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

"Sorry, the player does not support this type of audio fffuuuuuuuu!"

Oh, I've searched for a solution far and wide but none work have worked so far.
I like to rip audio from YouTube videos using Tubemate. This is especially awesome considering that Rebecca Black's Friday is the perfect ringtone to interrupt meetings with. Anyway, Tubemate warns that not all MP3s will work. It has been hit or miss so far. Just updated to unrooted GB, but the issue has popped up even before that.
The issue at hand is that for the past day, every attempt to rip a MP3 has ended with that message popping up.
"Sorry," really? Google, are you really sorry?
I've tried everything. I've retagged using multiple apps, opened with Winamp and Music, restarted after pulling the battery, and unmounted/mounted my SD. I've even cleared the caches and data. I still get that damn error and that taunting "Yea, our bad," message.
Is there anything I'm missing? Thanks for your help ahead of time!
XDA App - EVO - 2.3 unrooted. Help!

There's a reason it's not supported, the audio file you made probably isnt the right codec. I'm not positive about that ripping app, but the one I use only rips the audio that was in the original file. So if the audio from the original file was a 2 channel ac3 file, thats what you get. You would only get an mp3 file if the original video used mp3 for its audio.

[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!

MP3 VBR and ABR playback problems

Hi there,
I noticed problems with some of my podcasts. They would restart from the beginning when I tried to skip within the track or the player would crash and skip to the next track. I discovered that this only happens with MP3s that are encoded with either VBR (variable bitrate) or ABR (average bitrate) settings, and it is happening with every player (play music, music, pocketcasts) I tried. I converted some of those podcasts using constant bitrate (CBR) and everything worked fine then. I found an old thread (https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=8154) describing pretty much exactly my problem.
I tried the same MP3 on my old S4, and that seems to be able to deal with the variable bitrate just fine.
Can anyone try to verify this? There is an ABR MP3 here which gives me those problems. If you skip towards the end it will start playing from the beginning ("Hey everybody this is Sam")
Cheers.

I just played your mp3 straight from the default Files app on my (stock) OP3 and tested two players: the default Music player and Google Play Music. Both were able to skip around just fine. Are you playing the file from a music player or from a podcast app? (Edit: I see where you said which players you tested. Hmm.)

The problem seems to happen after skipping to somewhere past the halfway mark of the file. I just tested it on a colleague's OP3 (3.2.4, all stock) and it happens there as well.
Funnily enough, I just listened to a podcast today when the host mentioned that one of the listeners wrote in with this exact same problem. A quick look into their backcatalog revealed them switching from CBR to VBR a couple of episodes ago.

I don't know what I was doing the first time when I tested, but yeah, now that I'm looking for it, I definitely see the issue. The very first time I played it this time, it auto skipped to the end and would have played the next track in the queue if one existed. From that point on, skipping around did a variety of things. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it played the audio from the very beginning ("Hey everybody, this is Sam") but the slider indicated I was still like 66% of the way through - not at the beginning. Very strange. I'm on the latest 3.2.6, btw.
When you're encoding to VBR, are you using any switches / arguments (e.g. --alt-preset standard)? If so, maybe try something else?

I haven't done any encoding myself (but for back converting some VBR tracks to CBR), I only noticed it in a couple of podcasts I was following, and the thing they had in common was NOT using CBR. I don't know if a certain switch in the VBR/ABR encoding settings might be the problem, but what I find more worrying is that my former sony xperia z5c running marshmallow as well as my s4 active running lollipop do not have this problem. It would be interesting if someone with CM or another ROM but stock could try this to see if it is a ROM specific problem.

A podcast I listen to (The Bayesian Conspiracy) has some episodes as CBR and some as VBR. All of the VBR episodes have issues trying to seek past half-way. This happens on ALL methods of playback that I've tried (streaming, Pocket Cast, Google built-in player, Podcast Addict) on my OnePlus 3.
Found an article ("The First and last word on CBR vs VBR questions" - sorry can't create links yet) talks about why VBR is bad, in general and why podcasts shouldn't use it anymore, but it sure does suck that OxygenOS doesn't handle this properly (because not every podcast is encoded with CBR).

I have contacted the podcasts which I discovered used VBR and ABR and so far I was lucky in that they switched back to CBR, but that can't be the solution.

I have this problem with my config: DailyTechNewsShow with either BeyondPod or PodcastAddict, same problem when reaching 2/3 of the time.
Using OnePlus3 stock with rom 3.2.8.

2 years later, i have the same issue on a Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite. i guess it won't be fixed any time soon...
does anyone know a place where we could report this bug to Xiaomi?
AFAIU, the bug is in their playback code, not in Android. i listen to podcasts a lot, some of them use VBR, and it's annoying me to no end...