iPadOS 14.5 Audio Skipping and Glitching

I’ve experienced all of these audio issues on my iPad Air 4 … however the audio glitches appear to be gone after applying the latest iPadOS 14.7 just released today.

hoping the audio stays good!

I hope others have a similar experience.

I am sorry to hear that others are still having an issue with this, hopefully it is in the process of getting resolved for various configurations. I can report that for the last several days (nearly a week) since updating to 14.7.1 I have had no noticeable issues on my 2021 iPad Pro, and it was pretty terrible before. Perhaps the fix still needs some refinement, but at least for me, audio is working again.

Same with my set up - still glitching no matter what iOS I use after 14.5. iPad Air 4 USB-C out to Mac Pro 2013 USB-3 input. Ecamm live application for live streaming used. iPad Air is seen as virtual USB source in Ecamm Live but the audio glitches every 20-40 seconds. Unusable! The software developers at Ecamm live were able to duplicate the problem on another iPad Pro and stated this is an Apple software issue.

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.

Adding my voice of discontent. Same issue, new (couple months old) iPad Air 4th gen, latest OS. Same problems, scratchy cd skipping type issue going on. Doesn’t matter if it’s wired or wireless headphones. Happening with all audio, YouTube, music etc. It wasn’t there before I did the last software update, I’m watching YouTube for hours every night due to a sleep problem so I really would have noticed.

i will also raise this with support in the morning. It’s an awful bug, I cannot believe they don’t know about it or can’t reproduce it.

I have the same issue with my new 11-inch iPad Pro when using the USB-C adapter and headphones (which is the only way I listen to audio). It almost seems like a buffering problem to me. It tends to happen right after I start playing a video or audio, or when trying to do some multitasking.

I can generally fix it by unplugging the adapter and plugging it back in. But obviously, that’s not a convenient (or permanent) solution.

I have a hunch that this issue is due to cheap electronics in the dongle not being able to keep up with and convert the info being sent to it from iOS 14.6

Have been using an external DAC today via a USB-C to USB 2 dongle with no problems and excellent sound quality.

So, I’m gonna return the mini-jack dongle as faulty and look for a decent third party usb-c mini DAC.

Apple will probably resolve this in the near future without an apology but it’s things like this that start people looking for alternatives themselves.

Another update from me: I bought a new USB-C to 3.5mm adapter, and so far no issues. And as I mentioned earlier, no issues with a USB-C to USB 2 adapter and external DAC (Apogee Duet). 

So, I wouldn't rule out a software driver issue, but at the very least, you might be able to get around it with a different adapter. (Though I know some of you still have had issues with other adapters.)

NO - has NOT been resolved for my setup. iPad Air 4th Gen - USB-C direct out to USC3 input. Ecamm live App seeing iPad as Video/Audio "source". "Glitch on audio at semi-random intervals of 15 - 40 seconds continuously. MacPro 2013. This did not start happening until 14.5 iOS. Ecamm Live Tech team has been able to duplicate the issue and verified this to be an Apple iOS "bug".

This must be a more complex driver issue, I think, since I posted on this thread probably 6-8 weeks ago with the issue, and luckily for me the iPadOS update 14.7 resolved the issue for me entirely. I can use the USB-C connection for audio now without issue…at least for a “basic” scenario where I am plugging in earphones…I am not using a more complex audio setup or integrating with other apps (eg music apps).

I really hope Apple resolves the issue for all remaining scenarios…hopefully with 14.7.2 and onwards?

It’s not HW issue. It’s software problem. If hw starts failing after user update the os, then the problem is not in HW. They’ve got a bug in sync/buffer implementation for a bunch of DAC.

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??

Are we all on the 4th-gen iPad? Seems to be our common ground here. I saw someone on another forum say they had this problem on their iPad Pro.

I also used to have this problem on my iPhone XS running iOS 14.5, but 14.6 fixed it for my iPhone.

This problem is being actively discussed across many forums, I’ve avoided posting links to these as I expect this will probably violate terms or conditions or something.

There are numerous threads about this on Reddit, Mac rumours, Twitter (a good set of links on piunikaweb)

Over at Audiobus forums, there’s a load of us moaning about this issue including a comment from the developer of some really popular music making apps saying it’s causing a ton of headaches with support requests and having to issue refunds to customers who think it’s their apps.

This problem is not just affecting our enjoyment of using iPad, it’s also problem for developers who make a living writing apps.

I also notice the view count for this fairly small thread is now well over 1000 now, clearly people are dropping in from a google search or whatever to find an answer to this ongoing problem.