Over at the best Mac amateur music site, MacJams all the pieces begin with a snapping noise in the music. I and others have complained about the distortion ruining our masterpieces, and the site contends that the fault is a bug in QuickTime 7.0.4 which effects streaming music.

This has been going on since QT 7.0.4 was released three weeks ago. I certainly hope that Apple fixes it quicker than past QuickTime troubles.

One month hath done gone by, and Apple still hasn't fixed the egregious problem with QuickTime 7.0.4. At any site that you play a streaming music file from, you hear Snap, Crackle and Pop in the music. No wonder many sites now use only Windows Media (e.g., the CBC). I like it that Apple introduces all these marvelous new features, but if only they could get the old features to work (Sherlock, QucikTime, AppleWorks, &c.) properly.

Have you reported it to Apple? I played a couple of songs from your site and didn't hear any issues, so it may not be as big a problem as you think. I cranked up the sound (through a stereo) and didn't hear any snaps, crackles or pops.

I'm not an audiophile, but no snap, crackle pop here either.

Linda

Keith, I have a pretty sensitive ear, and I'm not hearing anything like you are indicating, but I have a theory of sorts. If those having problems are on laptops, it could be the energy saver stuff turning the speakers on.

NO problems here. Are you streaming over dial-up?

How much of a hit can their servers handle?

Also, how fast is the computer? My 500MHz G3 is taxed by most streaming media. My 1.0 GHz G4 iBook is working hard on some streams while my G5 doesn't even know it's doing the work.

When I first noticed the noise, I assumed that it was a problem at my end, so I dropped a note to another poster at MacJams --goes by the name Drakonis. He claims to be a Mac programmer, and he offers his own software at his site. According to him, MacJams has traced the problems to QuickTime 7.0.4.

I hear the sounds at all the music sites I visit -- MacJams, MacIdol and SibeliusMusic.com (but only with MP3 files) -- and other people have commented on the noise at the reviews at MacJams. Once again, it is audible only when streaming a music file. Try downloading the same file to your drive, and the noises disappear. Of course, the snapping is most obvious during a quiet piece. I have a fairly high-end sound system, so the snaps are all the more irritating. As this noise occurs, the progress bar within the QuickTime player shows the download progress is waaaay ahead of the play-head button.

I'm now certain that the problem is not at my end. My line speed is fairly consistent at 1.25 to 1.6 Mb/sec. I'm using a dual-1.25 GHz G4 Mirrored Drive Door with 1.25 GB RAM. I never had this issue before QT 7.0.4.

But several of us here do not have the problem at all. I tried it both with my G5 and my G4 PowerBook. So the problem can't be at the server end. It may be unique to certain systems and their interaction with QT 7.04 though.

The problem really is widespread, and has generated much discussion at the MacJams Forum

Apparently the workaround is to uninstall Quicktime 7.0.4, and reinstall QT 7.0.1. Unfortunately, this causes a problem for those who rushed out and bought iLife 06, because QT 7.0.4 is a requirement for GarbageBand 3. Several people who returned to QT 7.0.1 were happy that the noise was gone, until they tried to play the videos that they had bought from iTunes -- those require QT 7.0.3.

I assume that the reason you guys can't hear the noise is that you're listening to nothing but rap music.

The Forum at the English site MacIdol also has highly irate listeners who are annoyed by the noise.

Apparantly, the only place where the noise cannot be heard is Oakland County?

More discussion of the ClickTime noise problem can be read at the Forum of iCompositions In January, some naive fellow there (certainly not me) expressed the hope that Apple would fix the problem soon.

Keith, I suggest you use the installer Apple has to revert from 7.0.4 to 7.0.1, then upgrade to QT 7.0.3. And for what it's worth, I didn't hear it with your compositions. I don't think they qualify as rap.

I'm in Macomb.

Dismiss us if you like. The problem clearly does NOT occur on every Mac. It is not logical to assume it is a problem on the server end exclusively if several different people, at several different clients, on several different WAN segments, report no problem. It may be a combination of server software/client software/client hardware. Has anyone done a poll to see what systems are affected? Is everyone who has the problem using, say dual processors? A MDD system? A G4 tower?

Complaining here and in MacIdol forums is unlikely to get a response from Apple. I ask again if you have reported the problem to Apple? Since it does not occur on every system, they may not even be aware of it.

Yo! Phyl! Wachoo mean I don't do no rap?

Yo! My name is K. and I'm in the Hood
Tellin' y'all Q-Time ain't no good
Yo' play yo' jamz and you gets a rattle
Hear a pop, a snap and crackle

M' homes all dissed and complain to Apple
But they be denyin' that there is no rattle
It's a punk outfit what don't do what's right
Busy bring'n mo' new {stuff} out ev'r night

Mo' new toyz and mo' new gadgets
'Till Mac users all done had it
Up to here when the apps don't work
Ahm tell' the trufe, don' dish no dirt.

Geta message to you and tell to Apple
Time to git rid of that music crackle
Fix yo' stuff and furthha I sates
Stop chargin' cash for lame updates.

Jack, I presume that Apple is well aware of the problem -- they should be after two months of angry complaints at the most popular Mac sites-- and that's why they've thoughtfully issued a kit which automatically jettisons QT 7.0.4 and reinstalls QT 7.0.1. The kit can be had from
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime701rein...forquicktime704.html

Alas, as I stated before, those who revert to 7.0.1 will find that they will not be able to use the new GarbageBand 3 that they rushed out and bought. Tsk, tisk.

quote:

Jack, I presume that Apple is well aware of the problem -- they should be after two months of angry complaints at the most popular Mac sites-- and that's why they've thoughtfully issued a kit which automatically jettisons QT 7.0.4 and reinstalls QT 7.0.1.

Don't assume that Apple has people combing "the most popular Mac sites" looking for software problems. I've been in the software business for 25 years, and I can tell you that people are great at explaining the problem to anyone but the person that can help them. That reverter may have been issued for some other reason.

Even if they're aware of it, if they can't reproduce it, they can't fix it. 200 angry posts of "I get pops in my sound", with no system specs, software specs, etc., are useless in fixing a problem.

Every extra bit of data helps in tracking down a problem that only *some* people have. If it happens on every machine, it's easy to reproduce and fix. If it happens to 5% of the machines, and none of those 5% are in your lab, there's no way to fix it without having some way to nail down what is common to them so you can set up a test case.

This problem is all over the 'net, and not just at the music sites. At another thread here I had been complaining about experiencing system crashes, kernel panics, and other vexing behavior. Phyllis recommended that I clone my drive, move it to an outboard drive, then move it back again, but at MacFixIt, there is an entire page devoted to the problems QuickTime 7.0.4 causes: the very symptoms my computer was experiencing. The solution is to eliminate QuickTime 7.0.4 as soon as possible.

Apple's programmers must've had their heads in the sand (somehow, I can easily imagine that very picture) not to notice this one. QuickTime 7.0.4 apparently causes more problems than the heralded Oompa Loompa virus.

I only feel humiliated that I failed to make the connection between the QuickTime update and the crashing I began experiencing immediately after updating.

Do you still have any "cracked" apps on your CPU? I remember that was a problem to your sound issues before...

"Cracked apps on the CPU"? Uhm, yer gonna haveta 'splain that by me one mo' time.

I've had no problems of any sort since regressing to Q/Time 7.0.1. It's the most miraculous cure I've ever experienced.

AND some guy at the above MacJams board gave a good review to my Mac Throw-down Rap posted above, so I'm now a happy guy. (Is "throw down" still in current usage? Don't wanna lose my sreet creds.)