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Premium - Crackling, Stuttering

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Premium - Crackling, Stuttering

After a day of futzing around with this, I'm at wits end.

 

I'm using a Dell Latitude laptop (work laptop).  It has a fully updated version of Windows 7 64-bit.  Since the last update (I think) I've bee hearing crackling and stuttering in any and all tracks.  It comes and goes, there could be 30 seconds of pristine playback and then a brief crackle/stutter.  

 

After searching the forums and Intertubes, here's the things I've tried:

 

1. Resetting sound device settings, and trying various stample rates and bit-depths

2. Toggling off Hardware Acceleration

3. Toggling off Play all songs at same volume

4.  High quality streaming

5.  Downloading playlists local

 

I went so far as to drop $100 on a USB DAC that bypasses my built in Soundcard in my laptop and docking station, and the crackling still persists.  

 

It does NOT happen in iTunes, Windows Media Player, or in YouTube videos.  Only Spotify.  I'm getting really frustrated, as I'm paying $10 a month for a service that is almost unusable to me for 8-10 hours a day.  

 

It works fine on my iPhone and my several Macs at home without issues.  Only my Windows 7 machine that's causing the problem.  

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183 Replies

With Both.

 

For example, the default MP3's included with Windows Media player play fine in Windows Media Player.

 

When I play those same tracks via Spotify's Local Collection, I hear the crackle/pops and stutter randomly, just like Spotify native tracks.  That led me to believe it's an issue with the Application itself.  

For me this is now happening not only with Spotify but with any streaming content (YouTube, etc). It doesn not happen with local saved files. This makes me think the problem is with my sound card chip or driver, but I haven't been able to find a fix. All drivers are up to date. I'm using a new Dell Latitude e6250. NVIDIA High Definition Audio + IDT High Definition Audio Codec.

If it only happens with local files: do you have those on your harddisk or an external or network drive?
If it mainly occurs with all streaming and not local files: maybe you have some network issues. Try rebooting your router.
Community Ergo Sum

Slightly different behavious today - seems to be crackling less, but it's still there. I've tried both in offline mode and while online, with a playlist that's downloaded, and the crackles are there in both cases. Notably it crackels when you pause and unpause.

 

I then undownloaded the playlist, and played it again - still the same.

There is an easy solution for your problem! It seems that the virus scanners are screening your stream continuously. I excluded the spotify.exe process and everything works fine right now. I use Microsoft security essentials & Malwarebytes. For Malwarebytes I took the whole map in user/appdata/roaming/Spotify!

 

I hope it helped!

Afraid not - my problem is on my Android phone. No AV running. And it only sytarted happening a few weeks ago - up until then it was fine. Maybe the recent Sense update has something to do with it...


@isaidNO wrote:

Afraid not - my problem is on my Android phone. No AV running. And it only sytarted happening a few weeks ago - up until then it was fine. Maybe the recent Sense update has something to do with it...


Maybe this is too obvious, but does your phone have some kind of built in equalizer apps or settings that can be turned off?

Community Ergo Sum

It has Beatsaudio - whic I've tried turning off, but I still get crackles. Nothign else as far as I'm aware

I also have that problem on my Nexus 7 and Nexus S but it only happens when I play and pause the music.  Afterwards I'm not hearing it at all. I'm trying to live with it, I'm using Google Music for playing my cd's. Shame Spotify won't improve their services because it has a lot potential. They should be giving us and the musicians a platform like the new Myspace 🙂

I think the amount of troubleshooting going on in this thread is pointing to a non-environment issue.  It seems to be a software issue.  Given the fact that for me it happens not just on Spotify tracks, but also playing non-Spotify local files THROUGH the Spotify software, it's got to be a software issue.  

 

I had my work laptop re-imaged for another issue, and a fresh install of Spotify on a fresh install of Windows still didn't solve the problem.  

Same problem,

 

Brand new Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook

HTC One X

Nokia Lumia 800

online and offline

streaming and local.

 

Just read 4 or 5 different threads on this issue and the support is embarrassing, can't believe I have seen so many try turning this off or that on, and when that is tried and doesn't work there is no response, but to blame the individual's hardware.

 

There is a problem, please sort it out or give a proper response rather than you might want to try this or maybe you could try turning it off and on again.......

Agreed, still waiting for Spotify to admit this is a problem with the Software.

 

I work for a software company, and if this many users were reporting the exact same symptoms on multiple installations using dozens and dozens of permeatations of hardware, we'd have come to the conclusion that it's a software problem AGES ago.  And publically commuted that saying we were working on a fix.  

 

Seriously, Spotify, I don't know what kind of QA testing you guys do, but please step it up and address this issue.  I love the service, but darn it's annoying.


@chrislounsbury wrote:

Agreed, still waiting for Spotify to admit this is a problem with the Software.

 

I work for a software company, and if this many users were reporting the exact same symptoms on multiple installations using dozens and dozens of permeatations of hardware, we'd have come to the conclusion that it's a software problem AGES ago.  And publically commuted that saying we were working on a fix.  

 

Seriously, Spotify, I don't know what kind of QA testing you guys do, but please step it up and address this issue.  I love the service, but darn it's annoying.


The troubling thing is that we're unable to replicate it ourselves... Would you have any other applications open at all that could cause problems with your connection, processor usage or memory? Things like torrenting clients, any background cleaning processes, so on? 

Airhorn Enthusiast

Same thing here. Sony Xperia S, intermittent crackles at loud volume which blows my ears off. Tends to happen on same track if I start a playlist from the beginning but if I play the same track straight away it is fine so doesnt appear to be track corruption.

Pausing and then playing doesnt resolve but going back to start of track solves the issue. Making it very difficult to listen to music on the train.

I should add this happens both when I have apps running and straight after reboots.

Strangly enough I had the same issue and I found out that Malwarebytes was causing the stuttering/crackling. 

 

 

Strangly enough I had the same issue and I found out that Malwarebytes was causing the stuttering/crackling. 

 

 

Sounds like your using smartphone remote like Spotimore. 

So the issue seems to have dicipated over the last couple weeks, at least it hasn't been as noticable.

 

That is until Metallica came out.  Been listening to Metallica this morning (Starred, and sync'd so the files are LOCAL) and the stuttering/chopping/clipping is way bad.  If I listen to songs I've had in my local cache for a while, I still get the occassional stutter/pop but nothing near as bad as listening to a newly released song.

 

Could it be something related to how the software caches the files?  

I've suffered with this problem for months on end.

 

 

Like you, I've tried every suggestion out there (H/W accel, sound enhancements, and the kitchen sink). I'm running Win7 Enterprise with Sophos Protection (that cannot be turned off, since this is a work laptop). Even with absolutely no other open applications, Spotify Premium crackles for both local (non-Spotify) and locally-cached (Spotify) content, not to mention cloud streaming. I've even tried using a BitHead USB DAC to no avail.

 

 

I've got high-end headphones (Sennheiser HD595s), and every other music player sounds flawless (WMP, Foobar, and even Google Music cloud streaming). I can't wait for play.spotify.com to go live for me. I think I'll have better luck playing through the browser than the local client.

 

 

I love Spotify, but this makes me a sad panda. My Google Music is filled to the brim, so switching from Spotify isn't terribly difficult, but I really want this to work.

 

 

Spotify Team, any suggestions?

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