Bursts of static

[AC Question]

I've had this problem with 2 phones, a Moto G (1st Gen) and a Droid Maxx 2.

I listen to lots of podcasts. During the summer, I can listen to 6+ hours a day. And it is aggravating beyond words when there is a LOUD burst of static right in my ears!

This morning, the Moto G was making the noise every 30 seconds. This is the first time I've noticed the noise as a regular phenomena. It usually seems to be random.

I've googled the issue and the only thing I find is that people have been having this issue SINCE 2010. Seven years!

Restarting the phone will make the noise go away for anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days. But it will come back.

Does anybody have success dealing with bursts of static?

 

[janfon56]

Has anyone ever gotten an answer on this thread about the static issue?

 

[MB SY]

On my Motorola Droid Maxx...
When I chose "force stop" of Chrome, in the settings-apps-Chrome, the noise stopped! Guess Firefox is the way to go!

 

[NDNied710]

I am currently having the same issue with the bursts of static on my LG Charge. I forced close Google Chrome and now the bursts have stopped! Thank you.. Going to be hard to get used to FireFox but I can't handle the random static

 

[marcuss smith]

I started noticing this problem at work, through headphone jack, over Bluetooth and on speaker, with my moto g4 play. Factory reset did nothing and I got so agrivated I sent it back for a replacement which i planned to sell, then bought a Kyocera duraforce pro. I'm immediately having the same problem. I have really only noticed the issue at work though, and I'm a cnc operator. Someone else mentioned em interference? Still unacceptable. No idea what to do.

I would like to add, I also have the same issue around cnc lathes, dont know if its related ot not. Just thought id add my two cents

 

[David Adeyemi]

Omg, my zte max pro does that everytime, its literally doing that rn... Imagine blasting loud music with your car speakers and 'boom' STATIC... It only does that when I'm streaming music from Spotify, Pandora or YouTube... and its freaking annoying!!!!!

 

[Nate1999]

I too have an issue with this as well. It only happens when im trying to play a game on chrome or watch a video on chrome. I am getting eid if chrome. It sucks anyways. Like seriously. I cant even download it without it failing or get stuck. And it is slowwww. Its a piece of s**t browser that google needs to fix

 

[karma fighter]

I found a way to fiX this all I did was turn on and off my headphones repeatedly
and it went away

 

[OSMclaire]

My Kindle fire makes this exact noise, as does the one belonging to my stepson. It sounds like the singularity is hacking into my brain when I've got a podcast turned up at anything above the lowest volume available. It physically hurts. I'm glad I found this thread, the last time I googled this noise there was not as thorough a compilation of the phenomenon.

 

[Ayamuri]

I'm so thrilled I'm not alone in this and others are sharing their experiences. I did a search on this maybe a year ago and got squat. Late 2017 or early 2018, I even made a post about it on CNET but no one replied to me.

I have a two year old HTC Desire 626s and a cheap pair of Bluetooth Skullcandy headphones. I too have narrowed this issue down to being with Chrome but more specifically, it's only when I browse websites with Chrome. For example, checking my email does nothing. I just went to a website to look at lyrics while listening to Spotify however and it gave a stab of static in my ears.

If I use CNET, it will crackle. Not all websites do it, I don't think, but many will. And if I turn off the headset, yep, it comes through the speaker until I either turn Bluetooth off completely or I restart the phone. Every great now and then, it might crackle when I'm watching YouTube but Chrome might be in the background and that's why. It's almost always in the background but except those times with YouTube, it almost always happens while I'm actively using the app.

I thought it was my cheap phone from Metro PCS but it's sad and yet relieving to see even flagship phones are having this problem.

Now that it seems we've gotten a general idea that this may be related to Chrome, we should all band together to find a way to report this. I'll be happy to hunt around and if I do find a way, I'll see if I can make a quick link to it here so everyone can use it. If anyone here uses social media, maybe put something there so viewers can request this be looked at. I enjoy Chrome and use it on my dinosaur of a laptop still running Vista (as you can tell by my cheap phone from a cheap company, I most certainly don't have money for much tech, lol). Firefox was my love but it's not handled me still being on Vista as well as Chrome and it's nice to have my information from my phone synced to my laptop.

 

[pansat1997]

I believe that is caused when the phone is downloading data I've had the same experience driving in my car I've also had it on a phone with the headphones on. Right now it's happening on my Android phone using Plex as a remote player right at the beginning of every song I'm getting this static noise and then it goes away after a few seconds.

 

[bestfootie]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S6. I also have a pair of top of the range Bose QuietComfort 35(ii) Bluetooth headphones.

I've had this exact problem for about a year when I got the headphones. I sent the headphones back as I thought it was an issue with them (I'd just bought them). This has continued though. I only today realised it must be to do with the phone as I heard it when headphones weren't on!

When I'm listening to loud music suddenly BANG this static noise for a second blasts my eardrums. Painful I actually yell and it deafens me a bit. It's ******* dangerous. What the **** are they doing?? When will this be sorted FFS!!!?

 

[VanillaQuark]

I've been having the same problem on a LG V20. I note the issue is pretty random, but is highly likely to occur after I've switched from using Bluetooth to a corded headphone, or from BT to using the speaker. I wonder if it's contention for audio channel- where software is preparing to play sound and take focus of the sound output device. One app has focus of the sound output, another app wants it, and despite the volume setting, this causes an overload to the hardware causing static burst.

I usually have my phone in silent mode or vibrate only. However, if I'm browsing a website - even with the phone muted - this loud burst of static will be produced by the phone speakers at something close to full volume. If I happen to have headphones plugged in, this is very painful! I'm sure it has damaged my hearing.

Given I have now finally found this thread, after much searching for the right keywords, this appears to be a somewhat widespread issue affecting many brands and I suppose many Android versions. For example, I have heard from a colleague at work he got the same problem on his new Samsung S10+ after 2 weeks. The problem has been reported on this thread for *years*.

Does anyone know if this is a Chrome or Android-based problem? I may have to risk losing my mind and switch back to Apple to save my hearing

 

[hel22]

I have a similar but different problem. When I listen to music or talk on the phone on speaker, the sound comes out very scratchy. I speak only on speakerphone and this is extremely annoying as I now have to keep my phone on my ear otherwise it's very hard to understand a scratchy voice... Anyone else have this or knows how to fix??

 

[VanillaQuark]

I have a similar but different problem. When I listen to music or talk on the phone on speaker, the sound comes out very scratchy. I speak only on speakerphone and this is extremely annoying as I now have to keep my phone on my ear otherwise it's very hard to understand a scratchy voice... Anyone else have this or knows how to fix??

\\
I had a similar issue once before, which was resolved by doing a factory reset.

 

[Rukbat]

I have a similar but different problem. When I listen to music or talk on the phone on speaker, the sound comes out very scratchy. I speak only on speakerphone and this is extremely annoying as I now have to keep my phone on my ear otherwise it's very hard to understand a scratchy voice... Anyone else have this or knows how to fix??

Either a factory reset (if it's a software problem) or a "speaker sweep" with a tiny screwdriver if you're near construction sites (the drilling into steel beams creates iron powder that gets into everything, including phone speakers, and enough powder on the speaker causes the sound to be very muffled - wiping the front of the speaker [you have to take the phone apart to do it - so I don't recommend doing it yourself] with the screwdriver picks up all the powder, a little at a time [then it has to be transferred to a little neodymium magnet, so it can be disposed of without getting into another phone - long, very boring, precision work]).

 

[timex987987]

I have the same issue as well.

I'm spotting a 2016 Google Pixel 1, and I use it with the Shure RMCE-BT2 Bluetooth Adapter, powering Shure SE846 Earbuds.

The bluetooth audio stream seems to be all fine and dandy, then BSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The loud static persists until I pause whatever I'm listening to for a few seconds, then resume. After that, it has a chance to start up again within a few minutes, or never again for that sitting.

After reading countless posts on the matter, I tried the fixes people have reported on various forums; disabling Chrome's geolocation services, not using Chrome flat out, and so forth. I even made sure to close any recently used apps to make sure that, if it was another app, it wouldn't be impacting it.

Unfortunately, for me, I didn't even have to be using Chrome to get blasted. I tested using singular apps, like YouTube and Spotify by themselves, and I still got blasted. Freshly restarting the phone and going straight to the media app I wanted to use, without touching any other app, didn't work as well. Eventually got blasted.

I started to wonder if the Shure RMCE-BT2 was defective, but connecting it to my computer and using it to listen to music and play games for days without being blasted, blew that suspicion out of the water. I also wondered why I didn't get blasted when I connected to other bluetooth speakers in the past. During a static-blasting session on my phone, I noticed that the phone's system audio, like audio feedback while touching buttons, was distorted with loud static as well. That bit alone, along with the fact that no static-blasting occurs with other bluetooth speakers connected to my phone, leads me to believe that it's not any single app's audio stream being static-blown, nor any app that's causing the static-blasting, but rather...

...it's the mechanism related to processing the bluetooth stream itself.

I came to that conclusion after going into my phone's bluetooth developer settings and seeing which bluetooth codec was being used while connected. My Google Pixel 1 comes with Bluetooth 4.2, with support for AptX HD. The Shure RMCE-BT2 supports Bluetooth 5.0, along with various high-quality bluetooth codecs, such as AptX HD. Because the Shure bluetooth adapter supports AptX HD, the phone defaults to it. My other bluetooth speakers I tested, including my car's stereo system, all do not use AptX HD.

Accepting the conclusion that my Google Pixel 1 has a bug with AptX HD was not easy. I love the codec and how it improves the bluetooth audio streaming quality of my phone, but knowing that a static blast may be waiting around the corner really prevents me from enjoying the wireless life. I haven't found a solution to my problem as of writing this post, but I have found a way to mitigate the strength and damage of the blasts when they do occur.

I went into my phone's Developer Settings and turned on "Disable Absolute Volume", under the Bluetooth Settings. After that, I turned my phone's bluetooth volume all the way to 100%, resulting in me only utilizing the bluetooth earbuds' native volume control to control volume instead. That way, when a static blast does occur, the blast won't be at true 100% volume to my ears. The blast always occurs at 100% volume to the broadcasting device, but if the receiving device's volume is at 40%, the blast will only be at 40% volume relative to you.

It sucks...but at least with this discovery, remedy to the problem, and the near-infinite wait until the next potential update to my phone's bluetooth software drops, the wireless life is still quite enjoyable until the next banshee opera starts.