Music stops playing while browsing web

I went to a basball game yesterday and filled my 8GB phone with pics, then on the train back was listening to a 1:08:00 techno mix then tried flipping through Safari and got the iPod to quit often. I was also able to get iPod to quit during coverflow and even just flipping through the long legal page and then used a regular song from moulin rouge and it still managed to quit. So I thought it was a problem with lack of space. I sunk my phone, took the pics off, and took off a bunch of unwanted songs. Tried again, and was able to get it to quit again. Tried a long song and a short song, and was able to get the iPod to quit both times, and this is with 1+GB available. Lastly, during the day today, I started getting the phone app to quit when music wasn't playing. I restarted (held down both sleep and home for 10 sec) and got the apple logo boot up, and after that, it's been running smoothly. I was almost ready to take it in because I was able to get it to quit on demand basically. It's good to know I'm not the only one.

-Brian

I've been able to browse the web consistently while listening to the iPod for hours...

...the trick is to keep your browsing to one tab only. Intense sites are a sure fire way to crash the 'pod, keep it to text only or low image sites and you will be listening to music for as long as you're browsing.

Remember that the device only has 64MB of system RAM, attempting to load a huge website and keep a song in the same small space is improbable, typically won't happen. There isn't going to be a firmware update that fixes this, this is something that we'll have to live with.

The only plausible fix would be to dedicate a block of system RAM to the iPod, but this would bring Safari's performance to a crawl. In this revision of the iPhone, we're probably going to have to just deal.

Here's a take:

I think it has to with memory management issues. As others had suggested, browsing with one tab means there is more memory to use by other applications (aka iPod). Because the iPhone is so much like a mac (600 mhz processor), we need to remember that it needs to be restarted every now and then.

Do not do the power-button/home-button reset. This is a hard reset. It is like disconnecting the plug to your iPhone. It's an absolute last resort. Instead, just hold the top power-button by itself for about 7 seconds. Slide off. Then turn it back on. At this point, your RAM should be cleared, and you can web-surf and listen to music at the same time.

Also, clearing your browsing cache may help too. *Home screen > Settings > Safari > Clear Cache.*

Hey all I have the same problem but also a solution and possible explaination. I believe that the problem stems from having the iPhone for multiple days. When you hit the power button you only put the iPhone in a sleep mode. So, as you continue to use safari your Internet cache continues to fill. This takes up system memory to remember the cache. This may or may not take up to much memory and as a result reduces the phones capability to run two apps. So when you use safari it adds more to the cache and in effect causes the previous program, or the iPod, to crash. By simply powering off completely the cache is cleared so the memory is now empty and ready run safari and the iPod at the same time.

I experienced the same thing on my iphone as well. I decided to exchange it for a new one. I do believe it was a bug, and i was affraid that after the 14 day return policy from the apple store, that i would be left with apple trying to fix my phone, and i did not want that to happen. I explained the prob to the manager at my local apple store and she gladly exchanged (8gig) and wiaved the restocking fee. The new one has been so far perfect. No issues yet with the music stopping while surfing. I would also tell you that if you do decide to return it for another, make sure they swap the sim card from the one you have now to the new phone. Good luck.

Hi all,

I just fixed this by turning the phone on and off. Hold down top button + home button for about 5 seconds and swipe to turn off. Click top or home (can't remember which) to turn it back on. This seems to have fixed the problem. The ipod functionality must have bugged out and then reset when I cycled the power.

Hope this works for everyone.

Just a thought:

Is it possible that the website you're visiting has audio content (one of those annoying jingles or something) that is causing Safari to take over the audio functions from the iPod?

Regards,
-Peter

Exactamundo. Don't leave your iPhone running for days at a time without cycling the power and expect it to remain perfectly stable. No mobile device will do that. Cycle the power once in a while and you will not see these crashes and bugs so often!

My tunes crashed while on the browser too, until I started rebooting at least once a week or more (no "hard reset" needed.)

Engadget confirmed this problem in their review of the iphone.

"We managed to continuously crash the iPod app while listening to music and doing other things, namely browsing. We wouldn't call it incredibly unstable, but we wouldn't say it's rock solid, either."

Here's the link: http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/03/iphone-review-part-2-phone-mail-safari-ipod/

I've also called apple and they claim to have never heard of the problem (well now they have), they even suggested I go back to the apple store and exchange my iphone for a new one... I may try that, but I think this is a more widespread problem and a new iphone probably won't do the trick. Oh yes, and kudos to apple support, they were very nice as always.

Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.10)

I'm having the problem consistently with 1.0.2 and about three gigs free space. Hadn't been using the ipod function much while surfing, but using it at a coffee shop today when my powerbook ran out of juice, things went nuts. I was also using only one tab in safari and ipod crashed while on geico and the apple support page.

UPDATE: after power cycling the iPhone, things have improved. I've been in Safari for more than ten minutes without a problem on the iPod end. Of note: after restarting, the iPod was noticibly louder at the same volume setting, and safari didn't reload pages if I switched iPod to change albums. I have not opened any apps other than safari and iPod.

Message was edited by: Jonathan Horton

This bug happens regularly to me as well. My understanding from Apple is the the phone is actually resetting (ie, crashing). Its not just when doing ipod and web - it can potentially happen when switching between any two applications, or just when jumping around in the web browser alone. It will require a patch to fix (I have no idea what the underlying problem is), and I've not heard anything from Apple as to when it will be available.

This sounds like a software design problem, not something that you can fix by replacing your hardware. The problem seems to occur when the iPod app is playing and another app is taking up way too much CPU time doing something.

Here's me with my software engineer hat on: I suspect the iPod app is getting starved for time (because another app is hogging the CPU) and crashes because it isn't able to buffer up the next part of the song before the current part runs out.

I have observed that the Wi-Fi network stack in 1.1.2 is much worse than 1.0.2 when it comes to hogging the system. Try turning on the "Ask to join networks" option, and you'll notice horrendous lags each time you turn on the phone, sometimes to the point of freezing the GUI (yikes!). Network-bound apps like Mail and Safari too behave sluggishly when they get on the network, compared to 1.0.2.

If I had to bet on a root cause, it would be poor implementation of the recent changes to the network stack. It would be prudent for Apple's software team to fix it in the next release.

I've had this also. I play multiple videos in the ipod app then ipod exits out. It got so bad that the iPhone would exit out of the ipod app as soon as I clicked it. It looks to be a memory leak. I reboot the iPhone and the memory seems to be released until I watch a few more videos. I hope this gets patched up.

Without a doubt one of the issues that needs to be fixed (along with the Safari crashes), but turning off the device (but not resetting!)and then turning it back on seems to work for me for a while. It takes less than a minute to do but it works and the headaches go away for a while.

BTW - I've noticed that my iPhone hasn't done this all day. The only difference I've noticed is that I have it plugged in instead of running on battery power. I even tried surfing a little in Safari and I've had no turn-offs so far today.

Anyone else tested whether this happens while using battery vs. plugged in?

iPhone 8GB Windows XP