that? No doubt, there's always room for improvement. But since many or most of the phones work without skipping--the odds are that simple user task management can solve the problem for many people.
Even a Windows (Vista, 7, XP) laptop running a dual core CPU can and will skip when WMP is playing music. That's a lot more CPU than a smartphone, but it is also arguably running more tasks. Still, the same problem applies. Use faster memory, run fewer tasks, don't max out the system. That's not ideal, that's just how it can best be solved here now in the real world.
I can't fix the music problem on my Atrix and Moto never will be able to: the 32GB micro card is simply too small to hold my whole music library. I'm going to have to get an iPod, unless the Atrix2 supports something like sdxc(?) for a 64GB card.<G>
Yes.
Do other computers (the Atrix is a computer, not a phone) with other OSes, other kernels, and other hardware and software have similar issues, i.e. with music playback being interrupted?
Yes.
Do they all suffer from the same problem, i.e. a multi-tasking OS is unable to continue streaming music when it gets too busy?
Yes.
As Chairman Mao said, "Black cat, white cat, all same, Catch mice."
Doesn't matter if you use the Ynglitch word "resource" or the programmer's jargon "resource" which has different meanings. The problem is the same in all cases. The computer, as a system, cannot juggle that many balls in the air at once.
Can Motorola speed up the kernel code or the cpu to improve that? No doubt, there's always room for improvement. But since many or most of the phones work without skipping--the odds are that simple user task management can solve the problem for many people.
Even a Windows (Vista, 7, XP) laptop running a dual core CPU can and will skip when WMP is playing music. That's a lot more CPU than a smartphone, but it is also arguably running more tasks. Still, the same problem applies. Use faster memory, run fewer tasks, don't max out the system. That's not ideal, that's just how it can best be solved here now in the real world.
I can't fix the music problem on my Atrix and Moto never will be able to: the 32GB micro card is simply too small to hold my whole music library. I'm going to have to get an iPod, unless the Atrix2 supports something like sdxc(?) for a 64GB card.<G>
Red I understand the concept you are trying to push, but the fact remains that this is an issue that has cropped up since the GB update. Blame it on memory allocation you want but I was able to listen to music on the stock player without any hindrances pre update, and now using any player post update after extended use always causes the issue. Even on a cold boot where there is practically nothing running I can replicate the issue. so am I expected to void my warranty to start freezing processes by rooting or running a different ROM? This is simply put a bug and the ball is in Motorola's court to address it or ignore it. If a dual core phone cannot play music while in standby without skipping I think Motorola has serious issues with their QA testing.
I'm not in love with the GingerBroke upgrade either, but it didn't break my music. Since we're using the same phone, same OS level, same music player...
You tell me what else is different and why mine ain't broke yet. If it was a "GB doesn't work on Atrix" issue mine would be broken too. Obviously there's more involved, even if it took GB to break yours.
You tell me what else is different and why mine ain't broke yet. If it was a "GB doesn't work on Atrix" issue mine would be broken too. Obviously there's more involved, even if it took GB to break yours.
The issue doesn't affect all players. Another thing to conciser here is what kind of apps you have installed on your phone as it tends to vary by user. Is not a simple as saying yous is broken why mine is not.
Sent from my TapadaAtrix
Rob, I totally agree with the first half of what you said, which is why I noted that I am in fact using the same two players (Music and PowerAmp) that are being used on the problem phone. Yes, the players make a difference and in this case, they are the same players so the players by themselves are not the issue.
As to other applications making a difference, yes, I said that too. The entire bundle of "what's running on my phone?" is going to impact the operation of the phone. Android is kinda notorious, in all versions on all phones, for just going out to lunch and freezing up while it is busy running background tasks. Doesn't matter whose phone you have, if you do enough stuff with it, load enough software, sooner or later you do something simple like try to dial a phone number, and the phone just pretends it is a rock, sometimes for 30 seconds or longer.
This is all very much the same as the problems with every computer OS out there, including all the Mac, Windows, and other *Nix versions. Take a device with a slow processor, dump a lot of tasks on it, and yes some random mixes of it will overcome the device. I know, the Atrix has a "fast" dual-core cpu but it is still chump change compared to what you can dump on it in the way of tasks.
Bottom line is that phones with identical hardware, identical OS, indentical music players, are behaving differently. And that points to the application loads on them as being the problem, as much or more so than just saying the hardware or the code itself is defective.
Remember, Motorola and Google each performed *some* testing on the devices. But all the apps from the Android Market? Are basically untested. Someone writes it, throws it out to the mob, and if no one screams in pain, it goes up on the Market. There's a lot of bad code out everywhere--especially on the Android market, where there really is no quality control until users scream.
I'm just saying, look at the pieces. The applications are the most likely to be written badly. And damn near no one really knows what apps are active on their phone, at any given time. Background refresh? Synch? Sorting? Something turned on a radio? Every time someone says "Gee, my battery is getting chewed up" "Wow, how'd I use four gig of data roaming?" that's someone who doesn't know what their phone is doing in the background.
Sometimes, that's me too.<G> They don't make it easy.
As to other applications making a difference, yes, I said that too. The entire bundle of "what's running on my phone?" is going to impact the operation of the phone. Android is kinda notorious, in all versions on all phones, for just going out to lunch and freezing up while it is busy running background tasks. Doesn't matter whose phone you have, if you do enough stuff with it, load enough software, sooner or later you do something simple like try to dial a phone number, and the phone just pretends it is a rock, sometimes for 30 seconds or longer.
This is all very much the same as the problems with every computer OS out there, including all the Mac, Windows, and other *Nix versions. Take a device with a slow processor, dump a lot of tasks on it, and yes some random mixes of it will overcome the device. I know, the Atrix has a "fast" dual-core cpu but it is still chump change compared to what you can dump on it in the way of tasks.
Bottom line is that phones with identical hardware, identical OS, indentical music players, are behaving differently. And that points to the application loads on them as being the problem, as much or more so than just saying the hardware or the code itself is defective.
Remember, Motorola and Google each performed *some* testing on the devices. But all the apps from the Android Market? Are basically untested. Someone writes it, throws it out to the mob, and if no one screams in pain, it goes up on the Market. There's a lot of bad code out everywhere--especially on the Android market, where there really is no quality control until users scream.
I'm just saying, look at the pieces. The applications are the most likely to be written badly. And damn near no one really knows what apps are active on their phone, at any given time. Background refresh? Synch? Sorting? Something turned on a radio? Every time someone says "Gee, my battery is getting chewed up" "Wow, how'd I use four gig of data roaming?" that's someone who doesn't know what their phone is doing in the background.
Sometimes, that's me too.<G> They don't make it easy.
I just moved to a LG G2x from a broken down iPhone 3GS and the music playback on the Android is terrible! it skips, misses beats, fouls up the groove... it's just not acceptable. I've tried the stock Android music player and the WinAmp player from the Market.. it's just as bad. The mp3 file on the internal storage, not the little card. Looking at the forums out there, I'm not alone.
It's hard to think that it's a resource issue since a concert video looks and sounds great... Don't the Android developers like music? I've removed all add-on apps to make it as vanilla-out-of-the-box as I can... it still sucks as a music player.
Is there an app, it doesn't have to be free, that cures the skipping? If not, I'm buying an iPod Classic before they stop making 'em.
Peace.
It's hard to think that it's a resource issue since a concert video looks and sounds great... Don't the Android developers like music? I've removed all add-on apps to make it as vanilla-out-of-the-box as I can... it still sucks as a music player.
Is there an app, it doesn't have to be free, that cures the skipping? If not, I'm buying an iPod Classic before they stop making 'em.
Peace.
How are you getting skipping?
For instance, if I use my Plantronics BT stereo earset, sometimes it skips and drops in/out horribly for a few seconds for no apparent reason. But that's a documented bug in that BT earset, not the phone.
And then there's the music you are listening it. Apparently MOST of the music that has been remastered onto CD has been butchered. They'll take an album like Simon & Garfunkel, or classic Airplane or Flolyd, where there ARE NO TRACK BREAKS and on the CD, some moron will insert a standard 2-second track break by throwing darts--not in the place where a human would insert the break, i.e. when there's just applause and no music being played.
These are just two kinds of really annoying skipping that are not caused by the phone. (Well, maybe the BT stack is part of the problme but other BT earsets don't have the problem with this phone.)
WimAmp can't sure the 2-second breaks, but PowerAmp has a setting buried in there somewhere that willo eliminate them and play continuously.
For instance, if I use my Plantronics BT stereo earset, sometimes it skips and drops in/out horribly for a few seconds for no apparent reason. But that's a documented bug in that BT earset, not the phone.
And then there's the music you are listening it. Apparently MOST of the music that has been remastered onto CD has been butchered. They'll take an album like Simon & Garfunkel, or classic Airplane or Flolyd, where there ARE NO TRACK BREAKS and on the CD, some moron will insert a standard 2-second track break by throwing darts--not in the place where a human would insert the break, i.e. when there's just applause and no music being played.
These are just two kinds of really annoying skipping that are not caused by the phone. (Well, maybe the BT stack is part of the problme but other BT earsets don't have the problem with this phone.)
WimAmp can't sure the 2-second breaks, but PowerAmp has a setting buried in there somewhere that willo eliminate them and play continuously.
the only times when I have slight interruptions in music on my Atrix is when I enter/exit the tunnel on the subway train. I guess it has something to do with the phone loosing/obtaining the signal. other than that, I never had any issues no matter how many programs I'm running simultaniously. Like playing any gameloft game with my music on the background with powerAmp and no issues at all. So idk about LGG2X but I have 0 problems with my Atrix. thats btw why Im not getting GSII, quite happy with my phone.
I notice and deal with it tho....I also saw that when i remove ADW ex it kinda goes away for the most part but I like the launcher so much I preffer to deal with it I use my droid incredible for music so my atrix is just for phone and internet.
I would like to see that issue adressed tho it is annoyingand this phone is so expensive and good it sux that it has such a little issue with the music playback.
I would like to see that issue adressed tho it is annoyingand this phone is so expensive and good it sux that it has such a little issue with the music playback.
I definitely had skipping and breaks but now almost none. Not sure what changed. However, on white noise apps that play sounds for sleeping, there is a gap in the loop playback which wasn't there before.
Last week a funny thing happened. I dl'd a couple of apps from the Market and...my musci started skipping afterwards!
Deleted the apps--nothing memorable just wasn't interested--and COLD REBOOTED the phone, and the skipping stopped. And hasn't been back since.
Which to me, "proves" there is something disruptable about the whole phone. Some apps just don't play nicely with the OS, on every platform. In this case the cure was either dumping the apps, or the reboot, which I'd guess also re-optimizes the way some things load in memory.
FWIW.
Deleted the apps--nothing memorable just wasn't interested--and COLD REBOOTED the phone, and the skipping stopped. And hasn't been back since.
Which to me, "proves" there is something disruptable about the whole phone. Some apps just don't play nicely with the OS, on every platform. In this case the cure was either dumping the apps, or the reboot, which I'd guess also re-optimizes the way some things load in memory.
FWIW.
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