Apple Music skips about 2 seconds into track on macOS and tvOS

I am having this also.

I am using a LG 2.1 soundbar connected via optical.

I have discovered the issue goes away away when either using the TVs speakers, or going into my Sony X90s settings and disabling PCM audio. (Which is recommended for my soundbar)

Is anyone experiencing this issue NOT using optical cables for their audio? If no, then I believe this is the issue.

Exactly same problem with every WiFi and Mobile Data network (3G, 4G and 5G as well) both with my iPhone 14 Pro with iOS 16.1 and with my two macbooks pro (13" M1 and 16" M1 Pro) updated to the latest MacOS version 13.0

I had this issue even before this update.

I wish Apple folks brag less about themselves at their yearly events and instead fix these major issues in their major products. We're not paying thousands of dollars on these machines to look at how beautiful they are.

So a couple of weeks ago, I bought a Mac Mini to solely use as a jukebox. I thought it'd be better than buying a PC for the same purpose.

And lo and behold, I am having this issue. I'm simply just going to return it. This is completely inexcusable. I have never seen a media player behave so poorly. Utterly unacceptable.

Like, I will literally spend hundreds of hours going through my playlists and porting them over to Qobuz because of this. As a musician, music means everything to me, and I simply can't believe this. I would be better off with a Gateway or Micron from 1995.

How is this real?

Just wanted to follow up and say that Qobuz runs laps around iTunes or Music or whatever it's called at this point. Fantastic quality/fidelity, large catalog, app is quicker, and absolutely no skipping whatsoever.

This is happening on M1 MBA, MacOS 13.2.1 and on lossless, but with dolby unchecked. After download, it is not happening. fast.com tells me my fiber is 1gbps so guessing it is something to do with software.

I think if streaming, can't use lossless.

Happening to me also. I was trying classical music app on iPad and it’s jumping a few seconds in as it did with the music app. Dreadful experience. I play through iPad, iPad to HomePods and Apple TV to HomePods, all are affected. It’s not only annoying it’s frankly embarrassing. It doesn’t happen all the time, just then a lossless track played fine but it could happen three or four times in a row some investigation needed from apple on this pronto, perhaps increase the cache or delay playing by a couple of seconds to allow a cache to build up. I’m using a very fast fibre connection btw.

And there again on another track.

Looking up this exact issue and finding a post a year old is disheartening. Has there been a fix to this yet? Between this issue and there being no exclusive mode for Apple Music, I'm going to eventually have to switch to a different service for lossless music.

I am having the same issue but on iOS. iPhone 13 on 16.4.1.

There is skipping at the beginning of songs when lossless is on. It doesn’t matter if I’m on Wi-Fi or 5G. Then when I turn lossless off the problem goes away.

I really hope this gets fixed because I notice a marked difference between the non lossless codec and CDs I play in my car. I had lossless turned on by default because of that, but now I’ve turned it off again.

OP’s post where they show the comparison of the waveforms is spot on. I originally thought it was an error when transcribing the track but the regularity of it near the beginning of the song made me think otherwise.

Interestingly enough - with the most recent updates to tvOS and PodOS we’re no longer experiencing skipping with Atmos and non-Atmos lossless content. Note this is playing to 2ndG HomePods through AppleTV.

Thank you for this - it's something I've been itching to do but haven't had time and it's been something I find myself noticing more and more lately.

I'd like to add it's very likely an Apple Music issue itself as it occurs when using CarPlay, on iPad OS, iOS, etc.,

I do not notice it on WatchOS or Alexa, neither of which support lossless so the assertion around it being codec changes or some other stream shift is very likely. I doubt it's a bitrate change though as many platforms have supported dynamic bitrates without these issues.

I'm using IOS 16.5.1 on my Iphone 14 Pro and the lossless glitch with the 2 seconds at the 15 second mark is still happening! I have had this issue since last summer (2022)! I got the iphone 14 pro in January of this year and it's been happening since then!

Same. Only when streaming lossless as others stated. Usually when I jump to a song that wasn’t in the queue. iPhone 11, iPad Mini 6th, 2021 MacBook Pro. All updated to latest OS. Happens over WiFi or Ethernet (950mbps with 1ms latency to my ISP). Apple just says to update your OS or it’s your internet connection…do they even use their own products?!?

Well the problem seemed to abate but after the 17 update it’s back. I even had 5 tracks in a row skipping. Now it’s down to once in a while again. I airplay from an iPad Air 4 to HomePods 2nd gen. I’m going to revert to aac and see if the situation improves. I also have an appletv, all have been updated. It’s really not good enough.

Seriously WTH, I'm trying to listen to Rumours as reference and two seconds into Dreams it keepings [bleeping] skipping.

It's bad enough that we have to try to guess the sample rate based on the codec and then restart the application when we want to play a song.

Not OK for an operating system or paid service AND you developed the lossless audio codec!