rmhunt1970 Author

Level 1

74 points

Apple Music gapless playback not working in iOS 17

For several months now, going back at least to iOS 16.5, gapless playback is not working in the Music app on my iPhone. This goes for my iPhone XS this summer and now iPhone 15 Pro. I was hoping iOS 17 would fix the problem, but it remains. I mainly have my own personal (ripped from CD) mp3s synched to my phone, but it's also disappeared when streaming from Apple Music (for example, Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd). This is very annoying when listening to albums designed to flow continuously (Abbey Road, various Pink Floyd albums, live albums, etc.). Gapless playback on iTunes on my PC works fine; it's the Music app on my iPhone that's the problem. I reported this to Apple a few weeks ago, but iOS 17.0.3 still has the issue. Does anyone know if Apple is working to fix this? It's getting kind of ridiculous that several iOS updates have come out in the past few months but the problem still exists. In the meantime, are there any solutions or workarounds that anyone has come across?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 15 Pro

Posted on Oct 11, 2023 9:32 AM

Top-ranking reply

yungfox

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Mar 10, 2024 2:39 PM

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

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72 replies

DT637

Level 1

8 points

Nov 13, 2023 2:10 AM in response to DaCarny1

Today: Dark Side Of The Moon original CD - Itunes - AAC - replace the MP3s - sync iPhone - it works

Dec 8, 2023 9:07 PM in response to llucero9848

Ah, Foobar2000. That’s working perfectly and is now my default player. Thanks!

Oct 21, 2023 12:29 AM in response to weespecky

Ok I’ve been messing around with this on my phone (iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 17.0.3) and it seems that changing pretty much any setting in Music messes continuous playback up, things like Siri suggestions and use listening history. Every change requires a restart for continuous playback to work again. Still doesn’t work on some albums ripped from CD which play perfectly on my Mac

Jun 18, 2024 4:08 AM in response to rmhunt1970

Same for me... Trying turning off Dolby Atmos, did not work.

Oct 24, 2023 4:10 PM in response to weespecky

Seems my fix for this didn't work, some albums are fine but others not, and it's totally random. I can delete all music then re-transfer the music to my iPhone and the problem will occur on different albums. Pretty terrible when you consider that MP3 players could play all these albums ripped from CD with gapless playback almost 20 years ago.

荣晖

Level 1

8 points

Mar 11, 2024 11:20 PM in response to rmhunt1970

I noticed this issue quite early on. I raised the question on the forum("AVQueuePlayer" has gaps when pla… | Apple Developer Forums), but nobody took responsibility for following up and resolving it. I submitted this feedback issue to Apple with the feedback ID FB13266188, but the problem remains unresolved and the status is still open.

rmhunt1970 Author

Level 1

74 points

May 2, 2024 1:08 PM in response to scampooo

This is not correct. I have had ripped mp3s on my various iPhones since 2009 and they've all played gapless (if the album is mastered that way), with the exception of an iOS update a few years ago. After another update it was fixed and worked fine, until almost a year ago. Since then none of my mp3s from gapless albums have played correctly.

acandmp

Level 1

32 points

May 21, 2024 8:23 AM in response to rmhunt1970

I just used my very old ipad air 2 iOS 15.7.2 I have it for more then 10 years and listen the music on it and works perfectly without gaps so smoothly when changing between song's.

Thats one of the reasons wy I use ipad instead android tablet, know Apple as released the new ipads with an impressives and powerful models and too sadly we have to experience this issue for soo many years and still going on.

So many people are begging for fix this issue and nothing, It is very disappointing.

If the issue its too complicated to fix I suggest to apple to change on the music settings on cross fade and make 2ms and that will the solution for the rest of the updates forever

The actually range now its 1 second that it too much, please change it to less then that to 2 milliseconds, please.

danjnel

Level 1

14 points

Jun 29, 2024 9:56 AM in response to Sparks0829

Hey! that gap problem isn't fixed by turning on crossfades. I'm an audio engineer and creating a new crossfade in Apple Music isn't the same as using the crossfade that already exists within the music that would sound seamless if there was no gap.

Jun 29, 2024 12:07 PM in response to scampooo

Gapless playback of MP3 files is possible by writing the length of silence to the tag during encoding and cutting it off during playback.

iTunes and iOS Music have supported gapless playback of MP3 files using this method.

DaCarny1

Level 1

9 points

Nov 20, 2023 6:27 AM in response to DaCarny1

Follow up

After the last update it auto magically works again.

rmhunt1970 Author

Level 1

74 points

Oct 12, 2023 2:29 PM in response to Sparks0829

Thank you for your reply Sparks, but that is not the issue. Crossfade works just fine in my playlists; I'm talking about playing a single album, for example, Dark Side of the Moon, where every song flows right into the next one, with no 1 or 2 second gap between songs like most albums. Listening to albums like these should be seamless, however, there is a noticeable gap of silence between each song, and it has been there for the last few iOS updates.

rmhunt1970 Author

Level 1

74 points

Oct 12, 2023 3:11 PM in response to mikeg28806

mikeg28806, I haven’t downloaded an album or individual tracks, but the gap is there whether I’m streaming an album or listening to music I’ve ripped from CD and synced to my phone. I’ve only had Apple Music since early September (6 month free trial) but the issue existed before that. It’s a shame because my albums used to play correctly, but the gap showed up after one of the iOS 16 updates this year.

DaCarny1

Level 1

9 points

Nov 12, 2023 10:13 PM in response to rmhunt1970

Nothing has fixed this for me. After raising the rates for Apple Music it performs like this? Get it together Apple! It a well known issue that I’m sure many people are having. I give it till the end of the month and if there’s no fix I’m suspending my subscription till it’s fixed. Shame!

DT637

Level 1

8 points

Nov 13, 2023 2:40 AM in response to weespecky

For me it was the first time with AAC. In 2022 I‘ve tried to replace the MP3‘s to new MP3‘s. At that time it also worked. But it was an immense effort. I don‘t wanna do this anymore. So I have to wait.

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Apple Music gapless playback not working in iOS 17