sd card Poweramp lags when entering folders and playing songs

[DaKoda]

I recently bought a Samsung 256GB Pro SD card, and after formatting it, I transferred my music to it. However, the music now has terrible lag and Poweramp fails to function properly. I have also done full scan multiple times and made sure access was granted to the sd cards music folder.

 

[andrewilley]

26 minutes ago, DaKoda said:

However, the music now has terrible lag and Poweramp fails to function properly.

Could you elaborate on what is actually happening, as that report provides nothing at all to go on.

Do you have a lot of files stored in any one subfolder?

Andre

[DaKoda]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

Could you elaborate on what is actually happening, as that report provides nothing at all to go on.

Do you have a lot of files stored in any one subfolder?

Andre

When I try to enter my folders/albums theres is either a delay of a few seconds or it just doesn't enter. It also is slow when scrolling through the app and it takes long to load a song or show it's title as i can hear the music before the song title or cover changes. The only subfolder with alot is my singles folder which is 550 tracks.

[MotleyG]

18 minutes ago, DaKoda said:

When I try to enter my folders/albums theres is either a delay of a few seconds or it just doesn't enter. It also is slow when scrolling through the app and it takes long to load a song or show it's title as i can hear the music before the song title or cover changes. The only subfolder with alot is my singles folder which is 550 tracks.

What happens if you try to browse through that external SD card folder structure with a file browser app? Is it still slow to load?

You don't mention your device or Android OS version. You could be experiencing some library issues between an older and newer version of Android, and are seeing the "benefits" of having Google develop a "safer" system for you. 

[maxmp]

@DaKoda there shouldn't be any lag if card is OK. While Poweramp may scan very large number of files for a long time (like 10 minutes), Android itself will scan same amount for days, causing some lag and increased battery usage, but not the major one.

If you see major lags it means there are bad blocks on card. Current Android SD card file system implementations will just hang/freeze the app when such block is read. This is more apparent if apps with active IO (such as Poweramp during it very fast scan which touches all the music files on sd card).

In this case try to check SD card for errors on PC. Android tools won't check it properly nor fix it.

[DaKoda]

9 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

What happens if you try to browse through that external SD card folder structure with a file browser app? Is it still slow to load?

You don't mention your device or Android OS version. You could be experiencing some library issues between an older and newer version of Android, and are seeing the "benefits" of having Google develop a "safer" system for you. 

Hi I'm on Android version 13 and when browising through my music library in my files app i have no lag or delay

[DaKoda]

4 minutes ago, maxmp said:

@DaKoda there shouldn't be any lag if card is OK. While Poweramp may scan very large number of files for a long time (like 10 minutes), Android itself will scan same amount for days, causing some lag and increased battery usage, but not the major one.

If you see major lags it means there are bad blocks on card. Current Android SD card file system implementations will just hang/freeze the app when such block is read. This is more apparent if apps with active IO (such as Poweramp during it very fast scan which touches all the music files on sd card).

In this case try to check SD card for errors on PC. Android tools won't check it properly nor fix it.

Alright thanks I'll try to take it back to samsung tmr and see what they say and if they can replace it.

Edited July 28, 2023 by DaKoda

[MotleyG]

3 hours ago, DaKoda said:

Hi I'm on Android version 13 and when browising through my music library in my files app i have no lag or delay

Make sure you do NOT use the legacy mode in the folder setup.

Edited July 28, 2023 by MotleyG

[DaKoda]

4 hours ago, MotleyG said:

Make sur you do NOT use the legacy mode in the folder setup.

So I did some testing and the music plays fine with no lag when using playlists

Edited July 29, 2023 by DaKoda

[andrewilley]

Could Android be slowing down access in the background with its own scanner? Sound like a drastic slowdown though. I place a .nomedia file in my own audio folder so only Poweramp scans it (the system scanner ignores such folders) which might help. Won't work with the default system Music folder by the way, as Google will remove the .nomedia file.

11 hours ago, DaKoda said:

So I did some testing and the music plays fine with no lag when using playlists

That tends to say it's the folder parsing process that's taking the time. Does the Library contain all your music files with correct titles/artists/albums/cover art/etc? If not, it could mean the scanner has not completed its work for some reason. Try turning off Auto Scan in Settings=>Library=>Scanner and see if that helps. Otherwise I'd normally suggest wiping and formatting your SD Card and starting from scratch, and then copy everything back to it, but you say it's a new card so unless it's faulty that would seem to have already been covered. 

Andre

[maxmp]

@DaKoda what is the total number of tracks (e.g. number of track in All Songs)? The All Songs is the largest list in Poweramp, does it lag for you? Also what is your device?

Again, if you just recently added large number of music files to sd card or new sd card with large number of songs, Android will slowly scan it, but, depending on number of songs, scan will be completed occasionally and normal device performance restores.

[saitama_06]

It happens exactly the same.

I have an Honor Magic5 Pro with Android 13. The smartphone is very fast (I come from a Xiaomi Mi8 with which Poweramp worked wonderfully), I access the music folder quickly with file explorer.

Turning off AutoScan has improved it somewhat, but when I need to go into any folder (which is the way I play), it takes a few seconds for the app to respond. And also, while inside the folder, play the song.

It doesn't happen to me with other Players. But I would like to continue with Poweramp, since I have been with it for 10 years...

[andrewilley]

See Max's previous reply. Has the scan completed correctly or it is still trying in the background? Have you blocked Android's scanner from also trying to scan the same audio files (using a .nomedia file in whatever folder you have saved your music into)?

Andre

[saitama_06]

13518 songs distributed in 353 folders. Lazy loading is like this in all folders. In fact, there are two with 11 songs each that load as slowly as another one with 382 songs.

On the other hand, the smartphone does not have an SD card, only internal memory. And I have also tried to make it faster by reducing the folders on the device, since I left only 52 folders with 1832 songs and the same thing kept happening. On the previous smartphone with Android 10 it never happened to me...