iOS 13.4.1 audio skipping/glitching

I just updated to iOS 13.4.1 on my iPhone 8 Plus. Now, audio keeps glitching with pauses in audio and UI lag.

The audio glitches are most noticeable in listening to podcasts or music, neither of which are really possible now, unless I want to drive myself crazy missing every few words of a podcast. Even as I type this, the keyboard sounds keep cutting out, then a few taps will make the keyboard sound, then another duration of no sound, etc.

I listen to podcasts all day long and deeply regret not researching to see if anyone else was having issues with the iOS 13.4.1 update. I'm glad to know it's not just me, but who knows how long my device will now be unusable for anything involving audio.

If you're reading this and haven't updated yet, do so at your own risk. I don't know if the issue is only for certain handsets, or more wide spread based on yet unknown conditions - perhaps chipsets?

Thankfully I have an old iPhone 6 Plus that I can use as a backup media player for now. Don't know how long I'll be in iPhone purgatory before Apple rolls out a fix for iOS 13.4.1 and how unusable it has made my phone for anything that involves audio.

Interesting, I just noticed the same lag on the Taptic Engine. When I long-press the space bar to move the cursor around, the Taptic feedback lags behind significantly, or fails all together.

The more I explore this issue (also 8 plus), the more I see it in literally everything I try. Any app that has any audio associated with it now has a repeating lag or skip to it, in every single app I’ve tried so far. YouTube, cbs, Facebook etc all have the audio going in-out-in-out on a regular pattern. Scrolling in Facebook when it hits a video will lag if it’s in an “out” cycle. I don’t know how this bug made it out; sloppy.

I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing the same.

I just got off the phone (as in regular phone call) with someone, and thankfully the audio on my end (going out) and their end (coming in) we're both flawless.

And this is interesting.. as I write this, I am finding that all keyboard presses are registering the appropriate sounds without any lag or skipping. Additionally, I am getting normal responsiveness with the audio volume controls.

Let me try my podcast app...

Wow! My podcast app (iCatcher) is also working properly again.

I wonder if somehow receiving a phone call (again - normal phone app feature, not FaceTime or Skype or Zoom) somehow caused whatever bit of code in the iOS update to enter the proper state of function or self-correct?

If you're reading this and having the same audio glitches and UI lag issues, try making a regular phone call and see if that corrects anything. If not, ask someone to phone you, and see if receiving a call might fix the issue.

Or perhaps updating to iOS 13.4.1 simply caused the phone to run some level of background maintenance that was a bit too aggressive, causing the audio & UI glitches, and it simply completed those background processes around the time I received the phone call that seems to have magically fixed the problem for me?

Hoping my phone behaves again, and that what I've shared might be helpful to anyone else with the same issue.

It’s not just phones that are affected. My iPad Pro (9.7”) now stutters if the books app is playing an audio book and I do pretty much anything at all in Safari. And if I open any app. A couple of software synthesisers also stutter and it’s very difficult to do anything using them.

This wasn’t happening before the 13.4.1 update.

Same here. Starting, stopping especially with audiobooks. I tried a phone call and it did help for a while but the problem came back. Also helped if I turned Bluetooth off. Just happy to find out I am not alone with this.

I have an iPhone 8 and I’m experiencing the exact same thing. I’ll just reinstall iOS 13.4, as I wasn’t having issue with it before this update. When the next update comes out, I’ll wait and see what people’s reviews are before updating.

I wouldn't roll back just yet. It may or may not have been the phone call that corrected the problem for me. It may have just been a matter of iOS doing whatever it needed to do in the background, which may have caused the skipping audio and UI lag, and then it just finished all that intensive background processing around the time my phone call started. That time may vary from device to device, depending on what iOS needs to do in any given set of unique variables. Total speculation, but I'd wait it out for a bit if you can. Hoping your phone soon returns to normal operation soon!

As it turns out, I’m unable to roll back anyway. I’m one of those odd people that doesn’t have a computer. I believed Apple back in 2015 when they said that an iPad would take the place of a laptop...well, I’m still waiting for that. Waiting, with no money as I have an iPhone and an iPad. Both in need of new batteries or an entire upgrade to newer models. Exactly as Apple intended.

Thank you for your response and advice! It’s much appreciated.

A phone call didn’t work for me, but the audio/input glitch somehow fixed itself. However, I was still experiencing a lot of lag and safari was force quitting often, not to mention that this was happening with other apps. I went back to 13.4 and everything is back to normal. It’s time consuming to roll back to 13.4, but if you can’t wait for Apple to fix these bugs then go for it.

Since updating my iPhone 11 to iOS 13.4.1, after 30 seconds to 2 minutes, my music, videos, wireless headset, and even regular call audio gets paused, dropped or comes through with poor quality for the person on the receiving end of my call. This is unacceptable as many of us are working from home and rely on our phone’s audio to work properly. I do not want a band-aid solution. I want Apple to promptly address and correct this issue and push out the update to everyone. I’m looking forward to a company response, not simply relying on the Apple community to solve your problems. When can you deliver this to users, Apple?

Hello everyone in this threat, I just got of the phone with the very "helpful" people at Apple. If you have this issue, please do me a favour and call or text them! Please! Only do this if your device has not been repaired. They refused to help me at all because I have a third party battery. Both employees ignored that the iPhone is plugged in, worked fine before the update and 40 reports from people with original devices having the exakt same issue.

Also mention my Case ID (101072354126), so they see it is their mistake.

Switching the music app off doesn’t make any difference for me. Audiobooks are the worst thing affected, non-stop stuttering if I have any other app open in the foreground other than Books or when I open any other app - which makes me wonder if it’s a matter of the OS not being able to continually buffer audio in advance properly any more. It’s the kind of thing you get using a DAW when your audio driver buffer isn’t being filled fast enough so it keeps emptying. Usually with DAWs it’s a sign of an over-worked cpu that can’t keep up with the demand on it or storage isn’t being accessed quickly enough.

IPad audio used to be one of the thing’s strongest assets, but somehow Apple seem to have managed to break it, just like the early Mojave releases and the introduction of the T2 chip caused chaos for people recording or producing audio or video because somehow the USB system wasn’t working correctly with USB or Thunderbolt attached professional audio interfaces any more. Apple fixed the problem (pretty much) after a few months but it was a real nuisance when it was happening and caused real problems for people who use Macs for what has always been their strongest feature, Core Audio.

I recall past updates introducing stuttering , but it always fixed itself. Last night 13.4.1 was installed and had the problem all morning after update. killed all apps, power cycled phone, no luck: apple music, podcasts and other audio apps all would keep stuttering.

Then, I made one, normal phone call to my home land line while on speaker.

Boom, everything works again! I guess the phone part of my device got lonely?

No change, some times it works fine, sometimes it is an absolute pain. Restart, close all apps not being used, try again. I have had to do this up to 3 times before it would settle down. Particular glitch when switching between Music and Audiobooks.

Still happening, worse today after I updated to 13.5.1

Hard reset, other apps off, bluetooth off, WiFi off, it doesn't seem to matter what I do sometimes it works and sometimes it refuses. Audiobooks starts, plays for 15-30 seconds and quits or plays with gaps in the sound and then quits. It seems like the program does not have enough memory to operate correctly, tries and then crashes. Super frustrating.

Will do a complete reset and restore from backup again tonight. This should have been fixed by now.