Develop Bugs

[Q] Is it Defy or all android that suck at playing media?

I've been trying for days to get the defy to work i want.
I listen to audiobooks, music and podcasts, and I need to be able to control it from the headset
I tried default player, google listen, winamp, doggcatcher. And cant get the thing to work right!!
Music+ doesn't even register the button press, listen resumes and skips to next track, even if you're playing another audio in the background. Winamp on its own is fine but does not download podcasts, and doggcatcher has conflicts with winamp on the headset thing.
Has anyone find a good solution for this? it seems just the way android is built, and the lack of a good unified media player (with or integrated with podcast manager).
Such a disappointment... I was so looking for having an android phone! If I can't find a solution, it seems its not for someone like me untill they integrate things a little more tightly.

Well, it's not the Defy. And while I don't think that Android sucks at playing media I do agree with some of your points. I also listen to audio books and podcast. For the moment I'm using AudioBook Player 2 for audiobooks. It's not prefect by a long shot but it does the job. As for podcast I haven't found anything useful yet. The defaut player is suppose to play podcast but there is no way to skip through. If I have to stop listening to the podcast there is no way of getting back to were I left off. And while the device obviously play videos, and does so quite well, I haven't found any type of video player interface. The only way I can start a video is by going into the gallery and taping on the file I want to play. That dosen't seem right to me.
So yeah, I feel your frustration.

JamesDax said:
Well, it's not the Defy. And while I don't think that Android sucks at playing media I do agree with some of your points.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, sorry. I did not meant to bash, its just that I soo wanted to love it... and I don't, and if there is no good solution I think android is not for my for now. I don't know. It has so many great things!
Thanks for your suggestions I'll look into it.

On another subject : When I listen to music, I can't do anything else (switching to landscape mode e.g.), otherwise it's really slow.
Is anybody else having that bug ? Some guy here mentioned it. But he then said he fixed it without having it deodexed. How do you fix this ?

Meridian is a media player that does most of what you want, with the possible exceptin of podcasting (don´t use it, don´t know).
It remembers where you last listened to a track, and if you switch to video (which has a library of it´s own) it still remembers where in the audio track you were when you go back to that. So actually better than WMP there... ;-)
Only thing that grinds my gears with this is an annoying bug that starts a random track when I press the button on any wired headset. If I hang up a call, or if I want to pause and then start playing in Spotify or radio, Meridian starts playing a tune in the background. I thought it was a bug I was having with my Pulse, but it´s there with the Defy as well.
A BT headset has none of these issues though.

Don't worry google is working on a multimedia improvement......soooonnnn soon, also has anyone tried poweramp

[Q] Google music (v4.0.9) stutters when phone asleep

Hey guys,
Have searched a while, but found no solutions for this, so here goes.
Have stock Galaxy Nexus with ICS 4.0.1, build ITL41F, installed Google Music v4.0.9 (with online sync).
Music is synced with google's online music service (even though I'm in UK, worked-around US-only restriction), and plays nicely when the screen is on. Once I switch the screen off (press power button), one of two things happen:
- if sampling rate of a song is below 48,000 Hz -- everything continues as normal.
- if sampling rate is 48,000Hz and up -- every one/couple of seconds music stutters, and jerks. Feels like I'm listening to dusty ol' record!
The 48kHz part is my theory, compared a few mp3s that stutter and some that don't. This seems to happen irrespective of bps rate and other parameters (albeit haven't checked all).
Few people on the forum with similar symptoms (on other phones) suggested it has something to do with cpu throttle during sleep, and that by forcing it to higher frequencies during sleep this could be solved.
Installed setCPU (which required rooting) and forced phone to 1,200MHz in sleep as a trial, and the songs still were stuttering.
Anyone with a similar experience?
Prime suspect would be google_music.apk which is in beta i believe, and... well, i guess then I'm out. What do you guys think? Any idea what might be causing this?
This is my first android phone, so I'm not sure even how I'd go about submitting a bug, if that's indeed the beta version of music at fault here. Any pointers?
Ta,
Dan

omgrtm said:
Hey guys,
Have searched a while, but found no solutions for this, so here goes.
Have stock Galaxy Nexus with ICS 4.0.1, build ITL41F, installed Google Music v4.0.9 (with online sync).
Music is synced with google's online music service (even though I'm in UK, worked-around US-only restriction), and plays nicely when the screen is on. Once I switch the screen off (press power button), one of two things happen:
- if sampling rate of a song is below 48,000 Hz -- everything continues as normal.
- if sampling rate is 48,000Hz and up -- every one/couple of seconds music stutters, and jerks. Feels like I'm listening to dusty ol' record!
The 48kHz part is my theory, compared a few mp3s that stutter and some that don't. This seems to happen irrespective of bps rate and other parameters (albeit haven't checked all).
Few people on the forum with similar symptoms (on other phones) suggested it has something to do with cpu throttle during sleep, and that by forcing it to higher frequencies during sleep this could be solved.
Installed setCPU (which required rooting) and forced phone to 1,200MHz in sleep as a trial, and the songs still were stuttering.
Anyone with a similar experience?
Prime suspect would be google_music.apk which is in beta i believe, and... well, i guess then I'm out. What do you guys think? Any idea what might be causing this?
This is my first android phone, so I'm not sure even how I'd go about submitting a bug, if that's indeed the beta version of music at fault here. Any pointers?
Ta,
Dan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That, is weird - because I am facing this with Winamp so I've switched to Google Music to play my music.
Does anyone else face something similar?

Can you do me a favor and play something you know that stutters, and then try it over a bluetooth connection.
I'm curious if this is also related to the static I get when the screen is off and output is analog outputs - digital (bluetooth) works fine.

same here with poweramp... switched to googlemusic... now i have only stutters over the phone speaker..

Same thing happen to me with google music and pandora. Thought it was the connection.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I get the same using the Music app (have WinAmp but doesn't seem to integrate with the lockscreen so don't use it) as soon as the screen goes off (either timeout or manual) you can hear the music slow down and start to stutter, tap the power button, screen comes on and music goes back to normal.
Have noticed it's not all songs, but have't looked into the differences between those that do and those that don't.

Are these locally stored songs that this is happening on? So far so good here but I have been streaming from the Google Music cloud.. I wonder if the CPU is struggling during the underclocked sleep condition with local files that are high bitrate...

Mine are local files, not tried from another source.

I've used both, streaming from Google cloud, and when songs are available offline in the music app -- still stuttering. Haven't tried any other method though.
As for trying to stream over Bluetooth, haven't got any speakers/earphones that could receive the stream at home. Going to try my luck with a local pcworld, if they let me.

I haven't had any problems with Google Music stuttering while the screen is off, but I have had it crash frequently while listening to music and multitasking. I experienced a similar problem with Rhapsody as well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1379600

Pyrotechnic said:
I get the same using the Music app (have WinAmp but doesn't seem to integrate with the lockscreen so don't use it) as soon as the screen goes off (either timeout or manual) you can hear the music slow down and start to stutter, tap the power button, screen comes on and music goes back to normal.
Have noticed it's not all songs, but have't looked into the differences between those that do and those that don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
totally true! thought my phone was a lemon at first.luckily i didnt return it.

yep having the same exact issue. on speaker its just fine. when i plug in headphones or aux to car stereo and screen goes off it stutters / skips or whatever you want to call it.
Turn the screen on and its fine. However doesnt happen to all music. This was streaming from google music for me.

I'm pretty positive you guys have same exact problem as many other people. So far no one has take my suggestion of playing those same songs that stutter, and play them over bluetooth. I bet you don't get any more stutters. I think it has to do with analog outputs vs digital. To output analog, the phone has to use the DAC (digital to analog converter). When it outputs over bluetooth, there is no conversion, and the music is in digital form and transmitted in digital form
If someone can try this I would appreciate it. And you'd be helping everyone find a common denominator in this problem.
Also be sure to star this bug on google code http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22444#c6

Can someone post an mp3 this is happening to them with? I have a ton of them and I have not seen this problem yet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[hfm] said:
Can someone post an mp3 this is happening to them with? I have a ton of them and I have not seen this problem yet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't I PM you a link the other day? I thought it was to you. I didn't click the box to save it to my sent box so I can't just look it up :[

Circling back. I recreated the problem with luxferro's 48KHz mp3. Seems whatever happens on this phone to play mp3 with the screen off cannot handle that sample rate. Any 44.1KHz mp3 works fine.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

There was another thread like this. The current workaround is to enable the Equalizer for Google Music. You don't have to actually use it (leave it on default) but this solves the problem.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I guess with the eq on its forcing the CPU to get involved even when in low power mode. Unfortunately I believe that was causing other issues with crashing. Since I don't use 48KHz mp3 I'll leave it off.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

For poweramp try settings... Audio engine.. Advanced tweets and change the audio buffer size.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Having the EQ turned on seems to work, just set it to flat and turned the 3d effect down. Guess it'll use less extra battery than using a 'keep awake' app like I was doing.

[Q] Do you have problems with Google Music/other Music apps?

There are several threads now detailing a problem with playing music, mainly reported when using the Google Music app. To be more specific here are some examples:
When playing music and then multitasking, the phone crashes and requires a battery pull and reboot.
Another is when playing music and then turning the screen off, the music is jerky and stutters.
People have reported this happening with apps other than Google Music, so it would appear that this isn't a problem with the Music app, but either the phone or ICS.
I wanted to start a poll to gauge how many people have this problem and establish whether it's everyone or not.
Here are some links to what I'm referring to:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1381413
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1380773
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1379600
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22669

Your poll is a bit flawed. My experience so far is that these crashes are a bit more random than being attributed to any specific apps right now. I've experienced the crash, but long story short, I am not convinced it was related to the exact app that I was using at the time.

Well just because you have experienced an unrelated crash it doesn't mean my poll is flawed, just that you have a separate issue
People have spoken of this happening repeatedly when trying to use Music and multitask so I think it is definitely an issue of it's own. Usually it is said that the sound/screen goes corrupt and then requires a battery pull. Are you not referring to a random reboot or something?

i have a couple of problems with PowerAmp, no problems with google music though.
1. PowerAmp can't see playlists that were created in google music
2. PowerAmp stutters when the screen goes to sleep. (does the clock speed lower when the screen goes off?)
i've read that increasing the buffer size in poweramp options fixes no. 2. I havent tried it due to no.1.
i'm just using google music at the moment.

WinAmp i found would often have slight cracks in the music (i.e. stop and start again quickly, almost like it was being disturbed/cpu high).
doubletwist is fine though, as is Music player

This is such a huge problem I can't believe more people haven't responded :S

I've had Google Music, Rhapsody, and Pandora all crash at one time or another.

str355 said:
i have a couple of problems with PowerAmp, no problems with google music though.
1. PowerAmp can't see playlists that were created in google music
2. PowerAmp stutters when the screen goes to sleep. (does the clock speed lower when the screen goes off?)
i've read that increasing the buffer size in poweramp options fixes no. 2. I havent tried it due to no.1.
i'm just using google music at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
increasing the buffer size in power amp fixes no.2
Sent from Mobile..

problem number 2 here for me. songs with high bit rates tends to trigger the stutter problem after the phone goes to sleep. tried on google music and playerpro

Google Music 4.0.1 (ICS stock) often crashes within a minute after I reboot the phone - without me actually using it.
Obviously it's trying to do something in the background on start-up and fails. Miserably.
Did not crash while I was using it so far, but I didn't run it for any lengths of time either. No problems with other apps crashing, just Music.

rayvioli said:
problem number 2 here for me. songs with high bit rates tends to trigger the stutter problem after the phone goes to sleep. tried on google music and playerpro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I notice it too, it's very annoying especially since I payed so much for this phone and a good set of headphones just for my high bit-rate music to constantly stutter; hopefully google fixes this. I seem to only notice this on the stock music player, but I prefer to use it over others due to its integration with the lockscreen and notification pulldown bar, especially considering the nice visuals it now has.

my 2 cents:
i can recreate the crash consistently by doing the following:
1. reboot the phone and connect a pair of headphones
2. stream a song (i.e., a song that's not already saved to the phone) using google music
3. use the home button to leave the google music app and return to the homescreen
4. while the song is playing, try to increase or decrease the volume of the music with the volume buttons and then almost immediately the phone reboots automatically.
i haven't been able to recreate the issue once with the headphones disconnected. also, the issue doesn't seem to occur if you connect the headphones after you start playing the music. i need to test that theory some more though.

I noticed this right away when I got my phone (launch day)
Since I constantly stream music from google music, I noticed pops and weird noises all the time. Very weird and SUPER annoying

The stock music app is not able to find my music at all. I use PowerAMP now and that works fine.

Music also crashes when not actively in use at all. When I open a lot of apps, i.e. multi-task a lot, Music often just force closes after a while.

I'm using PowerAmp now to listen to music stored in either .flac or the highest quality .mp3 files lame could produce. Some are 320kbps cbr others are vbr. In PowerAmp I set the process to the highest priority possible but left the buffer on auto.
I have never had any reboots or studering when locking the screen and I've been listening to music for over 3 hours now while doing some home work. Just to test it I put on one of my flac files and quickly locked and unlocked the screen. The phone took it like and champ with no studers at all.

No problems with music apps crashing, or needing to pull the battery. The only issue I have is with music or podcasts played through the native music player or Google Listen stopping at random intervals. Happens using wired speaker/headphones or bluetooth audio.
Frustrating, but not a dealbreaker yet.

I called Verizon for no other reason other than trying to create a record of the issue... They claimed to have not heard of this... Is there any way to let Samsung know directly? I know there is a google code ticket open, but Google hasn't "owned" the issue yet... I'd also say if you have the issue to let VZW know so they can get things in motion on their side as well.

kptkill said:
I called Verizon for no other reason other than trying to create a record of the issue... They claimed to have not heard of this... Is there any way to let Samsung know directly? I know there is a google code ticket open, but Google hasn't "owned" the issue yet... I'd also say if you have the issue to let VZW know so they can get things in motion on their side as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems they don't give a ****, unfortunately. Just have to live with it..

WinAMP - today while playing an album with the screen off paused (twice). I had to turn on the display, and hit the play button to continue. There was a bit of a lag (I got the FC screen, but when i hit wait the app returned a few seconds later)

[Q] Audio Sputtering and Popping on Spotify, TuneIn

Hello all,
I love the audio quality on CM, however ever since using it on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, the audio on Spotify has constantly popped and stuttered and sputtered and whatever other word you want to use when playing through the headphone jack.
I feel like I've tried everything outside of switching ROMs. Tiny Kernel, Franco Kernel, CPU Governors, etc etc etc, doesn't matter.
I've also done search after search after search, and I feel like I'm completely alone in having this issue. I can't find anyone asking about this anymore, now that Spotify claims to have fixed it in an app release months ago (which makes me think it isn't necessarily Spotify's fault, but who knows).
I should mention that this does not happen with Pandora or Songza, for instance. Only Spotify and TuneIn.
Of course, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that both Pandora and Songza process the audio in some different way from Spotify and TuneIn, since normal use of CM's DSP Manager has no effect on those apps but does work on Spotify.
So, is there anyone else out there who has this issue with CM (or other ROMs)?? At this point I'm just hoping there are others out there who have had this problem just so it isn't an "only my phone" issue -- because those ones have no hope of being fixed.

I have the same problem, running stock 4.2.2 on my Galaxy Nexus. I think it's a device problem, not an app/background process problem.
I don't use TuneIn so I can't speak to the quality of its streams, but I have used Rdio, Slacker, Pandora and Google Play Music and they all play flawlessly.
ONLY Spotify plays audios with occasional snaps, crackles and pops, like a bowl of Rice Krispies. Some songs will play without a blip, some with a few, some with many. The songs are not interrupted...just marred by this defect. And it's never the same way twice with the same song.
It happens whether the song is streaming, or playing locally.
My guess is that the Nexus has difficulty playing Ogg Vorbis files, which is the format for Spotify streams and downloads. As far as I know, the other services I mentioned stream in AAC or MP3. While the Nexus supports Ogg Vorbis, it appears it does not support it very well. I'm going to test this theory by transcoding one of my Apple Lossless audio files to Ogg and then uploading it to the Nexus. My hunch is that it will demonstrate the same issues.
I guess we should consider ourselves lucky; before Jelly Bean the Nexus suffered from more dramatic playback problems. Do a Google search on "Music Stutters when playing long files and screen off: Galaxy Nexus" and read through it. There are a couple of posts that deal specifically with Ogg playback.
I've decided to live with it. I've been hopping from music service to music service trying to find the right one, and I always come back to Spotify. As long as the issue doesn't become more severe, I think I can re-program my brain to tolerate it.
Skyh said:
Hello all,
I love the audio quality on CM, however ever since using it on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, the audio on Spotify has constantly popped and stuttered and sputtered and whatever other word you want to use when playing through the headphone jack.
I feel like I've tried everything outside of switching ROMs. Tiny Kernel, Franco Kernel, CPU Governors, etc etc etc, doesn't matter.
I've also done search after search after search, and I feel like I'm completely alone in having this issue. I can't find anyone asking about this anymore, now that Spotify claims to have fixed it in an app release months ago (which makes me think it isn't necessarily Spotify's fault, but who knows).
I should mention that this does not happen with Pandora or Songza, for instance. Only Spotify and TuneIn.
Of course, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that both Pandora and Songza process the audio in some different way from Spotify and TuneIn, since normal use of CM's DSP Manager has no effect on those apps but does work on Spotify.
So, is there anyone else out there who has this issue with CM (or other ROMs)?? At this point I'm just hoping there are others out there who have had this problem just so it isn't an "only my phone" issue -- because those ones have no hope of being fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:02 AM ----------
My theory was incorrect. I used XLD to transcode Boston's "Hitch A Ride" from Apple Lossless to Ogg Vorbis (VBR, quality 4.0), then put the file on my phone. I used Winamp to play the file and it played beautifully.
So I'm thinking there's something specific with Spotify's encoding that the Nexus doesn't like.
What's odd is that I have run Spotify on other mobile devices and have never had an issue. That's why I have trouble putting the blame on them.

OP, after checking many Google leads, posts, etc. I believe--for Spotify anyway--I have found a way to stop (or at least greatly reduce) the Rice Krispies.
If you have Google Play Music on your phone, make sure it's fully updated and then launch it.
Within Play Music, go to Settings, then select Equalizer.
Turn the equalizer on, select the Normal preset, and move the Bass Boost and 3D Effect sliders all the way to the left to turn them off...unless you like them on.
Back out of Google Play Music to the home screen, then launch Spotify.
Go to Settings within Spotify, choose Audio Effects and verify the Equalizer is OFF in that app.
Using this combination of settings/conditions, I have heard just a couple of pops over a string of a half-dozen songs. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts.
I'm guessing that having the Google Play Music equalizer on, some additional processing is taking place that alleviates whatever is causing the popping to occur.
Good luck!

Can't rewind music on higher speed

I just recently got Lenovo P2 and when I installed Podcast Addict I found out that I can't adjust speed to 1.5x like I normally have on my Xiaomi before, because then you can't rewind the podcast, the progress bar at the bottom stops moving and when you're coming to the end of the podcast, it just rewinds all the way to the beginning randomly. Is there a way to solve this issue, because other than that I love this phone, but this has been killing the experience for me so far. Also should mention that it does this with all podcast apps, already tried contacting Podcast Addict support, and they said it's because of my built in music player

I have the same problem, same response from the Podcast Addict Developer. Other apps don't seem to have this problem, but they are not as good. Stuck with other podcast app until this is fixed / I buy new phone.