iPadOS 14.5 Audio Skipping and Glitching

Hi - I am having the same exact issue. I have tried 2 Apple USB C to 3.5mm dongles and tried 3 different pairs of headphones (including one with an in-line mic). It seems multi-tasking with any apps that have audio/video triggers this audio skipping issue for me and then won't stop skipping until I unplug/reinsert headphones or restart the iPad. Once this issue starts, all apps are impacted (YouTube, Apple Music, Safari, etc).

I bought my iPad less then 1 week ago and the audio was fine the first few days and then the same audio issue started happening. Updated to 14.5.1 last night hoping it would fix the audio problem but still persists. I am under AppleCare and contacted Apple yesterday, they told me to go to Best Buy (where I purchased it) and meet with their Apple authorized technician. The technician could not figure it out either but said they were seeing other people with this issue. The technician did a Reset All Settings but as he suspected it's an OS issue, he couldn't do much else. I ended up exchanging the iPad for a new one and currently waiting for everything to re-download. I'll try and give you an update tomorrow.

No worries, thanks for writing back! I'm sorry to hear it's become an obstacle between you and your video editing. This is my first iPad which I bought for graphic design, being able to do some work tasks on the go, movie streaming and music listening and right now I cannot do the majority of those tasks.

I only exchanged my new iPad as I was still within the 15-day return window and wanted to rule everything out as I couldn't believe that audio, such an integral part of an iPad, would be such an issue with a brand new device. This was also the suggested solution after reaching to the Apple Specialist through AppleCare.

Testing on your iPad Air 2 may helpful but it does sound like a bug. I hope it's recognized and corrected soon. It's unacceptable. I was able to trigger the same issue with a JBL bluetooth speaker last night.

When I was searching this issue, I came across a discussion regarding a bug that sounded very similar impacting iPhones a few years ago. Apple, however, never answered or reached out: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8408058

I have what may be a related problem. I have a book synced from my iPhone to my watch and use airpods.

For some reason it's gone totally bonkers after the update.

If the phone and watch are out of B.T./WIFI range everything is fine. But otherwise it cuts out all the time. Worse sometimes is that If I stop audible playing on my watch it immediately starts on the phone and vice versa. Sometimes it just refuses to stop playing - Killing the app mysteriously doesn't work and I have to power down my phone.

Just to add salt to the wound, sometimes it'll start playing in another room where I can't here it and "finish the book" on my behalf.

It's hard to pin down the problem as there's 2 audible apps, 3 operating systems (including the airpods) and 3 B.T. stacks all shouting at each other and everything with it's own settings.

When I go for a run and want to listen to a book now the routine is:

1. Power down iPhone
2. Start audible on my watch
3. Leave the house

I can’t seem to edit my original post.

Unfortunately, I can now confirm this audio issue is happening again with a second iPad Air replacement I got in exchange for the first one with these same audio issues.

This has to be an OS bug and looks like will have to reach out to Apple again. Pretty frustrated at saving and dropping close to $1,000 on a device can’t play movies or music without sounding like a scratched cd skipping in an Sony Walkman. I was intending to use it for some work activities and don’t feel confident at all entering a Zoom call with these audio issues.

I had to reboot my iPad earlier so I could resume watching a YouTube video as the unplugging/replugging method only carried me through the first few minutes of a 10 minute video.

This is exactly the identical problem I’m having with both of our new iPads !! Is Apple listening at all ? All Support can tell me is ‘try the 14.5.1 update !! Aarrghhh…I’ve ALREADY done that….did NOT. HELP.

APPLE ?

Also having this issue and am 100% confident it is OS related. Never happened before iPadOS14.5

Curiously it is not a system-wide glitch. I get the glitch in Youtube & Safari but when I am audio editing in Ferrite Pro there is absolutely no issue.

Yea I was on the phone with my dad yesterday and he was like I can't hear you and I was like wtf so I was google things and I thought it was a hardware problem but turns out it was a software problem that Apple did. Smh!

I’ve been having this same problem on my 4th-gen iPad Air since the update to iPadOS 14.5. This only happens on wired connections, whether in YouTube, Spotify or Apple Music.

The latest public release, iPadOS 14.6, does not fix the issue for me.

Same here. As an audio engenier, I get this problem long time ago, outside of Apple enviroment. It happend to me when audio driver had sync problem with DA converter. First case was complete white noise (sync was out) and seccond was exactly the same as now (CPU was overloaded with other tasks and didn’t maintain constant sync with DA). Results of the seccond case was this stuttering.

There will be major problem in iPadOS audio driver at core lvl. Maybe lower task priority in OS.

What I’m looking around, the major problem is with iPad Air 4 (2020) - I’ve got one too and after update to 14.5. Is someone having this problem with other iPads??

Your testing with Ferrite confirms my theory - there will be problem with native iPadOS audio driver. Ferrite will be using their own audio processing engine, but Youtube, Safari, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Netflix, … will be using native iPadOS audio processing engine, because they don’t need any extra audio modifications.

Looks like the problem is somewhere around audio engine or audio driver. In iPadOS 14.5 they changed something about audio processing and this little bug came with it.

This happened last year too. Glitchy audio. This time I even ordered a new set of Apple headphones - 3.5mm, and used a new 3.5mm to USB C. It is exactly the same issue and was eventually resolved with OS update. If you remove USB C and connect again it momentarily relieves the issue. Apple really don’t care. I have no issue with AirPods MAX, so it is hardwired only.

I just spoke with support and I described them everything, they insist on factory reset. I said to them, that brand new iPad Air 4 (out of the box, after updating to 14.5) do this and the story goes again - factory reset. What’s more factory reset, than factory brand new?

Please, can someone escalate this problem to Layer 2 support. L1 can’t help with anything. We need L2 or L3 support.