Crackling, shuttering, distortion noises during playback. I'VE TRIED EVERYTHING, just fix it already

[FIX-SPOTIFY]

This started a couple of months ago. It's been extremely annoying but I've signed up for the year long subscription or else I would not use this anymore. I suspect that it has something to do with Windows 10, but everyone has that now so why doesn't spotify look into it and fix it???

These are things that I have tried:

- Restart Spotify

- Restart computer

- Deleting all the local files

- Reinstall

- Turning on/off Hardware Acceleration

- Pretty much playing with all the available settings in Spotify

- Updating my sound drivers

- Turning off my bluetooth around the computer (shouldn't be this because I didn't get anything new)

- Going into Device Manager and Network adapters. This shouldn't be the issue because it hasn't changed.

- Trying to correct through windows defender/firewall stuff

INTERESTING DETAIL: maybe this will help in directing us to a solution, but the noises go away when the mouse is being moved or when I am consistantly typing. So it's just when there is no action being to the computer (like typing, moving the mouse, scrolling makes it go away, **bleep**) But obviously not a solution because I can't be at my computer moving my mouse around just so I can listen to my music the way it was meant to be. WHAT THE EFF ARE WE EVEN PAYING FOR?????

this is so annoying. I've literally read all the board posts and none of the suggestions have helped. Just fix it already!! so many users are going through this exact issue, it warrants attention from the developers!!

[Sebasty]

Hey @FIX-SPOTIFY

That's not good!

However, that additional detail you said (noise going away when typing) tells me it's most likely not coming from Spotify.

Have you tried playing things from Youtube or other services, and music in Windows Media Player or other media players? What do they sound like?

You can try following these steps in this article (HowToGeek).

Let me know how it goes, and I'll try to figure out what else to try. 🙂

[FIX-SPOTIFY]

Yes, I've tried playing media from a number of sources and NONE of them
have the same problem (websites, youtube, netflix, hbogo, vlc, etc.). I
obviously wouldn't post here if it were a consistent problem with my
computer. It only occurs in Spotify and it didn't always do this, it
started a couple of months ago. At first I thought it was my speakers and
was looking into buying new ones, but now I KNOW it is not since everything
else plays fine.

[Sebasty]

@FIX-SPOTIFY

Alright, that's strange.

Did you try anything from that Geek link I sent?

I am slightly interested in the latency test now, as well as seeing if the CPU and memory usage is normal during Spotify playback. 🙂

Have you also tried open.spotify.com? It's a browser-based Spotify player.

It may be the soundcard driver doing this as well. I recommend taking a look into this comment about rolling back drivers, if you haven't already.

Do you have any USB sound devices you can try?

Keep me posted 🙂

[FIX-SPOTIFY]

@Sebasty

IT WORKED!!!!

Wow, thank you so much for your help! 

It was endlessly bothering me and now it's gone and I'm so glad I posted and so thankful for your response!

This is what worked for me: 

Changing Your Audio Format - the first suggestion from the link you provided:

https://www.howtogeek.com/285429/how-to-fix-crackling-or-popping-sound-on-a-windows-pc/

I think I was unable to find the article on my own because I kept searching for Spotify solutions since it was only affecting Spotify playback.

Anyone who is having noise issues with their Spotify should try this!

The steps are clearly listed in the article--but in short: right click the volume icon on your task bar, go into Sound, double click the default device, advanced tab, change the Default Format

I forgot what setting it was on before that cause the noises but I switched between a couple of the formats.

Some of them helped with the noise but still had occasional crackles.

The default format that ended up working for me was 24 bit, 44100 Hz (Studio Quality)

I'm just happy I can listen to my music uninterrupted again! 

Hopefully others going through the same issue can see this page and find a solution for themselves too.

^_^

[FIX-SPOTIFY]

LOL I SPOKE TOO SOON

I think the problem may be deeper/different than we thought? 

After closing the Sound window, the crackling is back. This is very confusing as it works fine when the window is open. As soon as I close the Sound window, the sounds are back again. 

@Sebasty

any ideas as to why? 

I mean I can keep the sound window open whenever I'm listening to music, but I shouldn't have to!

Now I'm not even sure if changing the Default Format even helped or if it's just due to the Sound window being open >_<

[FIX-SPOTIFY · Accepted solution]

The solution so far is to have the Sound window open.

This can be done by right clicking the volume icon on the task bar and selecting Sound.

As long as this window is open, there are no crackling noises. 

However I don't think this is a long term solution, because we are not solving the underlying problem. 

I also suspect that the reason this "works" may be due to the constant changing activity bar to the right of the speakers icon under the playback tab. I am not sure of this, but it makes sense to me since the crackling noises used to go away with active typing or mouse movement.

What is annoying about this "solution" is that the Sound window is not minimizable, so it just kinda of hangs out on your desktop 😕 

It may not bother some people, but I would ideally like to get to the bottom of this issue. Please reply if you have any ideas or clues. Thanks in advance!

[Sebasty]

@FIX-SPOTIFY

Well, that's a bizarre case really!

I've also been there, thinking that this has worked now and I'm free of lags (I have DPC Latency issues on this machine), and then I get a 30ms dropout as an answer. :') It's very disappointing.

(I have managed to reduce it considerably, though reinstalling Windows could solve it altogether)

Anyway, I would recommend downloading RKill and Malwarebytes. Run RKill, and after it has finished, run Malwarebytes' full scan.

RKill is a small program that detects and closes malicious processes, and Malwarebytes is a powerful malware detector and destroyer.
This is just to rule out the possibility of your issue being caused by some kind of malware. 🙂

I suppose you have Realtek (onboard soundcard)? You can take a look in here and see if any of those work: another Geek, this time in helpdesk.

I would also recommend trying to plug in some USB headset or speakers. If the noises are not present in USB sound devices, it might be your soundcard, and the cure is buying a dedicated soundcard.

What are the specs of your machine anyway? 🙂