Windows audio stuttering

[Katji]

Problem is definitely the Qobuz app.

...Happy Firefox+Soundcloud user. No such problems with 2014 ASUS i7 8Gb. Firefox always 30+ tabs but not all actually loaded.

 

[JoostE]

Yeah I am using the web player now, and that gives no problem.

Contacted Qobuz support, and they stated they are working on an update that should fix it. Hopefully it is coming soon, but so far, the webplayer is actually fine.

 

[Tortie]

Process Lasso can do this and much more automatically https://bitsum.com/

I've been using it for years.

Are you sure it works with Win10? Because I installed a similar app that claimed to permanently set priority and it simply didn't work.

 

[Tortie]

Yeah I am using the web player now, and that gives no problem.

Contacted Qobuz support, and they stated they are working on an update that should fix it. Hopefully it is coming soon, but so far, the webplayer is actually fine.

Hope that's the case. Qobuz support has disappointed me in the past by assuring me an issue would be taken of but nothing ever happens.

 

[Tortie]

Problem is definitely the Qobuz app.

...Happy Firefox+Soundcloud user. No such problems with 2014 ASUS i7 8Gb. Firefox always 30+ tabs but not all actually loaded.

Qobuz seems to lack a built in thread priority management. I can find such a setting in the advanced settings for Foobar2K. This is a pretty big oversight for an audio app.

 

[Tortie]

Nice thank you, I am going to look into that.

Sadly though, for high res tracks, it still stutters sometimes.... I guess I need a laptop upgrade, but would like to hold that off another year or so.

Currently I have a Dell XPS13 from 5 years old.

Core i5 5200U 2.2 Ghz
8GB DDR3
Some standard onboard GPU chip, that probably shares in memory or something.

So yeah, maybe I just need an upgrade, but seems really dumb I would need to upgrade my pc for a music streaming app....

Dude, I have 32gigs of DDR4 in my win box and the Qobuz app still has stutter issues. It's not a memory resource problem.

 

[digitalfrost]

Are you sure it works with Win10? Because I installed a similar app that claimed to permanently set priority and it simply didn't work.

Works for me with Windows 10.

 

[Katji]

Regardless, the problem is caused by incompetence of Qobuz programmer/s. ...And management, of course. Maybe they'll eventually learn about the importance of testing.

 

[JoostE]

Using the audirvana app right now, fixes the problems I have with the Qobuz app. Hope they are on it though, since I am not really planning to pay for Audirvana in the long run.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't think that's full proof. I even had some stuttering with Foobar yesterday. Today I updated my onboard audio driver and it seemed to help (only) with Foobar.

The Qobuz app may not be designed very well. I think it uses and relies heavily on html language and browser web kit stuff. That could explain why it stutters so badly when Edge is launched separately. The stuttering ONLY occurs when I open a web browser app. Other apps don't seem to interfere. Which is weird. But it makes sense if the Qobuz app is sharing system resources with these web browsers. I don't think the stuttering occured with Firefox, which uses a different webkit engine than Edge/Chrome/Brave browsers. That would imply that Qobuz uses a Chromium engine and thus stutters when another Chromium instance is launched in Windows.

I'm just spitballing here. Not sure how any of this really works. But I have used Qobuz for 4 years now and I remember the previous version of their Windows app was simply a customized web browser that was designed to look like an "app". It was so primitive. The current app looks slicker and more polished but it could still be browser window that fetches webpage elements from qobuz.com and renders them in the "app".

Consider changing to Google Chrome and/or using a second box for web browsing.

 

[JoostE]

Consider changing to Google Chrome and/or using a second box for web browsing.

Sadly chrome has the same issues. Not sure what you mean by a second box, like a second computer? Defeats the whole purpose.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Well, after a recent round of having to do a full re-install of Windows on my laptop I'm now having a sound issue that I never had before. Sigh...

It's a very specific issue. Basically every ten minutes or so I get a nice, clearly audible "frtz!" A split second skip/static burst - it's about as singular as if you tapped the side of a turntable and caused the needle to jump. This is with Foobar2000 using WASAPI. I've tried all the usual culprits to resolve it with no luck. So annoying. I guess I'll just put up with it till the next big Windows update and see if it goes away.

 

[Katji]

Try Windows Media Player or something. If it stops happening, then...

 

[AnalogSteph]

I'd be having an eye on DPC latency in this case (LatencyMon). These things usually are driver related, occasionally power saving features (e.g. processor C states) will have a hand in it as well.

I've had some issues with a May 20H2 feature update failing at work... it was always rolled back automatically. A manual in-place upgrade install yielded catastrophic results, leaving the system unbootable, and reinstall attempts didn't help. Eventually I accidentally found out that the system drive on these machines is BitLocker encrypted from the factory (key stored in TPM), and something obviously goes badly wrong (not suspended correctly or whatever). After a complete decryption the reinstall finally worked, at least leaving me with a virgin install. This crap cost me DAYS.... I think I'm on a first-name basis with bcdedit now. (At least I finally figured out that you can only boot these particular machines from USB if the boot menu is set to "All" instead of "Supervisor only", completely defeating the purpose of this setting.) Now I've got a second system with the same failing update problem... guess I'll try decrypt + reboot + cross fingers + reencrypt.

 

[Gekel]

Dude, I have 32gigs of DDR4 in my win box and the Qobuz app still has stutter issues. It's not a memory resource problem.

It's not the memory but an internal problem within the program which causes some functions to be delayed in such a way that the output halts for a while. This can e.g. caused by a problem in the communication/data exchange between the server and the client, but it is not limited to this alone.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

So I thought I'd pop in and give an update on the issue I posted about a few posts above just in case maybe it might help someone. After trying all sorts of stuff, my popping issue persisted - until today maybe.

My laptop is a Dell model. It's about 5 years old now and ftmp it's worked fairly reliably. Of course it comes with a raft of crap installed most of which I've long since jettisoned as is my policy with these sorts of things, but one thing I hadn't gotten rid of and in fact had actually used a bit was Dell's SupportAssist software. It's basically a suite of optimization and update software that checks for drivers and whatnot and keeps the system up to date. Of course, I'm always leery of this sort of thing and in the past I've done my own updating manually. However, I've found SupportAssist good because it has found things like BIOS updates that I might not normally look for or find. Also, Dell stuff always uses proprietary chipsets - which is ****** really but whatever - and often generic video and audio drivers won't install. You have to get the drivers from Dell.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to do my occasional run of SupportAssist to see what it turned up, and when I fired it up it informed me the software needed to be updated first so I said "OK." Well, it got about a third of the way through the update process and then I got a nice BSOD. Crap. The system restarted and once it booted up I tried the install again. BSOD again. Reboot. So now I'm wondering what the issue is. I spent yesterday trying various things to figure out why I was getting the Blue Screen and eventually I checked the system maintenance report and it appeared as though every BSOD was preceded by the note "Intel HD Audio stopped working." Now, I always run my laptop through my TV via HDMI for the bigger screen size so I figured maybe the issue was the drivers for my videocard, but they are all proprietary and finding the right drivers is a pain without the supportassist app. I spent several hours messing around while getting BSODs every 15 minutes or so and having to wait for things to reboot...

Well, long story short, in trying repeatedly to get SupportAssist to update properly I discovered that there was several different entries for the software in my programs list. I manually un-installed all of them and the BSODS stopped. A quick google search for "Dell SupportAssist BSOD" turned up a bunch of stuff and it turns out it's sort of a known issue. There's problems with the software and recent Windows updates.

OK, so SupporrtAssist is all cleaned off my system and the BSOD issue is gone. This morning I wondered if it was at all possible that that might have had anything to do with the issue I was having with my sound - the pop I have been getting at a really regular 10 or so minute interval that I referred to up the page here. As I mentioned, it seemed like in the Windows problem report the BSODs were always preceded by the Intel HD Audio crashing. I fired up my headphone rig and cued up a bunch of tracks and sure enough, I listened for a solid 30 minutes with no pops at all. And this pop sound was pretty distinct and hard to miss. It was notable enough that it had basically ruined my listening for the past month or so. About 10 minutes into every listening session I'd get the pop and I'd get pissed off, lol. I'm not sure what mechanism might have been at play but I suspect maybe the SupportAssist software had some low-level polling or something going on at some interval that was interfering with the audio driver somehow and was causing the pop. Who knows?

We'll see if the issue remains gone. If it comes back I'll report again.

 

[aandres_gm]

I also have stuttering issues on the Qobuz app for Windows. Makes hapless playback virtually impossible. I've also had it completely freeze in the middle of a song a few times. One thing is for sure: won't be subscribing anytime soon.

 

[JoostE]

Also an update from me, in case anyone wonders:

I build a new computer, and all my qobuz problems are gone. The app is really badly optimized, but it was about time I upgraded my pc anyway.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

I've now enjoyed several more hours of pop-free listening. Looks like my issue is resolved. I'll say one thing though - the entire Windows infrastructure is really a mess. Especially the whole update routine. At least 2 or 3 times a week I'll boot up my system and I'll see a blank, black screen for a minute or 2 before the log in screen appears and I'll sit there wondering what is going on. Sometimes in the past I've waited a couple minutes and then decided something hadn't booted up right and I power off and reboot. But that's usually likely the wrong thing to do because more often than not what's happening is some update is installing and it's taking a long time - but how the hell do you know when there's just a frikking black screen staring at you! Sometimes the little rolling "processing" icon appears, but many times nothing at all. There really shouldn't ever be a time when your computer is operating and chewing on something with a blank screen without some sort of indication that it's not locked up. More often than not the update is just a damn Windows Defender virus signature file...what an utter pos piece of software that is.

 

[Katji]

^^^Can it be prevented and you do it manually if/when you want? My laptop is fine but 2014 model and I think of getting a new one, a backup, and then I'll have to decide whether to accept the Windows 10 or organise an 8.1 install. ...And even 8.1 is only possible for me with Classic Shell.