Music skipping on iPhone

Same problem audio skips on all audio apps, on phone calls audio drops out for 10 seconds and have to pull out headphones to kick it back in. Really annoying, quality at Apple seems to be dropping more and more.

Same here. Does it some days, others not. Seems to be completely random, but when it starts, it keeps doing it until the phone is rebooted. Extremely surprising that this got through QA. Makes you wonder what kind of process they have going on at Apple. It isn't like this is subtle...

As I mentioned before, I did a full restore from iTunes to 11.3.1 on Monday, April 30. Everything went fine until this morning when I had two more instances of the skipping issue.

I'll say that in all cases it seems to happen within about 30 seconds of locking phone. Listening to podcast with no issues, unlock phone to look at something, lock phone, within about 30 seconds there's skipping. Not ever time, clearly, but there seems to be some correlation there.

This is my experience as well. It doesn't happen everywhere (it happens at uni, but not at home, for example), and it doesn't happen every time, but it definitely correlates with turning the screen off. From a scientific stand point it's sort of annoying that I can't replicate it.

I will say that even though the skipping has come back since I restored my phone, it's not nearly as bad as it was. Small victories?

yeah i noticed it happens the worst at the office (more people on the wifi network? longer listening periods?) and gets better at home. i switched to a different network at work and it helped for about half a day. i updated my spotify app and it hasn't done it on there since.... now it seems to only do it on the apple podcast app, or itunes.... so i have started finding my podcasts on spotify and listening there. so annoying....

Having the same problem with my iPad Air.
Downloaded music will start sputtering and glitching, and clear up when I wake up the screen.

Thought it was some weird Bluetooth interference or something due to it clearing up when moving it away from my work monitors. Messes up streaming podcasts and downloaded music just the same. 11.3.1

Trying another hard reset. Turned off Bluetooth and it seemed clear for a good 3 hours but not now.

I've been experiencing the same thing ever since upgrading to 11.3 and subsequent updates. Very disruptive when listening to podcasts and music while trying to focus at work. Please fix this bug soon!

iPhone 6s here.

I've made a complete restore via itunes the problem is still there. Have stuttering sound in calls, spotify, podcast etc. The buttons on my B&O headphone doesnt work although the sound does go through (with the stutter).

We really need a fix for this asap.

If a full restore hooked up to iTunes did not fix the issue (it did for me iphone 7 plus 256 att), then I would make an appointment with apple and show them. Maybe they would be willing to swap it out even though you are no longer under warranty.

Having intermittent skipping, pauses, garbled audio. More frequent in phone calls but I’m on the phone more than listening to music or podcasts. I did the full restore after the 11.3 update. Seemed to resolve briefly then problem recurred, but not as frequent.

Couple of observations/correlations but may not be causation. I have iPhone 7+ 256 GB on VZW. Only happens when using standard issue lightning port ear buds. If I unplug and replay, the issue appears to be resolved. The issue can but does not always occur after the phone goes to lock/black screen.

Based on the above, it would seem to be a buffering issue related to the digital to analog conversion that occurs with the lightning port and possible shutdown or the screen impacting part of that process. Best guess.

Interested in anyone else seeing similar triggers for the behavior.

I mostly use my iPhone for podcasts rather than accessing music, but the issues have been the same for some weeks since the new update. Skipping, distortion and short-interval loops are now expected on every podcast I listen to, making them frankly unbearable at times (painfully loud too).

I followed advice read elsewhere (https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/users-ios-11-3-audio-problem-fix/) and did an Update (cf. Restore) on my iPhone SE, but this hasn't cured the problem.

I can't face a full restore at this stage, but audio playback is a key function of my phone for me. I'm not even going to comment on the way Apple has butchered the functionality of the Podcast app - my loyalty has withstood all those stupid changes - but if Apple doesn't solve this playback issue soon, it will drive me to Android.

just to be clear for everyone. There are many things that may look to the users that they are resetting the phone but they are different. (resting from within the phone menus is not the same as hooking it up to iTunes)

I am not saying resetting or updating. I know it may be confusing.

The steps i took to fix problem.

1 backup to icloud via wfi.

2 hook up phone to computer with lightning cable

3 have itunes download a clean full version of the current ios.

4 do a full restore. it takes like an hour for it to load and run though everything.

5 once done get on your wifi and sign into your accounts (icloud) and download all your backed up data (2 hours for me)

if all that does not fix the problem, (it did for me iphone 7 plus 256 ATT) then i would go to an apple store, set up an appointment. there is nothing else the user can do to try and fix it.

good luck guys

Backing up the phone, reloading the iOS, and restoring my backup worked for me also. I did everything including backup thru iTunes thinking it may go faster. It still took me 3 hours on my 6S with about 90GB. I also did it on a different computer than I normally use so none of my music reloaded. Also all of my Spotify playlists had to be downloaded again.

I feel like this is like a defrag for your phone so older hardware can run whatever updates we get forced. But definitely they didn't test enough on the older models. I haven't put all my music back on yet (ironically the U2 album is still there) but I've been running for over a week with no skipping of podcasts, music (downloaded or otherwise), direct connections or Bluetooth, phone conversations, or map directions ⚠. Yes, anything audio coming thru skips when the phone screen was turned off manually or by timeout.

If there's a change once I fill my memory back up again I'll update my post.

This is a totally crazy situation.

The idea that a customer would have to spend 3+ hours of their time, re-downloading all their apps, music, and podcasts, to maybe fix a problem affecting one of the core function of a smart phone.

This crippling problem was caused by a normal update. It would be more infuriating if it wasn't so hilariously incompetent.

Update

Eventually, I was persuaded to backup my data (to my MacBook), hook up phone to it with cable and do a full restore. All in all, it took about 90 minutes to reupload all my music, podcasts and all other content, including all my apps.

TBF, it's run like a dream since.