Apple Music gapless playback not working in iOS 17

I found a workaround. If you check "convert to (any bitrate) AAC if higher" in the general tab on sync settings, the converted music will have gapless playback as expected.

A couple gotchas:

• Since the conversion creates brand new files, all of your music will have to be synced again with your iPhone. This can be a pretty lengthy process depending on how large your music library is (it took me a bit over three hours to resync 62 GBs of music)
• The highest possible bitrate you can convert to is 256 kbps, keep that in mind if the loss in quality might bother you

Got fed up listening to the gaps in the second half of Abbey Road so I started looking for a solution. Couldn’t find one online, but I was able to fix it by turning off Dolby Atmos. I thought “great, problem solved”. Tested it with Dark Side of the Moon. No gaps with and without Dolby Atmos. Seems like a very unpredictable problem. Maybe why they are having trouble fixing it 🤷‍♂️. MacOS music works fine, though, so why can’t they reproduce it on phone?

Try turning off Dolby Atmos in Settings > Music (as opposed to Automatic or Always On). This is the only thing that worked for me to get back gapless playback.

So, first off, yea.

I had the same issue before

I'm posting this solution here because even though it's an extremely weird fix, it really seems to work. I had the issue with my downloaded m4a files and the music app was not pre-loading the next song so there was a gap in between the songs etc etc, you already know the struggle, and basically the album "hypochondriac" by Brakence (which I was gently and innocently listening to) heavily needs to be played gapless and, no, I could not be satisfied with putting crossfade at 1s.. really not. I disabled "show apple music" in Settings>Music>Show apple music and the gap magically went 6 feet underground. I know it's weirdly simple, and I know it seems impossible that it fixes it, but I was desperate and I was really tired that apple music kept adding a whole lunch time break in between my songs so I did it anyways and ever since I did this I never had the issue again, maybe it is a pure coincidence and that's why I waited before posting this answer but It's been turned off for 5 days now and I have restarted my phone since and it still works, everything is gapless.

It really might not work for anyone who reads this because, honnestly, why would that fix the issue?? but in case I'm not just lucky, and in case what I did actually helps with the issue, I'm putting it here hoping everyone can fix it just like I did.

Have a good evening, take care, drink water that's really good and I really hope that helps!

Disabling Dolby Atmos worked for me. Apple software engineers, test your stuff BEFORE the error reports come in.

I have a fix for albums ripped from CD. It’s a bit of a faff but it’s worked for me.

1. Disable iCloud library sync on computer and iPhone
2. Delete offending album from iPhone
3. Physically connect iPhone to computer old skool style with a cable.
4. Select and sync the album you deleted.
5. Disconnect iPhone from computer.
6. Enable library sync on both devices.
7. Presto, your album should now have gapless playback!

I can confirm gapless playback is working when Dolby Atmos is disabled. However, I would like to use Dolby Atmos and therefore this is only a workaround but should be fixed anyway.

It's been almost 3 months since iOS 17 launched. And Apple can't even be bothered to make a simple fix for gapless playback.

That's just pathetic.

In the meantime, I've been using foobar2000 to listen to my mp3 files on my phone. It may take a while to get used to after being so familiar with the Music app, but it gets the job done.

Hi!

I’ve had this problem

for years now since I started using Bluetooth headphones and only just discovered that turning on Sound Check fixed it (Settings->Music->Scroll down to Sound Check under the Audio heading), which is a bit annoying as I’d rather not have sound check on.

edit: it hasn’t fixed it for all albums, specifically those ripped from CD 😭

I opened a case with Apple Support on this…they had me try several things, including signing out and back into my Apple Media with my Apple ID. Didn’t resolve the issue. This seems to have just started with me since having upgraded to IOS 17 - but it happens on all Apple Music applications - even on my FiiO R7 (Android) streaming amplifier. I’ve rebooted my network to no avail. Other streaming services (Tidal, Qobuz, and either of those using Roon) work just fine, so I’m pretty sure it isn’t my network. If anyone gets a positive response from Apple or discovers a fix, please let me know.

Hi there rmhunt1970,

You would need to be sure Crossfade is turned on in Settings > Music to play music without any gaps.

In iOS 17, you can crossfade songs in a playlist, which creates a listening experience with no audio gaps between songs.

1. Go to Settings  > Music, then turn on Crossfade.

2. Drag the slider to choose the length of the crossfade.

Learn more here: Change the way music sounds on iPhone - Apple Support

Take care.

Thanks for adding some clarification to the thread rmhunt1970,

Is playback of tracks on an album more seamless if the album is downloaded, relative to it being streamed?

The following page offers steps you can use to test this: Add music to iPhone and listen offline

Cheers!

I believe I have found what triggers the gaps. I’ve been able to reproduce it pretty consistently. It occurs when an album on Apple Music has mixed-format tracks; i.e., an album listed as “Hi-Res Lossless” will have both Hi-Res Lossless _and_ Lossless tracks. Provided the subsequent track is the same as the one currently playing, there is no gap; however, should the current track be Lossless and the following tack be Hi-Res Lossless, you will find a gap between them. I don’t know why Apple lists an album as Hi-Res Lossless and only some of the tracks on that album are Hi-Res (other premium services, such as Qobuz, do not do that). But I believe this is what breaks an albums gap-free cycle.

Hello All,

Well,at least I don't feel alone here.

I've had AM,and gapless,from day 1.

But I hadn't listened to one of my favorites,in awhile. The Beatles Abbey Road. I'm sure most know side 2 is a suite of songs,with no gaps. AM has always played it perfectly. Until now.

I've done everything to possibly correct..Atmos off,crossfade on( doesn't work), rebooted,cleared cache, tried Bluetooth. No corrections. Nothing works.

AM on the Apple TV 4k box has been buggy,unresponsive,freezes. This is all new. Never had issues with that app either.

I called Apple customer service yesterday (12/13/23), and it was a waste of time. Cold transfered,no one understood what I was talking about. Apple customer service used to be among the best.

From my own layman's observations,I think a lot of the issues involve albums that have both Atmos/ Hi Res tracks.

And while I didn't notice this with IOS 16, it's definitely a IOS 17 problem.

If this happens on the music we know,what about Jazz and Classical recordings? That could be a mess.too.

And we're paying for this service.

Apple..please correct this issue.