Audio playback stuttering/skipping iOS11.4

Although not ideal, I tried a work around I found on an earlier thread on this same issue. If you shut off passcode, the issue resolves. You lose Apple Pay though. Pick your poison.

The problem does seem to be fixed in 11.4.1 (beta). I updated yesterday and no problems yet, either through Bluetooth or the lightning connector.

To see how to install, google “iOS Public Beta”.

Hey guys ! I deleted and re-installed the apple music app and then re-downloaded all my music.. AND IT WORKED ! No more stuttering, glitching etc... It's such a massive relief..

Apple support saying exactly the same as what the lad at the Apple store said yesterday, looks like a full restore to basic iOS as the issue seems to be in my iCloud backup

I've waited a week until I posted this - but since upgrading to ios12 I HAVEN'T had any issues with sound.

Try switch off refresh in background apps one by one. That worked for me. You could switch off one by one and test. So trial and error.

The problem is occurring on ALL devices that use Bluetooth. Doesn't occur when I use the lightning cable adaptor and hard wire the output to speakers.

It is definitely the phone. Tried doing a restore using iTunes which helped a little (the skipping/stuttering was less frequent), however, did not fully resolve the problem.

Hard restart of phone provides symptomatic relief for a few fours. I played my phone all day yesterday and after around 4-5 hours the glitch would return. I would then hard restart (press and release volume up, press and release volume down, then hold the side button until the phone restarts on its own) and everything would be fine again for a few hours.

The next thing I am trying is the redownloading/re-applying of iOS 11.4.1. Just finished, so will try this throughout the day. The next step will be to take the phone back to factory restore and see how that goes.

If none of that works, I suggest we all join the Apple iOS 12 beta program so we can give them feedback directly, given they are either not listening or ignorant of the issue.

https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/

So I ended up doing an iTunes restore on my phone and then using a backup from my iCloud once the restore was over.

After 2 days, I haven’t experienced any distortion which is a plus! However... I am now struggling with being unable to re-download half my music onto my phone D:

Getting the never ending red circle of doom (I think it’s the “in-queue” circle) which drains my battery life >.< not sure how to get my songs to actually download again... very frustrating... makes me wish I had just accepted the distortion/glitching just to keep all my music D:

So ladies and gentlemen, I’m fresh out the apple store. They ran diagnostics and found my iPhone X logic board was completely fried. It had done 4 panic restarts (whatever that means) and anything more than 2 they give you a new phone. BUT same problems occurring. They said because I’m restoring an iCloud backup to my new phone the issue will be within the restore, so every time I restore I’m bringing the problem back to a new phone. So they told me to go home and transfer all my photos and videos onto my computer because they’re the only things they can’t get back and go back tomorrow to erase phone and see if issue is still persistent when I ‘set up as new iphone’

P.s they were very friendly and understanding and agreed it’s defiantly within the software, they recommended not to update to new software until the the one after has been released, ie) don’t update to 11.4 until there’s an 11.4.1

• I have the iPhone 7S with IOS 11.4.1
• For me, the audio stuttering/skipping happens with both wired, and bluetooth headphones.
• The folks at the Apple store gave me a new lightning headphone dongle which helped a little, but every day, several times a day, I still have the audio stuttering/skipping with both wired, and bluetooth headphones.
• The level of charge of the phone does not make any difference.
• The only thing that seems to temporarily fix the issue for a few hours is re-booting the phone. I plug in the lightning to headphone adapter dongle with the headphones, turn off the phone, wait about 30 seconds for the phone to totally power down, then turn the phone back on.
• None of my music, or audiobook files have been corrupted, since they play fine after a re-boot with the dongle.
• Thousands of people seem to be having this issue across multiple generations of iPhone.
• For me it happens in both the Apple iPhone music app, and Audible audiobook app, and others have indicated other apps.
• I'm going to make a guess that it's a feature in the IOS operating system.

So I don't usually reply to commentary on forums like this, but your response seems a little excessive. From what I can gather, this error occurs intermittently on different devices in different ways, ranging from slight annoyance (my case) to "damaged almost beyond use" (in your case). Given the ranged severity of the issue, Apple would most likely place it on a low/medium tier of importance in a bug reporting system; additionally, consider this with the fact that only about 2000 people have also had this issue occur to them on forums (granted, this number is undoubtedly higher) AND that forum moderation and commentary do not reach the ears (or eyes 😝) of tech support staff/ software engineers.

As a fellow software engineer, this kind of thing is not at all out of the realm of possibility but it doesn't mean the company doesn't care about individuals whatsoever (they want your business, of course). The next iOS release definitely needs to focus more on both bug reporting to the appropriate staff that can handle the issues and addressing pre-existing bugs (I have some weird one where iOS 11 deletes messages from my notifications completely when "Show in History" is turned on in settings), but the melodramatic notion that they have simply given up on their consumers is ridiculous.

The best way to currently handle this is most likely reporting the issue online through their support; given enough requests, the issue will be escalated to a higher tier of importance and will receive more traction. Apple support is most likely already aware of the issue itself, but it is sitting below a mountain of millions of other reports of varying wording and credibility, all of which could be entirely separate problems with the same end result occurring. Additionally, this issue is relatively new; without a proper backing of consumers expressing that it exists, it will continue to sit on aforementioned pile as other bugs are addressed within' their own ecosystem that they've already confirmed exist and are currently troubleshooting.

Please keep this in mind, as I'm sure staff is trying their best to cooperate with and resolve any and all problems; it just takes a little patience and the right channels to get it addressed 🙂.

In my experience it defiantly seems to be a symptom of the processor not being able to keep up with the software demands.

I usually when i have the Music app playing over a wired connection to my car stereo. As i'm driving through residential areas with my wifi enabled, as my phone attempts to connect to various wifi networks as i slowly drive though the neighborhood, the it seems the processor of the phone taken up so much by the attempts to connect, that its the music app is starved for resources and results in the choppy static noise.

If disable wifi completely while driving, i don't have the issue.

So basically your $700 to $1200 phone doesn't have enough computing power to play music and search for a wifi network at the same time. And we make this a trillion dollar company.

Having same issues for the last couple months on my iPhone 7 (2 years old), newest update made it a lot worse. Also affects a lot of calls when using a headset. As someone who is on the phone more often than not for work, it makes it incredibly frustrating to not be able to use my headset lately because it ends up making warping and skipping sounds to not only me, but other people on the line (when I’m not on mute). Turning off WiFi and Bluetooth seems to lessen the frequency of these issues, but not by a ton. No issue when on speaker, so clearly an aux issue (had 0 issues until iOS 11), and have tried multiple headsets/earbuds with same issue, as well as my Bluetooth set gives some issues, but not as bad.

Everybody who is experiencing this, please go to Product Feedback - Apple - it's the only way they actually find out about these things. There is too much noise in the forums for them to pay attention to it.

If you have a developer account, use their feedback system. You can save diagnostics for it (I have) - instructions are online. (Press both volume buttons + lock button - it should vibrate - then WAIT, then sync with computer and the file is in there somewhere.)

It's the only way this crap gets fixed, venting can be cathartic but it does not fix it. Especially intermittent problems that they may not be experiencing (if 1% are having this issue, it's still MILLIONS of people, but it could be hard for Apple to replicate it - the only way to combat this is by submitting all the information you can).