Apple Music skipping

I'll second billyboy. I did the full icloud backup>erase all>restore and it appears to have cleared up the clipping, skipping, stuttering. For reference, any audio playing app was skipping: Audible, Podcasts, Music. This was true for downloaded or streamed content. Also, the phone could be awake sleeping or locked. I'd have to pause for 15-20 seconds, rewind a bit and it would clear up for a while.

I was very pessimistic and didn’t want to do it either, but was eventually willing to try anything since I couldn’t listen to audio longer than a minute without problems.

I backed up the phone and did a full restore from that backup. 100% fixed. No problems since (four days now, and I use the phone for music listening at least five hours a day). Not sure why another user still has problems after a full restore, but odds are the full restore will work (its worked for more than a couple people here).

Just make sure to do it only when you have a couple hours to spare and you don’t anticipate having to use your phone during that time.

Update: I've found that deleting and re-installing the Music app has resolved this problem for me, at least for a couple days. I am hesitant to say that the problem is fully resolved, both because (1) others have indicated that it sometimes appears again after an additional iOS update and (2) a soft reset (the reboot from simultaneously pressing the sleep/wake and home buttons) had previously appeared to fix the problem, but then the problems with Music playback appeared again after a few hours.

Also, some notes that Apple doesn't highlight regarding their suggested "fix" of deleting and re-installing the Music app:

First, be sure to go to the Settings menu and write down your Music settings before doing this, because your prior settings won't carry over after you've re-installed the app.

Second, it appears that quite a bit - but not all - of the downloaded music on my phone was there after I re-installed the app. Downloaded music that I'd previously ripped from CD's or purchased from iTunes appears to be there in full. I also, however, have an Apple Music membership and manually download to my phone some but not all Apple Music songs that are in my Music Library (due to storage space limitations). From what I can tell, none of these Apple Music songs downloaded to my phone again even after I turned on iCloud music library, meaning that these songs/albums appear as "available" songs in my Music Library but aren't downloaded to my phone. This may not be an issue for anyone who turns on Automatic Downloads and therefore downloads everything in their Music Library (including Apple Music songs) to be available offline, but it does appear to be a problem for anyone who wants to have offline access to some but not all of their Music Library songs that are from Apple Music.

Again, this highlights for me that Apple needs to apologize and promise to fix the underlying issue rather than presenting sub-optimal work-arounds as the "answer" to this problem that Apple clearly caused in recent iOS updates. These work-arounds not only take up the time of users but also, based on my experience, have the potential for unforeseen consequences, particularly for people who have decided to set up their Music Library in a very specific manner.

(As a bit of background, my phone is an iPhone 5s. I update iOS essentially right when updates are released, and the music problem of garbled sound, cutting out, etc. did not occur on my phone until sometime in July. My iPad Air 2 has not had the same problem.)

I performed a full iPhone restore this morning, and the problem seems to have disappeared. It’s not a great solution ( took over 4 hours), but I recommend it since theres no telling how long it will take for Apple to address in a future update.

As I mentioned before, this bug affected both my wife and me after updating our iPhone 6s's to 11.3, A subsequent upgrade to 11.3.1 did not help. This past Friday my wife reset her phone to factory settings, and reloaded her music, podcast subscriptions, and other apps from scratch (not from a backup). The glitching did go away for her. It's now five days later, and the glitching problem is still fixed.

I'd do this, but I have a lot of texts that I can't lose for work reasons. I'm planning on waiting until 11.4 comes out, at which time iMessages will be in the cloud, hopefully. That way I can reset my phone to factory settings without losing my texts.

For those of you who erased your iPhones and still had the audio glitching problem, did any of you restore to factory settings and set up your phone from scratch? Or did you restore from a backup?

Here's a solution that works for me. When I play music (Music app, or Sirius/XM, or I Heart Radio), if I turn the screen off once the music starts playing (side button), the pause-then-stutter never happens. I think the stutter starts, as someone mentioned earlier, when the auto-lock starts and the screen turns black. I'll use this for a while and wait to see if there's an ios fix, or I have time to do a phone reset.

Update: I continue to experience this problem. One solution that is working for me: When the problem starts, I hit the pause button. Then wait about 5 seconds until I hear the "click" in my earbuds that tells me the audio driver has stopped. Then I hit PLAY, and after that I experience no problems.

I do not see any relationship to the lock screen. I have my phone on "never autolock", and yet I am experiencing the problem regularly.

As I mentioned before, this bug affected both my wife and me after updating our iPhone 6s's to 11.3, A subsequent upgrade to 11.3.1 did not help. My wife reset her phone to factory settings, and reloaded her music, podcast subscriptions, and other apps from scratch (not from a backup). The glitching did go away for her. It's now two weeks later, and the glitching problem is still fixed.

I'd do this, but I have a lot of texts that I can't lose for work reasons. I'm planning on waiting until 11.4 comes out, at which time iMessages will be in the cloud, hopefully. That way I can reset my phone to factory settings without losing my texts.

For those of you who erased your iPhones and still had the audio glitching problem, did any of you restore to factory settings and set up your phone from scratch? Or did you restore from a backup?

So I’ve been experiencing the same problem on my iPhone 6S, 64gb. A solution, albeit it temporary, has been to a turn off the passcode feature. Doing so has stopped the glitch/skipping completely even when the phone is locked. Again this may be a temporary solution, but at least I can now listen to music/podcasts without this problem.

Just an update - I am now a week in and no audio issues since updating to 11.4 beta 5.

Its rather easy to join the beta program and get this version installed.

Have others tried this version and still having issues???

I gave up. I did a restore and it worked. I’m really disappointed in Apple. Not only it took half a day to do but I now have to reconfigure all my Touch ID apps. At least the problem is solved now.

How hard would it be for Apple to just give an update on the issue? :(

Have the same issue. I called apple and followed instructions

1) Soft restart = Turn phone off and on.

2) Hard restart = BOTH buttons held until you see Apple Logo.

3) Reinstall software (Reinstall or restore iOS on a malfunctioning iPhone)

Every since the 11.3 or so up date my music has been acting up (skipping, sound distortion etc). While playing or when phone is going to sleep (playing music while screen turns off).

I believed it was my headphone and replaced them then the headphone adapter. Got my battery replaced and it seemed to help a tad then started up again. Finally did the reinstall and it fixed the problem. Everything started to work again until last nights iOS update (11.4.1). So that update right there confirms my suspicions from the very being which I told apple it was a software issue.

Saw a comment about deleting a song and reloading it. Are you joking? I have over 1,000 songs in just one playlist. That is an absurd excuse for a fix. Most of my songs were purchased before the 11.3 update and worked perfectly fine. Now they do not. How is this the answer? Why should I have to reinstall the software again or at all?

This is a software issue and apple needs to address it.

I have submitted the following feedback to <www.apple.com/feedback> :

"Subject: iOS 11.3-11.4.1 audio 'bug' (iPhone 6)

Feedback type: bug report

Comments: The latest iOS has a BAD audio bug. (using iOS11.4.1 on an iPhone6; updated from 11.2.6 yesterday). After the update I resumed an audiobook I was playing before and started hearing distortions almost immediately. The issue is consistent regardless of the playback/output settings (through the internal speakers, headphones, and bluetooth). It is triggered whenever the phone screen locks/sleeps: the sound cuts out briefly then skips, distorts and echoes (same for all audio; restart, reinstall, restore do not fix). HUNDREDS of people are talking about this in apple communities (discussions.apple.com/thread/8339248) and apple is risking the loss of loyal customers by not addressing this issue! These phones are (supposed to be) media players for Christ's sake! PLEASE STOP IGNORING THIS! PLEASE!"

I would suggest to anybody that is dealing with this audio 'bug' to please submit feedback to apple and tell them you are having this problem. Surely there is only so much they can turn a blind eye to. This appears to be a problem for a lot of people (there are hundreds and hundreds of posts about it in this thread alone) and it is totally unacceptable that Apple can't even be bothered to feign concern regarding the issue, let alone fix it. These phones are meant to be multimedia devices and an audio bug of this magnitude is not something that they can simply brush aside or ignore and expect the problem to go away--the only way that's going to work is if everybody suffering this issue finally gives up on Apple and buys an android, and for me, at least, that will be a sad day! I love my iPhone, but I listen to my headphones constantly and this 'bug' simply makes audio unlistenable.

Backing up and restoring your iOS will work temporarily (most people report 4 or 5 days of relief), but this will not permanently fix the problem.

Our best bet is to pester Apple until they are forced to take the problem seriously and consider fixing it (our complaints need to assail their screens like an iOS-software-update-reminder). So far they have blatantly ignored every plea for help they have received, but with perseverance on our part and a little luck, perhaps they'll eventually cave.

Meanwhile, turning the automatic screen-lock off and keeping your phone plugged directly into a charger (not an intermediate power source) seems to keep most of the distortions at bay.

Good luck guys!

Did a full restore. Problem solved. Took a few hours, but glad it worked. Thanks!