Audio dip at end of song

[cukeumber]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 14

Operating System

iOS 16.4.1

My Question or Issue

When playing from a playlist, the audio dips out in the last second of the song. It cuts off then fades in very quickly. Sounds almost like a sidechain if that means anything. This has not been happening until the past couple days. For a while it would fix itself if I closed and reopened the app, but that’s stopped working. It does not happen with albums as far as I can tell. I played the same song from both the playlist page and the album/single page and the dip only happened in the playlist. It is not playlist specific, it’s happening on any playlist I play. This is happening with songs I have downloaded, so it’s a problem with the player and not with streaming. I have gapless playback enabled and no crossfade, and the issue is not between songs but within one song itself. It is extremely annoying and is really disrupting my listening experience. Driving me insane. I don’t understand how the player can not function properly. 

Edit: I attached a video example of this happening with multiple songs. Hopefully you can hear it. Very annoying, especially for songs with big endings or transitions into other songs.

Edit again: Also attached a video showing how this only happens in playlist and not in albums or singles.

[RoMa2300]

I do really hope you find a solution quickly. During my 1 hour run today I had my playlist on shuffle and nearly évery song dipped at the last second mark. Extremely frustrating listening experience. It took my vibe away every 3-4 minutes. Very, véry annoying.

[Yordan]

Hey everyone!

Our tech folks are working on a fix for this. While they're unable to provide an exact timeline when it will be released, rest assured this is actively being looked into. In the meantime, you can try setting the Crossfade to 1 sec to see if it would smoothen the transitions between the songs in your playlists and make them less prominent.

Make sure to also keep the app up to date so that you're always running the latest version of Spotify.

Cheers!

[Heathcorp]

FYI I’m having this issue too.

iPhone X

iOS 16.5.1 (c)

Spotify 8.8.52

[pftRobes]

This has also been happening to me for the past month and a half and it’s been driving me up a wall. I’ve tried turning on and off every playback setting to no avail. It happens in the last like, half-second of every song. In both attached videos it happens as the visual changes from one song to another and occurs whether the screen is on or not.

Device: iPhone 14 Pro

iOS Version: 16.5.1 (c)

Spotify Version: 8.8.54

[RoMa2300]

Hey Yordan and everyone at Spotify,

Is there still no progress on this issue? It’s really getting on my nerves. This has been going on forever now… Is anyone actually still looking into it? It feels like this is just being ignored, and it’s really, réally disturbing the listening experience.

[aseb13]

Device: iPhone XR

iOS Version: 16.5.1 (c)

Spotify Version: 8.8.56.514

Crossfade off

Gapless Playback on (issue still occurs with it off)

Automix off

Enable Audio Normalization on

Play Feedback Sounds on

This occurs for me as well, but usually after the app is opened and the first song is played. Other times it begins to occur immediately with the first song. It also occurs regardless of playing through my phone’s native speakers, an external speaker, or a pair of AirPods. I managed to capture videos of the same song playing with and without the issue.

[feedthatllama]

Hello all,
I am also having this exact issue and it is driving me insane. I switched over from Apple Music to Spotify a few years ago, only because everyone else I know is on Spotify and it is easier to share songs with friends/family when you're all on the same platform. But this is YET ANOTHER issue that I have experienced with Spotify that I never had with Apple Music. Honestly, if the problem is not resolved soon, I will be returning to Apple Music. I cannot listen to music this way, it is extremely jarring and annoying, it totally ruins the flow of playlists to the point where I just stop listening. 

[cukeumber]

reupping this to say that this is still happening to me and has not let up for months. i will be switching services unless this is fixed soon.

[liamh0]

I've been noticing this for a while now (around the past 8 months). Same effect in all of the videos sent in the replies in this thread. It never really bothered me too much, so I never looked it up, until I got a little curious tonight. Found this fairly recent thread, so I'll post some of my thoughts here, as well as a current running solution that works for me for those who are finding this feature/bug annoying.

Here are some of my observations:

This happens across systems, I notice in my car stereo the most, as it's probably the loudest. This is my iPhone 11 connected through bluetooth, and it happens across multiple iOS updates (I just recently updated from iOS 14 to 16), as well as multiple updates of Spotify. It also happens on Spotify desktop (Windows 10/11), both the windows store version and installer from Spotify mirror, running through a Focusrite interface into Audio-Technica headphones. However, I listened through many song endings on the web player and it didn't seem to happen there. I notice there are not any audio/playback settings on the web.

This happens across both albums and playlists for me. Found a few albums with songs with high audio at the end of the track, still heard the dip. I tried to test this with podcasts but it is hard to find podcasts that have the last second playing audio that can autoplay into another podcast that has audio in the first second.

On desktop, I tried tweaking some of the playback and audio quality settings. Automix, mono, and eq don't seem to affect anything, nor do the audio normalization settings. To test this, I played songs in a playlist at the ending few seconds and listened to the transition into the next. I heard it almost every time with various settings tweaked, except one out of 10 times it did not happen. Every time I didn't hear it happen, I tried it again without changing any settings and the dip came back.

CURRENT SOLUTION: Turning on crossfade and then setting it to 0s seems to fix this issue, at least for my current build on desktop (1.2.17.834.g26ee1129). Tweaking this from 0-1s on mobile iOS also seems to do the trick (build 1.7.78.426).

Given that this audio dip did not happen 100% of the time, and even less so on mobile where I have my playlists downloaded locally, it could have something to do with the way Spotify downloads a song to stream, queues it, and then plays. I notice the album art and song info changes to the next song before the first song ends, right around where the dip is. Or, it could have something to do with the way Spotify counts plays by a user. Or, just a bug having to do with crossfades that doesn't happen on the web player because of the limited playback settings. I might do more testing with offline mode on mobile with local downloads and with videos if I get the chance. 

[Meisaku]

Plan

Premium

Country

Finland

Device

Chromecast Audio, Klipsch The Three GVA (both individually and as a Chromecast speaker group)

My Question or Issue

For a week or so all songs from the daily mix playlists or normal playlists end early / skip to next track before the song actually ends, when listening to Spotify on Google Home smart speakers (both when activated by voice command or by the devices list on the Spotify app and then quitting the app or not keeping it in focus)

I measured it on one song and at least on that time it was around 5 seconds. Even the wife has asked what’s wrong with the music (so it is getting serious).

Playback on a Spotify client (iPhone app, Mac desktop app) thru it’s own speaker works fine, and also it does not seem to skip if the app is active and open even when playing on the external speakers, the issue occurs when the playback is “handled” independently by a Google smart speaker.

[Meisaku]

Seeing this was moved to a more generic thread I just want to clarify that I have no issues using the mobile or desktop apps, only when the playback is handled by the logic inside Google Home / Chromecast "standalone" - and thus you cannot even set crossfade settings as they are not active in this case. 

[zprewitt]

Plan: Premium

Country: US

Device: iPhone 12, iMac (2017)

Operating System: Monterey 12.6.8

Step 1: Make a playlist with two songs from different albums. Make sure the first song doesn't fade out entirely at the end but keeps going like it's segueing into the next song on the album.

Step 2: Scrub forward to the last few seconds of the first song, let it end, and go to the next song.

Result: I hear a small, half-second break in the music before it goes to the next track. I think what's happening is as soon as it goes to the next track, it replays the last half-second of the previous track. I've been able to repro this on my iPhone 12 using AirPods Pro 2, as well as on my iMac running Monterey through speakers.

[Eni]

Hey @zprewitt, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this here in the Community. 

Just to confirm, is this happening between every song in the playlist you created or only between some of them?

On another note, would you mind sending us a short screen recording of this behavior so we can take a closer look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to see it).

We'll be waiting for your reply. 

[zprewitt]

Just to confirm, is this happening between every song in the playlist you created or only between some of them?

- Not every song. As I stated in the original post, the first song has to segue into another track and not fade out or definitively end. That's the only way to really hear this issue.

_ I've attached a screen capture from my iPhone 12 (oddly, I am no longer able to reproduce the issue on the Mac desktop app). Pay attention to what happens at the very end of the Queens of the Stone Age song. As it reaches the end, it transitions to the next track, then there's a brief dip in the audio and you hear a half second more of the track before it starts playing the next track (will make more sense once you see it).

[TrantaLocked]

This happens on occasion in playlists. Every few songs I hear this sudden drop in volume at the end of a song.

[Schmeatball]

Yet another user with this issue. iPhone 13 pro, iOS 16.6, automix and gapless are off, slider at zero, every audio device does it. Very odd. 

[Alex]

Hey folks,

If you haven't already, please provide us with the exact details of the devices this is happening on:

- Device model and OS version

- Spotify app version

- Are you playing a song/ album/ playlist?

@zprewitt, thanks for the recording.

Cheers.

[eivind109]

Device: iPhone 11 Pro Max, running iOS 16.6

Spotify version: 8.8.62.549

This is not a problem that occurs in specific playlist/albums/podcasts, this goes for every piece of audio on Spotify, so I think you can cross this off the list. As previously stated here, this happens when a new song is about to begin, and I therefore think this has something to do with the loading process of the next song. Though I am no expert, perhaps a better preloading system where both the album art/canvas and the song itself is loaded more slowly/steadily while the song before it is playing, because right now, I think it has to load a good amount of data in a very short amount of time, causing syncing issues that lead to a song «ending» before it should. Just my two cents, as I do not know much about how this process is handled.

[cstark27]

iPhone 14 Pro iOS 16.6

spotify 8.8.62.549

it happens anytime there is a song that is supposed to fade into the next one on an album, BUT when that next track doesn’t come after. So if it’s on a mix, a playlist, a station, etc.

Heres track 1 leading into track 2 on Linkin Park’s Meteora. Then the next example is track 1 leading into track 9. Track 9 has a small bit of “silence” at the beginning which exacerbates the issue. When the silence begins near the end of the clip is actually the start of the next track. You can hear the issue right before that.

[SaviorNate]

I have the same issue. It tends to happen on songs where there is a distinct tempo at the end, and it always happens on the last beat of the song. This happens no matter the bpm or genre.