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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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clear as mud this , but uninstall reinstall seems to fix. 😄

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yes, it seems that reinstalling fix the annoying bug

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Ok I fixed the problem and I have to say I am kinda embarresed to say what it is guys.

You all ready for this. Its really this easy. I have spent a ton of money and I have been so pissed off about it and now to find out what it is im just even more pissed. It is the bluetooth headphones. Everyone go get your other set of plug in headphones and turn off the bluetooth headset and go back to your plug in headphones and guess what no more skipping and choppy **bleep** to deal with. Thank god I have to say I am over wireless **bleep** not working right and causing this much **bleep** all the time. Trust me guys its the wireless headphones and bluetooth. Happy music with no more skipping , thank god

cheers guys.!!

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Another solution is if you are using wireless headphones try unpairing then pairing again - that solved it for me.

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My Realtek audio driver seemed to be the issue on my PC. (I was getting crackling on desktop app, web app, but never on my phone).

 

For me, the only thing that worked permanently (uninstalling/reinstalling did not work long-term), was rolling back my audio driver for my headphones/speakers to the native driver.
1. Open the Device Manager (type devmgmt.msc in the Windows search box).
2. Expand the "Sound, video & game controllers" and right click on "Realtek High Definition Audio". Target the specific device you are trying to prevent crackling on (Headphones, Speakers, etc).
3. Select to "Update Driver Software".
4. Click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Click "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer".
6. Put a check in the box "Show compatible hardware" if not already checked.
7. In the list of devices, click "High Definition Audio" or "Generic Audio Device" (the native driver).
8. Click "Next".
9. On the Update Driver Warning box, click "Yes" (install the driver). 
10. Restart the laptop if prompted. If not prompted, then no need to restart.

 

After this discovery, I'm going to try to reach out to Realtek support to see if they can clarify if this is just a compatibility issue between the driver software and Spotify.

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Followed this thread, had all the same problems.  Got it to sound a bit better.

 

Windows 10, opened start menu, typed "defender" to open the Windows Defender Security Center.  Wne to "App & Browser control" , Scrolled to bottom and clicked "Exploit protection settings", At top changed to "Program Settings", Hit "Add program to customize", Add program by name "Spotify.exe", and in the window that pops up (Or scroll down to your new addition) Check the box for every item....to Override the system settings, and turn them all to off.  Rebooted spotify, and the crackling is much better for me at least.

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Hello.

That's rather worrying. We might need to get a little more information here -

* When Spotify is running, open up Task Manager. How much of the CPU is Spotify using, and how much CPU is being used in total.
* Are you using any firewalls / anti-virus programs at all? If so, is Spotify added to the Exceptions list?
* Are there any other media applications open?

Airhorn Enthusiast

No other media apps running.  In fact I've disabled all Windows sounds as well.  Spotify has been running for about an hour, I'm listening to an offline playlist:

 

CPU: 00 - 01

Memory: 104,276k

 

System-wide stats:

CPU: 0-1% (Quad i7)

Memory Used: 1.93GB / 4.00GB

 

My company uses the Microsoft Security Essentials product for Anti-virus.  Spotify wasn't added as an exclusion, so I added the \AppData\Local\Spotify folder as an exclusion, as well as the processes from spotify.exe and spotifylauncher.exe.

 

Had no effect, restarted and got a brief crackle/stutter in the first song played.

So I got so annoyed by this that I just uninstalled Spotify and re-installed it using a fresh download of the client from the website.

 

Now not only do I have the clicking and stutters, but the audio quality seems severely degraded, even though I have the High Quality streaming box checked and increased the Cache size to 100GB.

I had the same problem start yesterday. It occurs on our IPhone, Android3, and IPad. I emailed customer support and was blown off and told to check the forum for a solution. Thanks Spotify.


@Rodowens wrote:
I had the same problem start yesterday. It occurs on our IPhone, Android3, and IPad. I emailed customer support and was blown off and told to check the forum for a solution. Thanks Spotify.

It works flawlessly on my non-Windows devices.  The sound quality coming off my iPhone is 10x better than the Windows app.  Likewise at home, I can stream Spotify from both my Mac's wireless to my home theatre system and it sounds great.

 

So it's only happening for me on the Windows client.

It's rather odd that it's just isolated to the one computer. I assume that you're all using the same internet connection.

One thing you could try is this -
1. Restart your PC.
2. Right-click on the Spotify icon in the start up menu.
3. Select "Properties" and under the tab "Compatibility Mode" uncheck "Run this program in compatibility mode"
4. Start Spotify.
Airhorn Enthusiast


@David wrote:
It's rather odd that it's just isolated to the one computer. I assume that you're all using the same internet connection.

One thing you could try is this -
1. Restart your PC.
2. Right-click on the Spotify icon in the start up menu.
3. Select "Properties" and under the tab "Compatibility Mode" uncheck "Run this program in compatibility mode"
4. Start Spotify.

The Compatability mode wasn't checked.  Just for kicks I tried running it in compat mode for Win XP SP3 and no change.  No change using other types as well.

 

I also checked Run as Administrator (thinking maybe it wasn't using the sound-system exclusively or something) and no change as well.  

 

It's worth noting that today the sound is playing at full resolution, unlike yesterday where it all sounded muffled or like it was playing at 96kbps.  But the crackling/stutter is persisting.

Also, the crackling/stutter occurs in both the Radio and in tracks in my playlist.

 

My internet connection is 40Mbps bi-directional fiber.  

More information:

 

Playing a track in Windows Media player = fine

Playing that same track through Spotify using the Local Files folder = crackling

 

I've definately narrowed down every possibility, it's the Spotify client that's causing the issue, even when playing non-Spotify local content.

I don't have premium, and my Spotify sound this week has been obnoxious.  It's very jarring when there are crackles in the middle of a song. Nothing has changed with my computer or my internet usage. 

 

It makes me never want to upgrade.  Why would people want to upgrade to a product that probably won't be better? Your situation is a great example of that.

Spotify peoples: Any other ideas on this one?

Just wanted to say I have been having this problem on my Dell Latitude E6250. Never happened on my old laptop, which actually had a weaker sound card. Have tried pretty much everything to fix the crackling, but nothing works.

The problem is still occuring for me.  Although I saw there may have been an application update today but haven't had a chance to install it yet.  

 

You might want to try the recommendations suggested in this thread - http://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Volume-problems-Here-s-my-solution/m-p/119406/highli...

This might stop this crackling for you!
Airhorn Enthusiast


@David wrote:
You might want to try the recommendations suggested in this thread - http://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Volume-problems-Here-s-my-solution/m-p/119406/highli...

This might stop this crackling for you!

David, good tip but I tried this already.  In fact I tried it on both my internal soundcard and my external DAC, and it didn't make a difference.  

Thanks for the tip David, but I don't have "Enable audio enhancements" or the "Signal enhancements" box. I'm using Windows 7. All audio enhancement are disabled, however. It doesn't make a difference to the crackling whether they are set to on or off.

I am having the same issue here.  The crackling and stuttering almost sounds like digital artifacts.  These can damage you listening equipment as some of the frequcies Except the crackling is extremely loud regardless of the volume spotify is set at.  I am afraid I will damage my hearing or my expensive heaphones.  I am using an external USB DAC and do not have this issue on my laptop, only my Win XP desktop.  I hope they come out with a fix for this as Spotify is truly amazing.

I have this too on Android, started very recently. I have a bunch of downloaded tracks for my tube journey - all of them crackle intermittently. Used to be fine, started maybe a few days ago. Phone is HTC One X on O2

Does this only happen with local files or also with streaming and/or offline Spotify content?

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