Apple Music skipping

Yes I am getting this problem too - starting about the beginning of July. It affects both an iPhone 5s and an iPad mini 3. It affects both Podcasts and Music. I notice it when listening on headphones. The first sign is that the audio stream cuts out for a few seconds and then appears to continue OK - but after that there is a periodic 'stuttering' - it sounds like a CD player trying to play a CD with a serious scratch. Killing and restarting the app affected doesn't help. I will try some of the cures described by others.

However this is a real black mark against Apple - not what you want from what is supposed to be a quality product.

Being that the biggest reason for owning an iPhone is for iTunes (I have used iTunes from day one), to have a phone that now does not play back my music in any listenable form after putting it on standby means once again, Apple has proved to be completely incompetent when introducing new updates. None of the suggestions by Apple in the original post work. I have over 100gb of music downloaded and regularly listen to podcasts that suffer the same issue. THE RICHEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD -SORT YOUR **** AND FIX THIS PROBLEM ASAP!!!!!!! this maybe the last time I purchase an iPhone. Since Mr Jobs died, the company has turned into a cynical corporate has-been, intent on alienating its most loyal users and pro users whilst offering updates that simply make too many mistakes and are clearly not tested properly. Are you telling me no one updated this new version and then tried something simple like listening to music though wired headphones with the phone on standby??? Of course not, because that would mean having to be detailed, professional and have staff that aren’t all using iPhone X. Or maybe it’s deliberate? I mean you all need people to buy new phones each year to satisfy the shareholders. Corporate greed 101: introduce updates that systematically make user experience worse.... to incentivise new purchases.

I am very disappointed by this answer, as both an Apple customer (currently using about five Apple devices for one person) and an Apple shareholder. The right answer is that Apple needs to fix this bug in recent iOS updates, which has similarly impacted my iPhone 5s after updating to iOS 11.4. The music app is currently essentially unusable because it skips and cuts out so much.

I realize that this answer is almost certainly not the fault of Jeff typing it here as reply, and that's frankly what is so concerning to me. It speaks of a problem running up through Apple's customer support organization management, all the way to the highest levels of the company, that an answer like this one is regarded as satisfactory. The right answer is an apology and a promise that Apple is working to fix the bug. But that's unfortunately not the answer that Jeff has been told/trained to provide.

I spoke with Apple last night, what an absolute waste of time it was.

Firstly they were 25 minutes later than we scheduled. I explained the issue with the music and of course they advised me to wipe my decide and back it up again but I refused this as it hasn’t resolved other people’s issue’s. After that they said there is nothing more they can do.

Honestly I’ve never known such poor customer service. Maybe, just maybe I might have to move to Android in September

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 continue to have this issue. It occurs with both older downloads & newer downloads alike. HELP! It has been doing this off & on for months now....I keep hoping the iOS updates will correct it as it is clearly a bug but still waiting!!! Does Apple support monitor these forums or is there another way for all of us who are experiencing the same problem to inform them of how prolific the problem truly is?

Deleting the iTunes Music player from my phone and reinstalling it from the App Store (cloud reinstall took 60 seconds), the whole issue seems to be resolved. I'm tentatively optimistic.Deleting the iTunes Music player from my phone and reinstalling it from the App Store (cloud reinstall took 60 seconds), the whole issue seems to be resolved. I'm tentatively optimistic.

I hope that these "fixes" - re-installing the iTunes Music player or a hard restart (home and power buttons) - really do resolve these problems fully for joseph and NEKO.

That said, though, I have tried both of these fixes with my iPhone (a 5s) and have found them to work only temporarily. Music playback will function better for a few days, but similar problems will then occur again. The problems are (I think) less severe and persistent than they had been: a simple re-start will then result in music playback working OK for some period of time (perhaps a day or so).

Also, to be very clear to Apple employees who may read this comment, the problem does not at all appear to be the audio files. These issues occur across a wide variety of songs, and the problems don't always occur in the same places within songs. I have verified that sometimes these playback problems occur with songs that I've recently downloaded through iTunes using my Apple Music subscription. In other words, if Apple is claiming that audio files are the problem, then Apple is saying that it provided with me with damaged audio files through Apple Music / iTunes within the past few weeks.

The point from many others in these comments stands. Apple introduced this problem with recent iOS updates. I never had any of these sorts of problems playing back music until a recent iOS update. I think it was sometime after installing iOS 11.4 for me. I have also now occasionally noticed similar problems with my iPad (an iPad Air 2).

Apple needs to acknowledge that it caused this problem, apologize, and fix the bug.

I’ve followed all the advice and still skipping. Every other song! It’s been like this since the upgrade 11.3 ..... clearly a software bug!

I’m on 11.4.1 now and had issues today with podcasts, downloaded and streamed music.

iPhone 6S running iOS 11.4.1 I tried all the recommendations. Nothing helps. Don’t know if it’ll help Apple find a solution. But mine skips out on the songs right at 2 minutes and goes directly to the next song on then playlist. Sounds like a pointer issue. It’s very frustrating. A fix needs to be found.

I’ve been having the same problem since last iOS update. My music skips a few seconds in , jumps about a bit and then plays ok. Happens when I play a new track or first open the app. Really annoying. Was fine for as long as I’ve had the phone but obviously got a bug from the update and now ruined what for me was an important part of my phone.

Well what can I say , I thought that's what you did with windows devices , when it does not work turn it off and turn it on again lol - Microsoft strapline never laughed so much ,

I should not laugh I am having the same issue on my ipad only on certain songs which I deleted of both my ipad and mac , put the music back on plays ok on my mac (Still on mountain lion thank God) so why is it done everything apple say but still nothing -

slowly using my PC more and more moving away from Apple the best way forward at the moment - let the bosses know there are unhappy people , people who buy their product and just want it to work - you can see just buy this page but I doubt if anyone will tell them to scared to say your product is rubbish and no wonder others are catching up and overtaking, happy to discuss if they got the time to spare.

Hi everyone,

I have managed to fix this issue (at least for now...).

To fix this I simply just deleted the music app from my phone and re-installed it. I only did this yesterday but so far it seems to be okay! 🙂

Hope this helps!

So like you said did some feedback but also did everything Apple said I have done the following deleted all my music i reset my phone as new and put my music back on it did not make any difference,, however borrowed my daughters Samsung and my music works a treat , I am beginning to think this is a hardware issue hence why Apple won’t give a working answer , why the cloak and dagger tell us it’s not working and we are working on it , I can handle this , we are adults and can handle it ..

I think I found a solution... at least it's working so far for me... I did 2 things but pretty sure 1 was the answer... I went into Bluetooth devices and set "forget this device" to all other devices except the receiver I was connected to... haven't reconnected to any other device yet, but so far no constant audio drops, skips, or distorted audio... the other thing I did was turn off location but don't think that was the prob... haven't turned it back on cuz I'm enjoying listening to my music without having to constantly restart Bluetooth lol