I came to this thread and a few others so many times in my desperate attempts to find a solution. I was having the same problem where the audio would stutter on and off (mostly on) in every form of media-based audio, but only on the phone's speaker. I didn't have the problem when using headphones or bluetooth.
I've finally fixed the problem on my phone, and I wanted to let people know one possible solution in case anyone with the same problem comes across this thread too.
My solution seems stupid, but it worked. It ended up being a hardware solution rather than all the software solutions I had tried in the past.
I turned on a YouTube video (to gauge whether my attempts were working). While the video/audio was playing, I pressed the back of the phone (with the case and everything still on). I want to say it was about the middle of the phone. Everytime I pressed on it, the audio would go completely silent for as long as I was putting pressure on, even though the video was still going. When I stopped applying pressure, the audio would continue. That freaked me out at first, but I decided to keep trying. I think the stuttering continued the first couple times, but after about the third or fourth time I tried, the audio started playing completely normally! I was kind of shocked.
It was really a last ditch effort after trying a bunch of other things. I was reading an article about how some S6s were having an audio stutter problem and right at the end, it briefly mentioned something about pressing the back of the phone. Something about poor contact between some parts? I have a Note 5 but figured I'd give it a shot.
Here are some things I tried that did NOT work:
- Clear cache (all apps)
- Developer mode > running apps > force stop SoundAlive
- Restart in Safety Mode
- Installing and using apps that scan and fix systems
- Installing SoundAbout and other audio control apps
One thing I tried that DID seem to work for about a day was updating from Marshmallow to Nougat. The reason I hadn't updated yet was that my phone was not updating successfully for the past year. I didn't care much until this audio problem came up and I thought updating might fix it. I won't go into how I fixed THAT problem, but the reason it SEEMED to fix the audio problem at first is unrelated to the actual update. Before updating, I took the phone out of my wallet-phone case because it seemed to be overheating a bit. After the update, I popped it back into the case. In popping it out and then back into the rather snug case, I applied pressure on the phone. So that is probably what temporarily fixed it.
The bad news is, this means that my current fix is probably temporary and can occur again.
The good news is, I've found the problem (at least for my phone). And if the audio starts acting up again, pressing the back of the phone will hopefully continue to fix the problem (albeit temporarily).
Finally, be careful. I don't know if I'm causing any permanent damage to the hardware by pressing on it like that. I'm not pressing that hard, but obviously it's enough to manipulate the inside parts. I'm accepting the risk because I was going to just go ahead and get a new phone if I couldn't fix this because it's almost 2 years old. But decide for yourself if the risk is worth it.
Anyway, hope this was helpful!
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