Hiccup in first 20 seconds of playback?

New Nano 8gb(3rd Gen) - This pop occurs everytime between songs with apple lossless. When the apple lossless song finishes and the new apple lossless song begins, a pop is heard after 1 second and will not occur agan until the next song. I have also noticed a pop after switching from video to music. When listening to music only, AAC music works best without any pops between songs. I recommend using AAC music files until a fix is released.

I've reported this problem in an earlier thread calling it "drop outs" happening in the very beginning of tunes, in my case w/o exception after 1 second. The drop out lasting about 1 sec in which the tune skips forward. I have investigated the problem finding that, like others in this thread, this only affects Apple Lossless (ALAC) files. I have ripped my whole CD-collection to FLACs which I then have converted to ALACs and AAC. The latter play just fine. I have also tested in cover flow or album view which makes no difference; the hiccups affect only ALAC in whatever mode.
In iTunes OTH no problemo.
This has GOTTA be a nasty bug, which I suspected from the very beginning.
The cover flow messup is another amazing slip up. As a macfanatic since -89 I'm for the 1st time really disappointed. Apple should hurry to release a fix!

I have confirmed this on my 2 new 8gb (3G) nanos. It only happens on Apple Lossless files, not AAC. That is probably why some people have a hard time replicating. All my CDs are ripped in Apple Lossless and the rest are iTunes purchases (AAC). In my case, it's not a "pop" but an audio drop-out. For example, track starts to play for 1 to 2 seconds; audio drops at 3 to 4 seconds; audio back at 5 seconds. Happens at the beginning of the next "lossless" track.

Called Apple Support and they opened a case ID for further research. The update 1.0.1 has not solved the issue. Using iTunes 7.4.1 and 7.4.2.

Add another Apple Lossless user to this bunch having problems. My skipping happens frequently at the beginning of songs. The song starts for a split second, then stops for 1 second then starts playing.

Sounds like the next song is not being cached into memory before the previous song is over.

I filled out a bug report.

This is not the first time this has been a problem. I had this problem with my first gen nano when Apple introduced the Lossless format and it was eventually fixed.

Yepp!

The firmware 1.0.2 fixe the problem

🙂

Laurent F

FWIW, here's what I've sent to Apple via their Feedback:

Hi

Many owners have reported dropouts during song playback, especially after the first second or so of a track. These dropouts are not consistent and are not related to the individual tracks as the same track may play fine the next time. The tracks play normally through iTunes. It appears that the majority of owners are listening to tracks encoded in Apple Lossless, which is all I listen to.

This problem persists after 1.0.2.

Is this a buffer issue or is it specific to the Apple Lossless codec on the 3rd generation nano - my 2nd generation nano never had this problem.

Please take notice of these threads:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1130388

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1168018

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1167434

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1136805

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1124820

Just got a call back from Apple Tech Support and was informed that their engineers could not reproduce the problem. They wanted me to send them samples of the music files (Apple Lossless) that were causing the problem. I'm doing that right now but don't know how it will help.

I've asked them that if the files are somehow corrupted, why would they play fine on our iPod mini 6g, 1st and 2nd Gen nanos 4g, and my 5th Gen iPod Video 60g? Also, these lossless files were ripped from our original CDs into our main iTunes Library on our Power Mac G5 and then again on my MacBook. We also did a restore on both nanos. I feel we've covered all bases.

On another note, does it appear that these new nanos take quite a bit longer to eject than the previous gen nanos. Our 1st and 2nd Gen ejects almost immediately while the 3rd Gen takes about 30 seconds.

Maybe if everybody on all of these threads notifies Apple of this bug then they'll take notice. Submit feedback here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipodnano.html

Thanks for that input, groucho. I, too, have a feeling that it's a bug but Apple Support has told me they can't duplicate this issue and that puzzles me. I've sent them copies of my files as requested and I have not heard back from them; still waiting. So, for now, we have two new nanos that we really can't enjoy cause 98% of our music is in Apple Lossless and the "drop outs" at the beginning of each song drives me CRAZY!!!

I ended up returning our two new nanos for a full refund. After a promising start with Apple Support, it ended ugly. They say they couldn't duplicate the issue but stopped short of saying that they were defective. After two weeks of waiting, I was fed up. They allowed me to return both nanos to an Apple Store for a full refund only after I threatened to file a dispute with my credit card company and not pay. Pity cause I really like the new nanos a lot. I'll hang on to my 2nd gen a little longer.

This is EXACTLY my problem as I reported before and it is about as bad as before, maybe sometimes even worse & only affecting ALACs. Today I had like a record 2-3 sec drop out after a sec or so of playing. Please Apple DO SOMETHING QUICK to fix this!!! For listening to ALACs my nano is in practice not usable. For videos GORGEOUS!

Spoke with Apple and their only suggestion was a service check/replacement - ugh. I suspect this has something to do with the way the buffer is handling files - the pauses being the delay whilst the buffer fills. This happens with my other hard drive based ipods, but has never been an issue with my 2nd generation nano - which I killed in the washing machine. I suppose the only odd thing is that it appears to be happening after the 1st second of a song for lots of people. UPDATE FIX PLEASE 1.0.3.

I have the same problem with my nano. in particular if I use cover
flow after having viewed a video

--> http://forum.macbidouille.com/index.php?showtopic=234218

😟

Laurent F

Yep and doesn't seem to be related to file size either, as wav files play fine

Hey Groucho, did you file a bug report to let Apple know?