Streaming audio slow on mobile

Support
#1

My site contains many mp3 files and the audio streaming performance is very different when I switch from my computer to my phone. The mp3 files play very quickly on my Mac. They begin to play as soon as parts of the mp3 file have been loaded into the browser.

On my phone, however the performance is terrible. My iPhone seems to wait until the entire mp3 is loaded before it begins to play the file. This takes about 15 seconds - way too long. I don’t think my phone used to behave this way. Was there an update that changed how mobile devices streamed audio? It happens both when I stream audio files within The Grid and when I use the X built-in audio player.

Here are some example pages from my site where the audio streams slowly on my phone and quickly on my Mac:


Any suggestions? Thanks for your help!

#2

Hey @pinkzebra,

I’m not sure if there are changes in the browsers but there is no changes with regards to the Audio element on our end. I currently see all your audios are set to no preloading though. Under the Audio element’s settings, please try setting Preload to Auto.

If that does not improve the loading, I’d recommend that you use a third party audio hosting provider to host your audio because your current web host could play a role in this too.

I’ve tested the URLs you posted and the audio plays fine though so this could also be unique to your phone only.

Thanks.

#3

It was always my understanding that I did not want preloading. I often have grids containing many audio preview files and preloading was a big problem when I used it. With preloading, an audio file wouldn’t play until all the audio files that came before on that page it had preloaded first.

I don’t want any audio to preload, but I do want the audio file to play on my iPhone as soon as it has enough data buffered. Right now on my iPhone (and other iPhones I’ve tried) after I click the play button the mp3 will not begin to play until the whole file is completely loaded. On my computer, as soon as a little bit of data is loaded the file begins to play while the rest of the data is loading in the background. On my computer, the audio plays nearly instantaneously after the mouse click. On my iPhone it takes 15 seconds to hear any music after clicking play.

I want my iPhone to behave the same way as my desktop. When you mention you tested the URLs did you try it on an iPhone? I know my iPhone used to play the audio quickly from my website and plays music quickly on other music websites. This issue is something new within the last year I think.

#4

Hi @pinkzebra,

Your mobile network must have a role into this, I tested the page in desktop and yes the music plays almost immediately. Then I tested it on three phones Samsung Andriod, iPhone 6S plus, and the music plays within 2-3 seconds only, and surprisingly even on my old Windows Phone 8, music plays within just 2-3 seconds after you tap the play button.

Would you mind clearing your iPhone’s browser’s cache? and test on a different network perhaps on fast wifi.

Thanks,

#5

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