Trouble with Audio and/or Freezing? Please help!

[qwasmp]

So I got an 8xt the day it came out. My first WP and I like it a lot, but I'm having two major problems:

1) When the phone doesn't have good service (e.g., on the subway) it lags really badly. Freezes, shuts down randomly; it's unusable. I can put it in Airplane mode and that fixes it, but that's kind of a hassle.

2) Major audio problems. Audio will freeze or skip for a second and then start up again, and also sometimes it gets badly distorted and remains distorted until you pause and resume. This happens particularly in Spotify (including with music that's saved offline—it's not a streaming issue), but also in the Music + Games app and in myTube. This problem is exacerbated by taxing the processor, e.g. by opening up a bunch of apps or by losing service (see #1). The problem persists whether Beats audio is on or off, and whether I use headphones or play through the phone's speakers. (I've played music through Bluetooth a couple times with no skipping, but not enough to be sure)

I thought maybe I got a bad phone, so I went to Sprint and got a replacement (only took me an hour and a half—service!). It hasn't helped. The problem persists.

Has anyone else had any issues like this? Does anyone else have this phone (esp. with Spotify installed) but not have these problems?

 

[stmav]

Have you uninstalled Spotify and seen if you can duplicate the problems? Just throwing out a troubleshooting idea.

 

[Carkid367]

Yeah I've tried it too, playing music, having Facebook, Cocktail Flow, while running GPS on HERE Drive and sending texts to the phone and it never skips. It must be a certain app causing the issue. :unhappysweat:

 

[qwasmp]

Have you uninstalled Spotify and seen if you can duplicate the problems? Just throwing out a troubleshooting idea.

Limited testing so far, but I think you might be right that it's Spotify. I feel silly for not thinking of this, although I'm surprised that one app can screw up audio across the device. Anyway, thanks for the help; I was about to start pulling my hair out.

 

[Trunks817]

must be a programming leak of some app. No issues here. In my basement I switch between roaming and sprint service and have never had an issue where the phone became unresponsive. I do not have spotify installed.

 

[MrMobile]

Same issues on two review devices in a row, and what's more: issues persisted even after uninstalling Spotify.

Would be interested to hear more explanations/theories on what's causing this.

 

[qwasmp]

I'm glad someone else noticed. Here's the thing: streaming music is really important to me on a phone, and my 14 day return window ends tomorrow. Does anyone have any thoughts/guesses on when this might get updated? I can live with it for, say, a month, but if Sprint pulls a Sprint here and just ignores it, I don't want to be stuck with this phone for two years.

 

[grizzlyaddams]

Anyone else have any insight on the poor performance and unresponsiveness/lag in low signal areas? I was 100% planning to buy this phone this weekend, but now am very hesitant because I am frequently in areas of low signal, extended network, and the phone would be useless to me if it started wonking out in terms of usability when I have only 1 bar.

 

[qwasmp]

Anyone else have any insight on the poor performance and unresponsiveness/lag in low signal areas? I was 100% planning to buy this phone this weekend, but now am very hesitant because I am frequently in areas of low signal, extended network, and the phone would be useless to me if it started wonking out in terms of usability when I have only 1 bar.

For me uninstalling Spotify seemed to solve that problem too.

 

[grizzlyaddams]

For me uninstalling Spotify seemed to solve that problem too.

Good to hear because I really want something new and I've been waiting for a sweet Sprint Windows Phone 8. I almost got the Arrive way back when but didn't like the aesthetic. Also prefer the aesthetic of the 8XT over the upcoming Ativ S Neo, now the only thing I am debating is the low screen resolution on the 8XT and whether or not it will run Halo: Spartan Assault!

 

[ratsttam]

Good to hear because I really want something new and I've been waiting for a sweet Sprint Windows Phone 8. I almost got the Arrive way back when but didn't like the aesthetic. Also prefer the aesthetic of the 8XT over the upcoming Ativ S Neo, now the only thing I am debating is the low screen resolution on the 8XT and whether or not it will run Halo: Spartan Assault!

The audio issue seems to be hit/miss

I have the Arrive. It's been a great device.
I also had the Epic 4g (the OG Slider one), and the Galaxy Nexus. Playing games on the lower resolution screen of the Epic (4" @ 480x800) to the Nexus (4.7" @ 720p) didn't really look any different. Tiny things like zooming out on the browser is all that I could visually see being better, but then words were too small to comfortably read anyways.

The specs of the 8xt say it will run Halo: Spartan Assault just fine. Probably even smoother than the "bigger" WP8 phones, since you're only driving the wvga resolution screen.

 

[ibachus]

You are not alone! I have the exact same issue. The static and muffled sound seems to occur when listening to music or playing a game and the phone needs to reach out to the internet for something via the cellular data. It appears to do this if you fire up Pandora (or probably any streaming app) and do something else like using the browser. I even experienced the crackling when the alarm went off in the morning. However that only happened once. I have never installed Spotify but I use Pandora regularly. I even did a factory reset on the phone on the phone this weekend and I only installed Pandora and the problem persists. I have discovered a couple things about it. When static creeps in, it freezes immediately before (reaching out to the internet via cell data). To return the sound to normal, if the current app has a "pause" button simply pause and un-pause it and the static goes away. If there is no pause button, hit the magnifying glass (load to the Bing search screen) then hit the back button and the app returns and the static will be gone. If you turn off the cell data, the freezing and the static NEVER appear (at least in my testing). Also, turning on Wifi will prevent the freezing and static as well. In my opinion, since it appears that you can temporarily fix it from within the software I don't believe this is a problem with the hardware and Sprint or HTC needs to release and update that fixes it. I could be wrong about this though. My fear was that if I swap it out, the problem will persist just like what happened to you. Here is one way I have found to replicate the issue. Ensure the cell data is turned on, download the free version of "Ragdoll Run", run the game for a few minutes and let the "in game" ads appear (the app reaches out to the internet via cell), in about 1 or 2 minutes you will experience the freezing and that static muffled sound will begin. Now the other part of the experiment is to exit the game, turn on your Wifi, pull up the game again and do the same thing again and the game runs perfectly! You can also connect to a Bluetooth speaker instead of wifi and it will work perfectly. This is not a problem with that game, it's just a way to replicate and test it (again in my opinion). I'm curious to hear the results of other tests with the 8XT?!? I will call Sprint to see what they say. If this truly plagues all of the HTC 8XT's out there, they need to fix it.

 

[grizzlyaddams]

I've been getting the crackling about once per day. Usually on the drive home while listening to Pandora. When I hit a deadzone or similar, the audio pauses briefly and then resumes with the crackling. Pausing and resuming the music solves it for Pandora specifically.

Uno gave me the cracking audio also, and there was no fixing it short of a restart.

Take me back to the original Sprint Palm Pre days...

 

[ratsttam]

If I'm listening to music stored on the phone (sd card), it's OK even with low or lost signal (most of my commute). I can't even stream Pandora in my area. I have a Slacker subscription, and that works fine for stations cached locally. Now, when I get a text and it's "reading" it and the signal changes, it will distort the voice making it difficult to determine what the text says. This certainly sounds like a software issue that we'll just have to wait out. If you can replicate it at a Sprint service center and they wipe it, and still does it (then show them that it does it on their display model too), make sure there is notes on your account. It may qualify you for a swap to the Samsung WP or something else later on if the next update doesn't fix it.

 

[Subzero1313]

I know 3 people(myself included) that have the device, and all 3 have the same issue. I get the distorted sounds even when typing on the keyboard or playing a game. I've never used Spotify, so it's not that. Like I said, it happens in every app. Netflix, the keyboard, games.

Freezing I haven't had happen much. Other than when I go to open an app or switch between apps it pauses for literally like 2 seconds and carries on. I have no problem with that. However, every so often there's either a huge delay, or I have to keep my power button like 5 times in order to turn my screen back on. It's gotten progressively worse, yesterday was really bad. However, it hasn't happened at all today. So yeah, if it persists, I'm going back to my One

 

[P O]

same audio issues with my 928 audio, pausing and resuming fixes it but that's not convenient. Don't know if the antenna or charger are located next to the high performance speaker in the 928 or what or software related? when the sound is clear its super clear but I get same issue with calls sometimes, crystal clear than crackling sound, while making receiving calls from same location same people .

 

[ratsttam]

same audio issues with my 928 audio, pausing and resuming fixes it but that's not convenient. Don't know if the antenna or charger are located next to the high performance speaker in the 928 or what or software related? when the sound is clear its super clear but I get same issue with calls sometimes, crystal clear than crackling sound, while making receiving calls from same location same people .

Is your 928 on GDR2? If it is, it may be an issue with the OS, and not the 8xt hardware as some are suspecting. Even more likely a software issue since you've got a Nokia, and we've got HTC...