Mac client stutter when doing other things

[dantastic]

Been fighting this problem a while now and I'm not sure what to do anymore.

Spotify running on my iMac doesn't seem to be a happy bunny. I've tried the 'ol re-install. So what's happening, the sound quality seems pretty poor, I have tried the various levels and I'm currently on the high quality setting - highest for the client. Plenty of songs sound perfect though so I'm not sure why some songs sound rubbish.

These songs played in the spotify web player sound right though, it's just the client that makes them sound bad.

What is odd is that some of my songs imported from iTunes sound crap in the spotify player but played in iTunes they are perfect!

That's the first problem. Then we have the stuttering. I'll freely admit that my ISP deliver tcp packages by cart motored by a trusted mule so the web player skipping chugging and feeling generally miserable about life I can quite accept. I recon the desktop client should do a better job though. As the aforementioned mule seems to be on strike fairly often I set my playlist to offline and the music isn't stuttering but as I click other things and do other things the music seem to stutter in tandem with what I'm doing.

So not a buffering issue just a pure playback issue. Like if the music needs to be processed.

All and all even with my poor internet connection the web player is giving the desktop client a right butt whopping. No problem like this with any other playback source, other streaming or iTunes or anything.

[Peter__]

Hey! Welcome to the community 🙂 

Do those tracks in the desktop client play fine if your not doing anything else on the computer? 

Peter

[dantastic]

If I'm not doing anything else it's mostly fine. These seems to be a lot less stuttering anyway.

Vary simple things such as clicking between tabs in firefox can cause issues.

[Peter__]

Is it possible when you are doing other things Spotify is either having issues accessing CPU time or your hard drive? 

If you watch in system monitor (or whatever it is on Mac)? 

Peter

[dantastic]

Can't say I see anything obvious there to be honest. 2gb free memory, nothing else is doing any processing as such.

[dantastic]

just tried installing spotify on my work laptop. A Macbook Pro, not any higer spec than my iMac but it does have a SSD instead and so far it's not skipping.

[Adam]

Out of curiosity, what up and down speeds do you get from http://www.speedtest.net/? I'm curious to see what those mules are actually carrying. To ease the burden on them it might be worth heading into your Preferences and reducing cache size to the smallest it'll go.

[ggfly]

Hi,

I am suddenly getting the same problem. I have a four-month-old Macbook Pro with 16GB of RAM memory. The streaming works fine until I click on another window and then the stuttering starts, every time. This was happening as soon as I clicked on any open program window. After a complete wipe and reinstall it seems to be mainly Mac Mail. So if I start writing an email it becomes impossible to listen to Spotify. Is this a bug? What can be done? Thanks. 

[djerkwad]

I just started using Spotify and I'm having the exact same problem. As soon as the Spotify app loses focus on my Mac the songs start to stutter. If I navigate back to the app they work fine. No idea what's going on 😞

[FelixR]

Hi guys,

I'm having the same problem with my MB pro. I also have 16gb of ram so it's not a memory issue. I found out the problem was with my Bose companion 5 soundsystem. I think the drivers for the audio device are not updated yet with El Capitan. I fixed the problem by connecting my soundsystem with a jack to jack cable instead of a USB. 

Hope this helps,

Best regards,

Félix

[gideongreen2000]

Constantly Lagging/Buffering/Pausing EVEN IN OFFLINE MODE

I'm also running MacBook Pro 2014 15inch retina with i7, 16GB, running OSX Yosemite. After running Spotify for about 5 or 10 minutes (sometimes less) the sound starts to skip like crazy; like a helicopter blade is chopping the song to pieces. This happens whether I am on online or offline mode. Sometimes it comes back and everything is fine.

CPU is 95% idle the whole time.
Memory shows 8.9 GB used 5.2 Cache and 1.94 Swap Used.

It does seem to happen more often when I am switching windows although I wouldn't say it happens every time I change windows or only when switching windows.

[gideongreen2000]

I will be cancelling Spotify premium if I can't find a solution to this.

[jorgenetxz]

Actually i have the same problem. It is not a laptop's resources... months ago it work fine.

If works from iphone, ipad, appleTV, but no from MacBook Pro. I've reinstall spotify application but i am still with this problem.

Aditionally with apple music it works fine.

Regards

Jorge

[cedb]

I experience the same thing on my MB Pro. This is pretty annoying as it works fine with my phone on the same WiFi network. I am trying the update to the latest version. If that doesn't fix it, I'll try another music service. Listening on MB is 4 to 6h a day for me.