Music skips when entering/exiting areas with bad signal

[pb8185]

So while I was listening to music during my daily commute riding the subway, I noticed that the music skipped horribly. It doesn't skip during any other occassion. Because the subway often changes from good service areas to no service areas, my conclusion was that maybe when the phone loses 3G network and tries to find it again, music skips. So whenever I'm listening to music in the subway, I turn off 3G, and it has never skipped again.

There's another topic on motorola's forum that corroborates my conclusion https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/17635;jsessionid=FDEFE491CB915918463CE78EB1F9F8E5.node0

I know there have been many topics regarding music skipping but non that I found talks about this as the potential cause.

 

[Backnblack]

Nice Find!

Thanks for the Link, most are too busy complaining to look for a fix

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

I use MixZing to listen to my Audiobooks and I found that it will skip if I leave WiFi on and leave home. As WiFi is trying to maintain a connection, the music will cutout and then back in. Luckily where I live, I always have 3G.

 

[minmongoblin]

How do you turn off 3G? Do you just use Airplane Mode, because then you can't get calls at all.

 

[pb8185]

in mobile network settings -> use only 2G networks

 

[SwordOfWar]

I use MixZing to listen to my Audiobooks and I found that it will skip if I leave WiFi on and leave home. As WiFi is trying to maintain a connection, the music will cutout and then back in. Luckily where I live, I always have 3G.

3G signal is very weak at my home, and as I'm streaming music over pandora, it will cut a song short (skipping to another one) or stop completely until I restart the app. This happens when transitioning between using WiFi and 3G for the music sctreaming.

My conclusion is that when switching between 3G and WiFi, most apps will lose connection and need to reconnect.

I have also noticed the phone will try to use a WiFi connection even when you are too far away to get a useful connection. When I get near my home, it connects to WiFi, but since I'm a little too far away, I can't actually use the connection. As I walk closer to my home it starts working normal.

This could be improved if our music streaming apps supported "resume downloads" (continuing a failed or lost download connection without starting from the beginning of the file/song).

But Pandora seems to just play the part you downloaded so far, then immediately open a new song instead of trying to re-download the part it lost from the current song due to the connection issue.

So yes, the phone has issues with smoothly switching between WiFi and 3G.

 

[roys]

I just found that each time the music is skipping on my DROID, the following logcat message appear !!!
Which indicates that when music skip occurring, DROID is switching between networks (UMTS, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA).... etc

That's why fixed 2G mode solves the problem.

D/NetworkLocationProvider( 1160): onDataConnectionStateChanged 10
D/NotificationMgr( 1212): updateNetworkSelection()...state = 0 new network
D/PhoneApp( 1212): mReceiver: ACTION_ANY_DATA_CONNECTION_STATE_CHANGED
D/PhoneApp( 1212): - state: CONNECTED
D/PhoneApp( 1212): - reason: null
D/NotificationMgr( 1212): hideDataDisconnectedRoaming()...
D/MobileDataStateTracker( 1160): default Received state= CONNECTED, old= CONNECT
ED, reason= (unspecified), apnTypeList= *
D/MobileDataStateTracker( 1160): replacing old mInterfaceName (rmnet0) with rmne
t0 for mms
D/MobileDataStateTracker( 1160): replacing old mInterfaceName (rmnet0) with rmne
t0 for supl
D/MobileDataStateTracker( 1160): replacing old mInterfaceName (rmnet0) with rmne
t0 for dun
D/MobileDataStateTracker( 1160): replacing old mInterfaceName (rmnet0) with rmne
t0 for hipri

In addition, I tried few times that the music lag to dead (no sound, need adjust ringer in other to resume the sound back), and the following message appeared:

W/AudioFlinger( 1057): write blocked for 999 msecs, 31 delayed writes, thread 0x
b9c8
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7b5000, server=007b3000
.............
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7c6000, server=007c4000
D/dalvikvm( 1160): GC freed 38841 objects / 2112112 bytes in 144ms
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7c6800, server=007c4800
W/AudioFlinger( 1057): write blocked for 1007 msecs, 66 delayed writes, thread 0
xb9c8
I/dumpstate( 3796): done
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7c7000, server=007c5000
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7c7800, server=007c5800
......
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7c9800, server=007c7800
W/AudioTrack( 1057): obtainBuffer timed out (is the CPU pegged?) 0x22710 user=00
7ca000, server=007c8000

It absolutely related to audio driver (kernel) bug !