972 Hitches in Playback

[w3wilkes]

After installing 972 beta on my Moto g Stylus 5G (2022) fully updated. I now get "hitches" in music playback from the Queue. Bluetooth to car head unit, not using android auto.

EDIT: MP3 VBR ripped with DBPoweramp -V 0 -q 0 replaygain both album and track, using Track replaygain for playback in PA.

[maxmp]

Please ensure Poweramp and the Unlocker (if you have it) are allowed to run in background/excluded from the optimization/“unrestricted”. See dontkillmyapps.com for the details. Thanks!

[w3wilkes]

Thanks for the reply! I have no restrictions and battery saver is shut off. This just started again with the last couple of releases. This happened before and then a following release fixed it. And generally when I use my phone in the car for bluetooth music (not android auto) my phone is fully charged so I doubt any kind of battery throttling would be occurring. The "hitching" (along with another issue I was having) happened back in release 956 reported here and you had me test with version 957 before you made it GA and it corrected the "hitching" along with my other issue.

[maxmp]

@w3wilkes it's battery optimizer related or (for BT) can be buffer related. Poweramp moved to a newer target SDK and that made many battery "optimizers" much more aggressive or reset usage stats for the app after updates. There were no any "hitching" fixes for many years as there were no any requests/issues or need for this, so Poweramp updates could not fix it or break it for you.

As for buffer, you can try to increase it one step in the Audio buffer for the appropriate Settings / Audio / Output / <your output> Bluetooth, but this is indication of BT problems as Poweramp default values are good and well tested.

I would recommend trying stock player test for the same BT device - if issue persists there I would recommend un-pairing and paring the device again.

Thanks!

[w3wilkes]

Thanks for the reply. Odd, I went to Settings / Audio / Output as you suggested and found that somehow output had changed from OpenSL ES which I had set at 100ms x 7 to AudioTrack Output. I've now set the AudioTrack Output to match what I had set for OpenSL ES and next time I'm in the car I'll see if that fixes my "hitches". A side note question is what's the difference between OpenSL ES and AudioTrack Output and which one would you use? All my music is MP3 VBR ripped using DBPowerAmp -V 0 -q 0 16/44 with ReplyGain for both Album and track.

[maxmp]

@w3wilkes almost no difference, though AudioTrack is capable of Hi-Res for BT and USB on the recent Androids (12+). Also, on some Motorolas AudioTrack may be set to default or vice versa (there is a batch of Motorolas with AudioTrack implementation bug, and another batch of Motorolas with OpenSL implementation bug and Poweramp tries to avoid that by changing default output settings).

[w3wilkes]

Just as a follow-up. Now that I've set the AudioTrack Output buffer and size the same as I have in OpenSL ES the hitches are gone! If it magically switches back to Open SL I've left those buffer settings as they were, just copied the OpenSL setting to AudioTrack and all is well.