Audio "cuts out" while playing

[Drew Jackson]

I've had this problem with 2 separate phones, on 2 separate car stereos with completely different audio hardware set ups. So to me the problem is somewhere within the app. It also doesn't do it with all audio tracks, only some of them. And it only does it on my 2 car stereos, never with bluetooth headphones or bluetooth speakers. Only car stereos.

 

So the problem is while a track is playing, the right channel of the audio gets cut out, not completely, just muffled way down. It also muffles the volume of the left side, but not as bad as the right. Sometimes it'll do that for 2-5 seconds then come right back for a few seconds then go out again, so on & so on. Then on other tracks it won't do it for the entire song. There's no rhyme or reason to when it does it, it's seemingly random.

 

I've looked around in the settings menu with zero success. I'm not an audio engineer so I have no idea what most of those settings do. I just made modifications to a few of the settings that I think I understood with no success.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm just looking to have the music play without getting muffled. I'm not looking for the highest res possible or anything fancy. Just play. This is a new to me problem. I remember never having any problems with PA, it just worked. I've been using it for years now.

[andrewilley]

Sounds like what happens when a notification tone is generated, but for some reason you are no hearing the tone. Or does it happen reliably at the same place in the same track? What Output method are you using, and what Audio Focus settings? (both in the PA Settings=>Audio submenus)

Andre

[Drew Jackson]

It happens at any time, regardless of incoming notifications. I shouldn't have labeled the topic as audio cut out. It doesn't really cut out. It sounds as if someone puts a pillow over the right channel speakers. You can still hear the audio, but it's very muffled. 

 

It does not happen reliably at all. There's no pattern to it. I can't make it do, much in the same way I can't make it stop. It happens on some audio tracks but not others. Sometimes it happens within the first 5-10 seconds of a track. Then some tracks it won't happen for the entire song. It's very strange.

 

I forgot to mention the output method, I'm glad you asked. I play the tracks via bluetooth to my car stereo's. I've never tried it with an aux cable or the usb patch cable plugged directly into the back of the stereos. Those are 2 good trouble shooting methods I've yet to try.

 

I attached screenshots of the Audio Focus settings.

 

Also my phone is a Samsung Note 10+ on Android version version 12. But I had the same problem on my previous phone, the Samsung Note 9.

[MotleyG]

@Drew Jackson I would try enabling the setting for "Short Audio Focus Change / Calls" and see if this results in the music pausing instead of becoming muffled. You would see the Play button change between Play and Pause if it happens. If this is the case, there is some notification action your phone is doing, such as an incoming message, navigation, etc.

Since you currently have that feature disabled, the Android OS is trying to "Duck" the volume instead. What is strange is the option to change the Duck Volume is greyed out on your device in those screen shots. If the above advice doesn't work, the next thing to try is to reset your current audio output settings to default, or to switch to a different one (OpenSL ES/AudioTrack/Hi-Res Output).

[maxmp]

@Drew Jackson Pause in call works only on old Androids and few Androids which allow monitoring the call state (MIUI). Short Audio Focus option should be used for other devices.

[Drew Jackson]

I haven't had time just yet to sit in the car and try the above recommended changes. I'll report back when I have some time to try them. Hopefully in the next day or 2. I did drive my sisters car this morning and played music via bluetooth to her old single din pioneer car stereo with no audio weirdness. 

[MotleyG]

2 hours ago, Drew Jackson said:

I haven't had time just yet to sit in the car and try the above recommended changes. I'll report back when I have some time to try them. Hopefully in the next day or 2. I did drive my sisters car this morning and played music via bluetooth to her old single din pioneer car stereo with no audio weirdness. 

Do you have another device trying to connect to the system that is cutting out while playing? Maybe they are fighting for access?

[Drew Jackson]

My phone is the only device that I know of that would be connecting to either of the stereos that it affects. No other phones are in the vehicle when it happens.

[MotleyG]

59 minutes ago, Drew Jackson said:

My phone is the only device that I know of that would be connecting to either of the stereos that it affects. No other phones are in the vehicle when it happens.

I get the occasional hiccup in my Grand Cherokee, but never in my Buick. I can't explain it, other than I believe there are so many devices out there now that almost always there is a chance that somebody around could be attempting to pair a device to something else.

Check the radio device list to see if that one phone is the only one paired.

[Drew Jackson]

I haven't forgotten about this thread, I've just been incredibly busy. I'm hoping to have some time today to play around with the recommended audio output settings. I've reset them all to their defaults, but have yet to try it in the car(s). I'll report back hopefully today.

[Drew Jackson]

I was only in one vehicle yesterday running some quick errands for about 15 minutes, but it seems to be "solved". All I did was reset the defaults for the audio output settings as suggested & the audio didn't cut out once while I was driving around, but.....Now for some strange reason the music on my phone won't stop playing after I shut the car off & exit the vehicle. It just keeps playing on my phone. Not a big deal, I'll take this problem over the audio cutting out. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Drew Jackson]

So the audio doesn't stop on exiting the vehicle on only one of my 2 vehicles. The main vehicle it stops just fine, the secondary vehicle it doesn't. I don't drive the secondary vehicle all that often so I'll call it a success. Thanks for all the input folks.

[slizzap]

Based on your description I seem to be having a similar or the same problem. I have a Joying Android head unit in my car with RCA output to an amp powering my front and rear component sets and a sub. What happens to me is that sometimes at seemingly random time the audio will drop on the right channel. I'll elaborate a bit on "seemingly random". There is no audio event that's triggering this...it's not like I'm getting a call, or text message, or navigation prompt that's overtaking audio...those are not a factor. Sometimes it will just happen mid-song, sometimes it happens when it changes tracks. One time I did a reboot of the head unit and the problem went away. I've tried closing/re-opening Poweramp and that didn't make a difference. Randomly it will just stop. That said 95% of the time I'm listening to music this doesn't happen...but that 5% seems to be increasing.

As to what's happening - It very much sounds like the left channel increases in volume while the right channel decreases in volume. Since it's just me in the car it's hard to determine at the time it's happening. I just lean over so that my head is approximately centered in the car and the audio is very clearly much louder in the left channel. I have all the equalizer stuff in Poweramp turned off/default, but if I open the Android equalizer and play with the balance and put the balance all the way to the right, the left channel turns off and the right is decreased from what it should be...I would say maybe 25-50% the volume that it should be at. When I put the balance all the way to the left, the right channel turns off and the left is either at the proper volume or slightly louder than it should.

I was about to post in here but then came across this thread. I was just looking for some thoughts on where I could start to troubleshoot this, as it very clearly looks like a software issue (either Poweramp or Android) and not a hardware issue (amp or head unit). Potentially this could be a head unit issue I suppose, but again I would "expect" that it would work or not...the factors at play here don't point to hardware, cabling, etc. I'm looking to start by seeing if there's something I can do inside of Poweramp to confirm what's happening and narrow down whether it's a/the culprit in this issue. Perhaps there's some debug logging I can enable just to see if it's reporting a change in configuration of channel balance?

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[MotleyG]

@slizzap Do you have any other player apps on that same device that you can try, to confirm of this is isolated to Poweramp, or a symptom of the device itself?

[slizzap]

Good idea and something that was a passing thought at one point but that slipped my mind. I'll try that next. Strange thing is that this issue plagued me in the past but was very infrequent. Last month I updated my head unit with the latest ROM version and updated Poweramp to the current build at that time, and it seems like the problem is now happening every day. Theoretically I should be able to wait until it happens, close Poweramp, and then try playing the same song in another app and see if it's doing the same thing. If that doesn't shed any new light on the issue, then I'll permanently switch to another music app for a period of time and see what happens.

Thanks for the input.

[Drew Jackson]

My problem still persists. It doesn't seem to be as frequent as it used to be, but it's still there. It's virtually impossible for me to troubleshoot because it happens at random times with random tracks. Any time I'm available to sit in the car without driving somewhere it never seems to do it. Then other times I'll be in the vehicle driving somewhere & it'll start doing it. I know it's related to Poweramp I just don't know what to do to cure it. I tried installing a few other music players but they seemed to be riddled with bloatware/spyware, so I uninstalled them almost immediately. If you come up with another music player that seems to install fairly clean, I'll give it a go & see what I can come up with.

 

It's still just so odd to me that mine only does it in my vehicles. It never does it when I'm using a bluetooth speaker.