Hi there!

I'm having a great experience with Sonaar so far, especially on desktop, but I've noted that the experience on mobile devices is not as polished. 

The first problem is relatively minor: I have to click three times to play a song on mobile — once on the thumbnail, once again on the hover state, and then a third time in the player at the bottom. If future versions of Sonaar could streamline this, it would be fantastic.

My real problem is that playback on mobile is super choppy. The audio skips and clicks throughout playback, consistent across all my media. My audio files are relatively lightweight (roughly 2MB, 128bps) and yet the streaming is still very choppy. On desktop, the experience is fine and exactly what I want. On mobile, using iPhone 7 or 8 in Chrome or Safari, the audio skips and clicks nonstop. Is there something I can do to make mobile experience better, in terms of settings or filetypes? What do you recommend? 

Thank you so much. I'm delaying a site launch until I can circle back to my client with a solution. I hope to hear from you soon!

Hey Alexandre, thanks for your quick reply! I will take a look at the mobile hide options, thanks for that.

The choppiness on mobile is very obvious to my ears, although strangely it doesn't happen every single time I play a song. (It comes and goes if I start the same song again, on and off even when it's loaded.) The first song in the first project of the homepage, "La Société des poètes disparus", makes this clear since there's only a piano to start. The next track in the same album, "La Grotte", starts with near silence and the only thing I can hear is the clicking.

Thanks again for taking a look!

Hmmm, that's very peculiar! I don't know what to say lol.

We hear the clicking and skipping in both Safari and Chrome, using iPhone 7 and iPhone 8. I'm on iOS 12.1.2. I will try to get my hands on more devices for testing, but these are pretty critical touch-points for mobile use. Again — desktop use is lovely and streams wonderfully, very happy there. 

I wish the effect on mobile was something that I could look beyond, but I have to say it's very prevalent and obvious to both my client and myself, as well as the folks we've showed it to. It doesn't occur 100% of the time, which is strange, but it's there at least 50% of the time. I wonder if this has to do with the amount already loaded before streaming.

If you still can't hear it... this is unorthodox, but maybe I could swing by your offices in Montreal and literally show you? Happy to set up a quick drop-in if there's no other way to make the issue known.

Actually, I will try to capture a screen recording later today. Perhaps that's easier as a next step haha. Be in touch soon!

Hey! So it turns out screen recordings won't capture the internal audio of the web player, no matter what I do. I had a friend film the experience with my phone while we tested on a third device. Same problem. Here are some video examples showing the chop-click-pop effect.

The first listen to nearly any song produces this result, whether I'm on a strong wifi signal or LTE. It would seem that when I return to a skipping track — later, once it's loaded on my device — it plays more smoothly. I wonder if the track is playing faster than it can load and therefore clipping each time it hits the edge of the loaded audio?

Hopefully this helps!

How strange that your devices play smoothly! I wonder what is causing the difference.

To date, I've been able to test on iPhone 7 (x2) and iPhone 8 (x1) on multiple wifi networks and locations. The effect is present in both Chrome and Safari. Once a song is loaded and plays smoothly in one browser, the clicking will still occur in the other browser (presumably because they have separate caches?)

I don't have my hands on an iPad for testing right now, but will do so tomorrow. We're going to launch the site regardless, and I wonder if another hosting environment will change anything. 

I can confirm that the direct link to MP3 plays normally in my mobile browser. 

Yes, sorry, I just edited my last post when I realized I didn't answer your question lol.

I can confirm that the direct link to MP3 plays normally in my mobile browser. :)

OK! I look forward to your teammate's reply as soon as possible. For now, the site is live at www.antoinebedard.com, where the same effect occurs on mobile. (Not 100% of the time, but at least 75% of the time.)

Thanks again.

Hey Alexandre,

Has your teammate been able to shed any light on the problem?

Thanks for the suggestion, Maxime! My client will be trying this method over the coming days to see if it smooths out the listening experience. I don't have any feedback for you right now, but thanks for your attention. We'll keep you posted!