Music Glitching Every few minutes

[davidcarso]

Plan

Premium

Country

 Australia

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 7

My Question or Issue

 About a month ago, I had to reinstall spotify on my Computer as it became very unresponsive, it would take several minutes to load and I couldnt search for artists or playlists.

After the reinstall it was quick again however now the audio will glitch every few minutes. It sounds like the cpu cannot keep up with the audio processing however there are no spikes in cpu usage anywhere.

This only happens in spotify and nowhere else on my PC, it does it for both local and streamed music.

Things I have tried:

- Fresh Reinstallation of Spotify (Multiple times)

- enabling/disabling hardware acceleration

- Using spotify on other devices (they all work fine)

- Resinstalling Audio Drivers

The only other thing I have in my set up is a Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interface which runs all my audio and I havent had any issues with it at all.

I have seen a couple other topics with the same issue but none of their solutions helped me unfortunately, I would appreciate any help

Thanks 🙂

[Sebasty]

Hey @davidcarso

I have the same sound interface! 🙂

Anyway, by fresh reinstall you mean you deleted the Spotify files from appdata before reinstalling?

I'd suggest checking that the buffer size for the interface is high. For me it's 1024 (max), if it was any lower I'd get dropouts and glitches.

Other changes I've made is disabling Communications setting:
1. Find the speaker icon on Taskbar. Right-click on it and select Sounds.
2. In the opened window go to COmmunications and set Windows to do nothing.

Enabling some settings in Focusrite properties:

1. Right-click on the speaker icon on Taskbar. Select Playback devices.

2. Select the Focusrite and click on Properties.
3. Go to Advanced tab and do this:

I also have the highest setting in Default Format (matching what I have in Focusrite's contol panel)

Another setting which helped me with latency (and is generally recommended in favor of good sound) is this:

1. Go to Start menu, go to Computer and right-click on it. Select Properties.
2. On the left-hand menu select 'Advanced System Settings'.
3. Select the Settings under Performance (under Advanced tab).
4. Go to Advanced tab in the opened window and adjust for best performance of background services.

5. Click OK to close the windows.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

[davidcarso]

Hi @Sebasty

Unfortunately none of that has made any difference, im still getting these glitches 😞

I've also tried another USB port and still no luck

[Sebasty]

@davidcarso

Did you remove Spotify files from %Appdata% too before reinstalling?

If not, then I highly recommend it, as these files can often cause problems.

1. Close Spotify and uninstall it.
2. Go to %AppData% in Windows Explorer, and delete any Spotify folders you find in Local and Roaming folders.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Install Spotify.

(You can also try the offline installer)

At this point I'd run a scan with Malwarebytes.
Does the same glitchiness happen when using the web player?

[davidcarso]

@Sebasty

I tried the reinstall again to make sure i didnt leave any files around and it hasnt changed.

I ran a scan with Trend Micro Security not long ago and it came up with nothing.

Web player didnt have any issues.

[Sebasty · Accepted solution]

@davidcarso

One thing you can try is making your Scarlett the default audio device.
You can do it by right-clicking on speaker icon on Taskbar, choosing 'Playback devices', selecting the device and setting it as default.

(Spotify tends to have problems when the audio device is not set as default.)

If glitches persist: if you have another audio interface (even onboard soundcard), try it to see if the glitches happen then as well.

If the glitches are gone, then the soundcard might still need a reinstall.
Found one user who had same problems, they did this:

---

First remove everything Focusrite related in the Device manager. Disconnect the Scarlett, and then to be 100% sure, click on "view" and enable "show hidden devices", then find everything named Focusrite something something, right click and select "uninstall device". If you can tick "delete the driver software for this device" or something similar, do that as well. Reboot PC. Install Focusrite driver.

---

Make sure Spotify is whitelisted in any firewall and antivirus app, sometimes traffic scans can cause pretty regular audio drops too.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

[davidcarso]

@Sebasty

This seems to have fixed it!

I did already reinstall the audio drivers but i didnt remove them from the device manager.

Thanks heaps mate! its been bugging me for too long now 🙂

[shanedeether]

that helped me too (total removal of focusrite drivers and installing them again). Thanks, it was a pain to listen with glitches!