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Apple Music skipping beginning of songs

kurtfoster

kurtfoster

Contributor
Original poster
So playing around with my indigo blue 512 GB MacBook Neo. I noticed in Apple Music, whether the songs are locally stored or streaming or at whatever bit rate I play them, It skips the very beginning of each song. I have confirmed that song transitions are off. Interestingly enough, if I skip forward, backward, forward, and then backward, it plays the song from the beginning. I wonder if anyone else has had this specific issue. I don't have that issue on any of my other Apple devices. I've already sent Apple product feedback on this.
 
Auto mix is a hack. On some pop songs it will skip the first minute. And you can hear the song before it tempo change to try and has a smooth mix. Oddly enough it rarely mixes rock songs.
 
I have had this issue come and go. It is a bug that I have seen on macOS 26 and iOS 26. I have transitions of all kinds including crossfade turned off. I wouldn’t touch Auto Mix either. It is a split second that gets missed and it drives me nuts. As someone that loves guitar driven music, having the opening riff hacked off like that makes me crazy. I reported it during a brief beta testing period, but that goes into a pile of issues that we just have to hope gets fixed someday. It is not related to to your Neo however, as I have this same problem on my M2 Air and my 14PM.
 
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Issue:

When directly selecting a track in Apple Music, playback begins approximately 0.5–1 seconds into the file instead of starting at sample 0.This results in the opening audio being truncated. (Tahoe 26.x - Apple Silicon)

Example: The Distance by Cake begins playback mid-word.
Expected: "Reluctantly crouched at the starting line…"
Actual: "…luctantly crouched at the starting line…"

Observations:
  • Tracks with a short silent lead-in are unaffected.
  • Issue is reproducible across multiple locally stored audio files independent of file format.
  • Same files play correctly in third-party applications including Swinsian.
  • Issue reproduces across multiple local files, indicating source media is not corrupted.
  • Behavior appears isolated to Apple Music playback initialization, buffering, or audio pipeline startup.
  • Tracks with immediate vocals or percussion expose the issue most clearly.
  • Super Annoying.
Fix:

The problem is not with the app. It is with the built in Music App EQ.
  • Actual Bug: The Music App's Equalizer.
  • Since Tahoe, The Equalizer Option has been moved. ̶a̶p̶p̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶s̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶u̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶
  • Press: Command+option+E to show the EQ.
  • Disable EQ.
Symptoms resolved.​

I've installed a 3rd Party EQ to use on my Apple Silicon Music App. I use rogue amoeba soundsource, but eqMac works also.
 
Last edited:
Madaracs said:
Since Tahoe, The Equalizer Option appears to be absent from the menu system.
Click to expand...
This is incorrect.

iMac 2026-07-09 at 12.17.37 PM.png
 
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My equaliser is off, but I have what I think is the same issue. Locally uploaded/stored MP3s (not M4As) start playing at 0:01-0:02 (I haven’t checked) mark. macOS Sequoia, latest and all versions before.
 
I've seen/heard this on occasion. Through the years I've had several Macs, including two Hackintoshes, a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, and an M1 Mac Studio running various versions of macOS and iTunes/Apple Music…using built-in sound or one of three different external sound devices…and my playback has often had a glitch. It's been either at the beginning or somewhere in the 10-15 second range.

It has happened for me since before Apple had any cloud music streaming playback.

I gave up years ago and decided that it's likely a widespread issue that most people don't notice.

Seems like a local buffering issue that's just been perpetuated through some kind of bad code that keeps getting passed on to the next version of the app.
 
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