Sound stuttering after Mountain Lion install

My experience with WiFi use is different. After turning WiFi off I listened to several hours of audio via iTunes. During those sessions audio would pause/stutter in a repeated pattern of about 45minutes to 1 hours between pauses.

Since then I have taken to timing the pauses by counting one thousand one..... Typically those pauses have "measured" between 3 and 10 seconds.

Is this congruent with anyone else's experience.

Today while playing a one hour DVD slide show the slide show with music paused three times for about 3...4 seconds each time.

For me, I am on a Mac Pro, so there is no WiFi to test....

I had filed a bug report with Apple, which they did reply to (I think I may have mentioned that here in a previous post, I'm not sure). Well, they've stopped responding... Their last comment to me was May 2nd. I wrote a follow-up on 26-Jun-2013, but nothing more from Apple. (I ocassionally have crazy OpenGL glitches which freeze up the system too... That didn't start until I updated to Mountion Lion.)

It's very sad really. If I would have known about this issue prior to going from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, I probably would have stayed with SL...

😟

Hi, Ive just bought my first mac - 27" late 2012 imac OSX 10.8.4 - and am having this stuttering, pausing, jumping to next track (with a sound like a needle scratching/going over a record) problem.

It occurs in itunes & vlc.

It occurs if the music is on the internal mac HD or on an external USB3 HD.

Mac support told me to delete some itunes cache files when I was only using itunes. But now it happens on VLC, I'll have to call them back and see what they say.

I'm also getting crackling/popping sounds when I play through the wireless function of my dac (arcam rdac & rwave).

Not a pleasant introduction to the world of macs.

This discussion was started in July 2012.

Thanks to everyone that persisted in reporting their experience it appears that Apple is taking an active interest in the stuttering problem.

What makes you say that?

Just an educated guess, but I'd bet anything it has to do with the new release of Logic forcing millions of Apple pro music users still on Snow Leopard into at least trying the newest version of "Clicky", the latest incarnation concotion of iOS/OSX.

Just a guess...

Apple asked for some files and mentioned that they have done the same with other users. My assumption is they have been following this and other threads. Then contracting users and asking for their assistance.

Its nice to know that not all efforts are in vain. There are certainly many times when commenting on these kinds of threads feels like putting a message in a bottle and hoping.

jimoase wrote:

Apple asked for some files and mentioned that they have done the same with other users. My assumption is they have been following this and other threads. Then contracting users and asking for their assistance.

They also asked me for more information. I am not sure what my logs will show them, since I never see any errors in the Console (system.log) when the glitch happens, but maybe they'll be able to find something useful in there. I certainly hope the issue is resolved soon... (I also pointed out video/OpenGL errors that ocassionally freeze things up, which may not be related, but started happening after my clean-install of Mountain Lion.)

Cool. Thanks for the update everybody.

I've now been passed on to a senior advisor for this issue with my new imac.

One thing we've discovered is that after several hours of playback under a new 'test' admin account, I have been unable to reproduce the issue.

So this would seem to indicate a corruption of the primary account in my case.

We'll pick up the issue again on monday.

PreMorningCoffee.... you have a moniker worth shedding a smile over.

The person I was dealing with at Apple has moved on to greener pastures, a different position within Apple. Her replacement has not followed up as yet.

I have been keeping a running file stuttering events. When my use is long term intensive the stuttering occurs on about a 30 minute cycles with back to back events happening occasionally.

I see that 10.8.5 BETA is in the 6th or 7th release hopefully stuttering is included.

Decades ago I worked in multitaksing, multiprocessor systems that had operating system problems with getting lost and not being attentive incoming events. We stuggled to get anywhere near the expected efficiency as more and more processor were added if the operating system was generalized as is the case for OSX.

This stuttering problem may be karma all over again.

A comon stutter occurance happens while using Pages or TextEdit if a different routine is needed. While making a continuous stream of same kind of entries, should a delete or back space be needed that change of routine will more often than not cause a stutter as if the software is caught searching for the previously unused routine.

In my case back up go forward results in nothing happening on the screen until the beach ball arrives, then zap the backspace happens and the new entry appears. Its all due to the magic beach ball.

Kind of second cousin of the "makes it work smoke" that comes out of electronic stuff on occassion. When the smoke appears the device quits working. Beach balls make it work.

I think you just hit the nail on the head!!

It would seem from this behavior it's the same problem that ocurred with Spotlight when it first came out. Spolight was such a drag on system resources (writing new indexes and deleting old ones and overly stressing hard drives) that a third-party solution appeared to completely shut it off (Spotless) and I haven't used Spotlight ever, having to do extensive music production and video editing. (I use EasyFind for searches).

It seems like the hangup is VERSIONS. Of course the system is going to be taxed when saving each new version of a work in progress automatically. I detest automatic backups (in the "background") for the same reason. You have the speed and the fragmenting of the hard drive to contend with, how fast the work can be saved and the prior work deleted. One of the first rules of high demand productivity is to turn off all automatic saving and backups, and just learn to do it manually, when nothing important is happening, in between every change you make that IS important.

And that would be why the stuttering problem isn't appearing in Snow Leopard.

I don't know if there's any way to get around versions (or disable it completely) but I'd sure try and see if that's the culprit. If it is, that also explains why Apple is dragging their feet to fix what was much touted new feature that most Mac users HATED from day one (along with the "Save as" problem.)

Worth a try anyway. I'd still be on Tiger!?!?! if not for Spotless and Easy Find and Logic 9.

Leslie Bell wrote:

...It seems like the hangup is VERSIONS. Of course the system is going to be taxed when saving each new version of a work in progress automatically. I detest automatic backups (in the "background") for the same reason...

I don't know if there's any way to get around versions (or disable it completely) but I'd sure try and see if that's the culprit. If it is, that also explains why Apple is dragging their feet to fix what was much touted new feature that most Mac users HATED from day one (along with the "Save as" problem.)

I actually mentioned this before, but for me, the stutter happens when I am just listening to music. I don't have to be doing anything else. (And even if I was doing something, I would hope my Mac Pro with 24 GB of Ram could handle it...). However, it would be very interesting to know if Versions, or Sandboxing is an issue (Sandbox errors always seem to clutter up the logs).

I too wish I could disable Versions or have some control over it. And I'm not to keen on what Apple did to Save As. I know they "kind of" brought it back, but I don't think they should have messed with it to begin with... I'd like it to be the way it was before (forget Duplicate). Just my opinion.... I know some people would disaggree.

🙂

I had a flash back. I worked at NASA Langley in 1967...69, the moon walk era. There were groups of super computers strapped together such that nothing was suppose to stop them.

While working on some display systems I needed a certain screen displayed but there was no way to stop the screen from being changed via software control. I "cured" that problem by changing the device address of the display when I had the screen I wanted. Worked for weeks until one day every printer, every disk drive, every tape drive.... everything stopped on every floor of the building.... Silence.

A few minutes ago I hit the backspace key and the video being displayed off to the side stopped and went silent. Karma all over again.