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Audio Crackling/Audio stutter when screen off after 3.1 Update

All,
I noticed a couple possible defects after upgrading to 3.1 manually.
1. When playing audio from certain applications (XMP for Android for instance) The Audio cuts out shortly after the screen turns off, and then halts for a period of time before coming back shortly, then cuts out again.
2. Once you turn the screen back on, there is a distinct crackling in the audio.
Workaround:
1. Turn screen back on (get the crackling)
2. Unplug the 3.5mm audio jack
3. Play music from the speakers
4. Plug back in the 3.5mm audio jack
Anyone else seeing these issues with other audio applications?

Yep, I had the crackling and long pauses start happening today after the FOTA update.
Seems to happen (more often?) when applications interrupt an audio stream. For instance, listening to music and get an IM or email.

Yeah I had issues with this as well afer updating to 3.1...I saw in another thread that doing a "hard reboot" will fix the issue and has seemed to work for me so far. Hold the power button down for 10-15 sec until the unit reboots.

same problem
I have the same problem as well. The audio stops functioning properly when the screen times out or when I lock the device with the power button. The weird thing is that this behaviour is not consistent for all apps.
For example, "Music" stops only at the end of the song. From the "3.1 ROM issues" thread, other users are experiencing this as well. In contrast, in the apps "Listen" and "Audible", almost as soon as the screen goes off or I lock it, the audio stops, starting after some 30 seconds, halting again after 10 seconds. It repeats this cycle a few times and then stops completely. If I lit the screen by hitting the power button, the audio resumes with crackling noises as mentioned in the original posts.
Also, hard reset didn't work. I am tempted to do a factory reset except that I don't really know what's going on and I don't know if that'd fix it!
UPDATE: I found the following workaround solutions:
1- Winamp works flawlessly for songs, not a peep or hitch!
2- BeyondPod is working fairly well for podcasts. (It has paused once after 11 minutes so far.)

I did the fota update.
and I've the the crackling. Sucky.

me too. Hope they get an update out to fix this asap. Extremely annoying bug.

Would like to add I am also experiencing this issue although mine didn't start till a couple days after the update to 3.1. A hard reset works for a little while but the issue eventually presents itself again. Might be due to a caching issue with the music player?

Anyone try another music player?

I discovered the crackling noise problem last night.
At first I thought the FLAC songs were recorded from a dirty vinyl record.
I also discovered the problem where the Music app does not continue to the next song when listening with the screen turned off. How stupid is that.
These are two big problems that ASUS needs to address ASAP.
I am already annoyed by the pop sound when turning the Transformer on and whenever any sound to the speaker (Headphones are fine) is played after a long pause.
They must have used a really cheap sound chip in the Transformer.

Yes I can confirm the same problems with google listen. Have tried the hard reset but it doesn't really help very much. Things worked fine after the restart, but as soon as the screen turned off, then the audio paused, and began to crackle, then more pauses. It is almost as if some part of the system is in some sort of low power mode and is not able to feed the data at the required data rate...

gloomyandy said:
... It is almost as if some part of the system is in some sort of low power mode and is not able to feed the data at the required data rate...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe this could be exactly the problem. I have not yet gotten my TF, but looking forward to one greatly. However, I get exactly this problem on my Galaxy Tab 7" WHEN using setCPU to add a profile that scales the CPU down when screen is off. It sounds to me as if ASUS has added some sort of governer/scaling that does this. I could be wrong of course This is just based on reading, and personal experience

corodius said:
I believe this could be exactly the problem. I have not yet gotten my TF, but looking forward to one greatly. However, I get exactly this problem on my Galaxy Tab 7" WHEN using setCPU to add a profile that scales the CPU down when screen is off. It sounds to me as if ASUS has added some sort of governer/scaling that does this. I could be wrong of course This is just based on reading, and personal experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. I get a lot of weird little problems with the Tab 7'' when setCPU scales clock speed down too far, including random reboots. I guess that's the sacrifice Asus made to give the TF such a tremendous battery life.

grainysand said:
I guess that's the sacrifice Asus made to give the TF such a tremendous battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about "tremendous"
More like pretty good...

i can confirm that i have this issue using google music app. I previously purchased PowerAMP (arguably the best android music app) and no problems whatsoever when the screen goes off.
I do like the google music app as it seems like a truly lightweight player but its still in beta stage and needs a bit of work.

I just discovered something. The problem does not occur for my Transformer when the unit is plugged in!
So it must be power management problem, the question is how to fix it?

Hey guys, loving the xda forums btw, much love. I have a acer iconia a500 16gb, and same problem here:
Using Acer_a500_4.010.13_com_gen2
The default Music player is buggy and crashed fairly often, the audio stopping when screen turns off and stopping intermittently is also present on iconia with the default music player and the others as well.
The audio crackling is also present under same conditions.
To add insult to injury, sometimes when i connect a headphones the speakers dont turn off. And if i play with he "dolby mobile" settings, the sound on my headphones get really tinny untill i unplug the headphones and plug them back in, or i reboot the sys in some cases.

I just thought I should add to this thread that I have the same problems on my Acer Iconia A500. It consistently only finishes the song after I turn the screen off then it waits MINUTES to start the next song. I only occasionally have problems with the crackle sound. I had the crackling a lot when I first got it but it doesn't seem to happen as often any more. It doesn't seem to happen when I use doubleTwist but I really wish that the STOCK APPLICATION (which I like the best) would work...
Is there ANY way to fix this stuff? I mean even downgrading to like 3.0 or something. I like to use my tablet to play on my stereo system and I don't enjoy having to effing go back every time I want to play the next song. I also don't want to leave the screen on all the time and murder the battery.

I have the same thing happening on my A500 (running the ASUS PRIME ROM, though). When the screen turns off, anything audio related gets really skippy.

apparently there's some sort of setting build in for the cpu to underclock to the point of not being able to continue running the music application when the screen turns off. (that's me guessing it could be wrong) It always happens with stock music app though it didnt happen when in 3.0.
I installed winamp and doubletwist and both played nonstop.
Also i noticed that if you had music in your external sd and you open music app (also happened with winamp) and remove the sd the applications wont work anymore (thy always fc)unless you install the sd back (that is if you had your music library in the sd even if you also have it internally)
I tried moving the music to the internal storage but the error persist. the only way to get rid of it is formatting the tablet and passing the music to the tablet before running the apps. However if you install the sd and you happen to have music and music app open, youre screw again.
thats the error ive been having and im stuck with a 16gb sd in the tablet to hear music, (which i find it sucking cause my tablet is 32gb)
any suggestions?

[Q] Audio characteristics changed; can't revert

Hi folks. I have a 16GB US GSM Moto G, and yesterday, the character of my device's external speaker changed.
Formerly, to get a good average sound level in apps, the volume needed to be near the high end, I'd say about 60-80% of max. Now, that same volume level corresponds to about 20-40% on the slider. At the same time, I started to get weird sound artefacts in one app (Tiny Death Star). I hear a light popping sound in the speaker about once per second, and every couple of seconds the sound stutters. Not terrible, but enough to be distracting. It doesn't affect all apps, but I haven't tested extensively to see if it's the only app affected.
There are a couple of variables:
1. Yesterday I installed the KitKat OTA update. I'm about 80% sure that the issue didn't start immediately after that, but I can't be positive.
2. I played with a couple of music player apps: WinAmp and PowerAmp. In the latter, I did mess around with some EQ/volume/balance settings, but I left everything where I found it. Once I noticed the new issue, I uninstalled both and rebooted the device, but the problem persists.
I also noticed the "Audio Effects" setting in the Sound settings. Tried turning that off, but it didn't change anything. I also tried wiping the cache partition; no change.
Anyone have any idea what may have caused this (and more importantly, how to fix it)? I could live with the volume range change, but not so much the stutter/pop.

Odd problem: Playback stops for no reason sporadically - HELP !

Hi folks.
Sooner or later any audio playback stops, just as if I had pushed the pause button.
It affects different apps.
I deactivated each and every special feature in settings, no matter what it is, from gestures to case type. Blutooth and NC is deactivated.
It happens with and without case, wired or not, screen on or off, flight mode or WLAN or 4G.
Sometimes it happens a few times in a few minutes or even several times in one minute. Sometimes it doesn´t happen in an hour or more.
I´m completely clueless.... This is a serious problem for me. Who can help?

Same issue here. Watch a video and sound just stops. First time happened I also tried to start poweramp and same issue.
I need to restart the phone to get everything normal.
I feel the software is not complete, there are small bugs and issues that needs solutions.
I hope an update will get it right.

Oh no...
But wait: You say: Sound stops. But video playback continues? In my case, playback in general stops, not just the sound. But I did not see that with videos since I just playback audio files.
I found out, it seems, this affects not all apps. Too bad most apps are not satisfying. (for my personal needs)
There is a app called MyNoise. It creates sound scapes with generators. There is a "CPU-Mode" option where you can select 2 different CPU modes: "High CPU" and "Normal CPU". "High CPU" was created to prevent the app from stopping to work in certain situations because of power saving features. Maybe this is a hint.

Not sure if it's related but I've started having problems in the car, when I turn to my phone's on-board music (on SD card), there is a delay of approx. 10 seconds before any music plays. It never used to be like this, I may be wrong but I'm suspecting it's since the update to EMUI version 182.

Bluetooth keeps dropping to low volume on connection

Hi All,
Any time I connect my phone BT to my Toyota (Entune) it drops the volume down to like half volume. This only started occuring with Pie, though I'm wondering if this is a vehicle related issue as I did update the Entune firmware recently as well. Either way I thought Pie was supposed to memorize the last volume setting? How else can I automatically move it up? Can I maybe use a third party app like IFTT?
I'm updated to the September Security Update, there don't seem to be any BT fixes for October.

I have one Bluetooth device that does this (a speaker). No idea why. I tried un-pairing/re-pairing. That worked for a short time only.

I can't say for certain but I'm guessing it's a safety feature intended for earbuds. Its knocks the volume down save your ear drums. Again that's pure conjecture.
Sent from my Tab S4 10.5

It seems like it's somehow remembering the last settings of all media. When I have my media turned to 0 volume, then when I connect the bluetooth its at 0 volume even though it's a different app. Something really doesn't seem right here.

Issue with Notification volume but can't find the reason :(

My issue is simple, notification sound volume keep adjusting by itself to around 70%, I always set it under 50%.
- I used to use Bixby routines to adjust volume for ringtone and notification when i reached home, however i haven't turned all of them off.
- I have Sound Assistant installed but no Scenario has turned on
This issue has bugged me for 2 months now, it's so annoying. What is causing the volume to adjust by itself?

aaronlee0712 said:
My issue is simple, notification sound volume keep adjusting by itself to around 70%, I always set it under 50%.
- I used to use Bixby routines to adjust volume for ringtone and notification when i reached home, however i haven't turned all of them off.
- I have Sound Assistant installed but no Scenario has turned on
This issue has bugged me for 2 months now, it's so annoying. What is causing the volume to adjust by itself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot give you a direct answer, to your question
However i could give you an option, that you might consider, if you are desperate apart from factory reset that might help.?
Firstly, i had a similar issue than yours, on my
old Note 10 plus, Volume kept adjusting.
i also had Sound assistant installed.
I uninstall Sound assistant, but issues persisted with
volume adjusting.... then i found
the culprit.
I had another 3rd party Sound volume app, installed
where i had many months before, set a profile volume
to a certain level..!
Deleted and issue fix
So sometimes it's a simple, tweak or something you did and forgot about...?
Anyway, if you are so desperate, you can mabye
reset your " Device Settings " ? .. it might help?
Further
if you like Sound Assistant,
this 3rd party app "Volume Styles "
Google Play Store, is much more fun and interesting/better, so much more options etc.
I have the paid version.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tombayley.volumepanel
You can check it out if you want to ?
Good luck.

willcor said:
I cannot give you a direct answer, to your question
However i could give you an option, that you might consider, if you are desperate apart from factory reset that might help.?
Firstly, i had a similar issue than yours, on my
old Note 10 plus, Volume kept adjusting.
i also had Sound assistant installed.
I uninstall Sound assistant, but issues persisted with
volume adjusting.... then i found
the culprit.
I had another 3rd party Sound volume app, installed
where i had many months before, set a profile volume
to a certain level..!
Deleted and issue fix
So sometimes it's a simple, tweak or something you did and forgot about...?
Anyway, if you are so desperate, you can mabye
reset your " Device Settings " ? .. it might help?
Further
if you like Sound Assistant,
this 3rd party app "Volume Styles "
Google Play Store, is much more fun and interesting/better, so much more options etc.
I have the paid version.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tombayley.volumepanel
You can check it out if you want to ?
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I end up clearing data for the Bixby routine, then didn't create any recipe related to volume, so far so good, the volume is not adjusting by itself. May have to pay attention these few days and see whether the issue persist. Anyway, thanks for your solution, I don't really want to reset my setting though.