Random pauses

[Jonny G]

Build 976 from Play Store

I can't say exactly when this started but for some weeks PA has been seemingly randomly pausing when playing tracks on my Android headunit. Music is saved on a 512GB MicroSD inserted directly into the unit. It occurs when my phone's wifi hotspot is disabled and no other apps running (that I can see) so no speed camera or other warning alert.

The play button remains as it is during the pause, in that it doesn't ever turn into the pause symbol, although I think I'm right in saying that if the full screen visualiser is active then it does drop back to the main screen until music starts playing again.

Is this the kind of thing that would show up in the logs as I'm intending on spending some time trying to figure this out today as it's starting to get annoying.

If anyone has any ideas if this new behaviour perhaps relates to a setting that would be great.

[andrewilley]

Does it resume again on its own, or stay paused? And to clarify, when it pauses do you still see the Play/Pause icon as though it's still playing - i.e. when playing you normally see the "broken square" symbol, not the "triangle" symbol which indicates playback is stopped. Does the counter continue to increment as though playback is continuing, but you can't hear anything?

Andre

[Jonny G]

HI Andre, thanks for your reply.

It resumes of its own accord, and yes the play/pause icon looks as though it's still playing in that it doesn't change at all. I'm going to check but I'm 99% sure the counter does not continue and the track resumes at exactly the same point.

It's really infrequent so difficult to pin down.

At some point I was going to add some music to a folder on the HU's internal memory and scan that into the library to rule out an issue with the MicroSD but messing with the library and just listening to the same tracks until it happens (or doesn't?!) again is a bit of a pain. Hence why I'm wondering if it could be caused by other things first. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by Jonny G

[Jonny G]

Hi Andre,

Had the issue again today, it occurred as follows.

1 - Playing music from MicroSD inserted directly into the HU in fullscreen visualiser mode.

2 - Music pauses. Visualiser drops back to main PA screen. Play button does not change, remains as if it is playing with play icon always visible.

3 - Music resumes after estimated 2 seconds

4 - Full screen visualiser mode returns.

Any further thoughts on this?

[andrewilley]

The fact that the Play/Pause button remains in its normal playing status (i.e. the button continues to show as the "broken square", so tapping it should cause playback to pause) tends to point to something external preventing the output for a short period, buffering of some sort perhaps?

@maxmp any thoughts on this one? Would a log file help?

Andre

[maxmp]

If no any pause/resume commands appear in "Last Processed Commands" log (that can be searched for in Poweramp Settings), then it's something with audio subsystem or obvious lack of cpu or background thread state applied to Poweramp.

[Jonny G]

If that is the case is there anything that can be done to prioritise CPU power to PA? I will check log for pause commands and report back.

[andrewilley]

I suspect it won't turn out to be a spurious processed command, as if that was the case playback probably wouldn't resume on its own a few seconds later, and also the state of the Play/Pause button icon would change during the pause, which you say does not happen.

Andre