Stuttering audio when the screen is off: Samsung phone, Android 12

[Taters1]

Multiple posts exist about this, but none of them have worked for me, so I'm hoping this specific thread, for my specific software, will help.

Audio plays normally in the app when my screen is on. It starts to stutter when I turn the screen off. It happens with or without headphones, with or without wifi, after a restart, and after trying *everything* I've found online, from clearing the cache to using the Activity Launcher app to disable battery optimization. (Android 12 on Samsung hides a lot of settings, so I had to install Activity Launcher even to open the "Optimize battery usage" screen.)

Does anyone have ideas how to fix this specifically on Android 12 on a Samsung Galaxy A03s? I'll try anything, but here's what I've already tried so far:

- Restart the phone

- Clear the cache in Spotify settings

- Lower the audio download quality

- Set "Unrestricted" in Settings > Apps > Spotify > Battery

- Confirm it's not "optimized" in "Optimize battery usage" via "Activity Launcher"

- Disable "Adaptive battery" in Android settings

- Probably a dozen other small things

I'm open to anything. Any crazy ideas? Thanks.

[Vasil]

Hey @Taters1,

Thank you for posting in the Community!
We'd suggest taking a look at this article for more optimization options that could be causing this.
In some cases Device Care is the responsible party, so you may want to start with that one.
Keep us in the loop!
Thanks 🙂

[Cherrycrush · Accepted solution]

Disable the following settings. Give the phone 24 hours to fix it's self. 

Put unused apps to sleep(OFF)
Auto optimize daily (OFF)
Auto restart at set times(OFF)
Adaptive battery(OFF)
Adaptive power saving(OFF)

[Taters1]

Thanks for your response. I checked out that page, but since I'm on Android 12 (which it doesn't cover yet for Samsung phones) I couldn't find a relevant screen. Still a good link if you're on Android 11 or earlier.

[Taters1]

It did seem to just go away after a couple days, after trying all of this. I don't know if it's related or luck -- very frustrating! So for me, the apparent fix is to do all this, then WAIT and see? Thanks.

[Tom-ve3]

Here's what fixed what I think was the same problem with a recently acquired SM-A037U although I described it as glitchy and crackling; over time it would build up to start causing playout to slow and would even affect loudspeaker output. The solution was to report it to Samsung Tech Support who authorised the phone's return to a service centre which replaced the GH81-21867A SVC JDM-SPEAKER_MODULE_SM-A037U_SVC;SM-A. Before seeing the Service Order Sheet, I was told over the phone that they had replaced the speaker and microphone. That hardly seems intuitive but they are integrated in a module that must contain electronics such as amplifiers, analog-digital converters and quite possibly digital buffers, data demultiplexer, audio encoders/decoders and maybe a clock that needs to synchronise with the main board. And maybe all that has a microprocessor at its core on some version of firmware. Possibly there was bad batch of these modules.

So, if you are experiencing this problem, skip the multiple factory resets and options twiddling that I went through and get on to Samsung. Hopefully, you still have warranty and, even if not, maybe some persistence will pay off. I can say that the service process under warranty was free, smooth, fast (I think they promised 5 business days) and I was fully informed at each step. I could have had FedEx pick it up but I chose to take it to a FedEx shipping point; the return was to my door.  

[RafaLuna]

Someone managed to solve this? I tried the answer marked as solution already but it didn't worked

[Sir-Erwin]

This is happening to my phone, Android... Help!