Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

strydr

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2005
252
0
SoCal
OK, so this is wierd. Lots of songs skip about 1 sec. into the song. Kinda like a hiccup. Has anyone else had this problem?? Anyone know of a fix?? I run Onyx on a regular basis (repair permissions, run scripts, etc..), but this does not help..
All music was imported from CD's, -i've checked the CD's for scratches, but they all play just fine.
All music is stored locally (internal HDD on iMac)
 
I read this as iTunes skins and got all excited...

And yes I've had this problem before too, it's all the files fault. Was prolly badly encoded/ripped.
 
Rip CD's slowly and at around 256kbps for good quality :). I prefer VBR instead of CBR, but since I switched to macs and can't use EAC and LAME, I've just been going with 256 CBR.
 
mad jew said:
Play one of the skipping tracks through QuickTime. Does it still skip? :)

Nope. Even wierder, when I go back to iTunes, the song dosen't skip. It's very random. I can skip around (on random) and get a few to play right, then one hangs..
Does anyone know, is iTunes reading (real-time) from my HDD, or is it caching music to RAM, then playing? Maybe this is a latency issue?, hopefully not impending doom for my HDD, or RAM issues..
I do not have this problem with any other systems. My PB (with it's slower drive), iPod, mini.., they all work just fine, and they all have a slower (2.5") HDD
 
If you open up Activity Monitor, does it look like your computer is under a lot of strain as it plays the music. Is CPU and RAM usage high (particularly the CPU)? What else are you doing on the system at the same time? :)

As for whether iTunes uses the RAM or the hard drive, it uses the RAM where possible but obviously everything is kept on the drive.
 
mad jew said:
If you open up Activity Monitor, does it look like your computer is under a lot of strain as it plays the music. Is CPU and RAM usage high (particularly the CPU)? What else are you doing on the system at the same time? :)

As for whether iTunes uses the RAM or the hard drive, it uses the RAM where possible but obviously everything is kept on the drive.

Well, this is om my iMac, with 2Ghz G5, and 1.5G RAM. CPU usually runs at 30-45%, and I just about always have 500+MB RAM available.. I have a few other apps open (mail, Safari (or Firefox), Indigo, and iTunes), but nothing intensive.
 
Thought this was my problem but after reading realised it's different. When playing my ipod sometimes goes to a track, thinks about it, then skips to the next one :confused:

If I click < it then plays the track fine! Weird.
 
lurcher said:
Thought this was my problem but after reading realised it's different. When playing my ipod sometimes goes to a track, thinks about it, then skips to the next one :confused:

If I click < it then plays the track fine! Weird.


The iPod can have trouble with larger song files because there is more time it has to be accessing the hard drive. Jolt it as it accesses the hard drive and you get skipping. Do you have large tracks?

Also, Apple made a page about skipping tracks for you here. :)
 
Thanks MJ

They are not long tracks and they are 192 bitrate. It doesn't happen to the same track everytime either. Sometimes it will skip and other times it will play. Can't work out any one thing that makes it skip :(
 
mad jew said:
So you don't have any lyric or iTunes related widgets installed? :)

Sorry..
Ya, I have PearLyrics installed.. It's the only add-on of iTunes I have.
 
Sorry to bring up an old thread, but thanks MJ, this has been driving me crazy over the last few days. Odd that it only started happening a few weeks after installing Pear.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.