Playing sequence of words in Audio section often do not progress

Hi Edwin, can I ask if you are using a Samsung phone? During early development we had a similar issue with Samsung devices which seemed to be related to the phone's internal power management system ... but we thought we'd resolved it. If you can let me know the device type then we'll try to replicate it in that environment.

Hi Peter, I have an Samsung S5, model SM-G900i with Android version 5.0 and kernel version 3.4.0-5543425.

I am a IT person with development experience and I am happy to assist you if you need more info.

This problem is very intermittent and is not happening at some fixed location I noticed this morning while listening. Sometimes it get stuck on one word and I have to tap 3 times to make it progress and then it will progress happily to the end or get stuck a little further. It seems to happen more often towards the end of the list, but that could be coincidence.

Regards, Edwin

Hi Edwin, thanks for this extra information. We found that problem on both Samsung S3 and S6 but, as mentioned previously, thought we had identified the cause to be internal controls and had fixed it. Can you please run through the steps listed below and let me know if this action fixes the problem?

1. Go to: Settings / Controls / Language and input /Speech / Voice input /

2. View the "Voice input services" selection

3. If "Enhanced Google service" has been selected, change the selection to "Basic Google recognition"

4. Go back to RoteStart and determine if the problem has been fixed

I am able to replicate your problem by selecting "Enhanced Google services" so it is possible the device is "listening to itself" and self-pausing..

Good luck with this! And please do let me know whether it is successful on your phone. If not, we'll continue investigating and I may well call on you for some help!

Hi Peter, I indeed had the Enhanced voice service selected and changed it to Basic. It did not help unfortunately. I recorded this with Jing on my PC while having my mobile connected via TeamViewer Host. If you like I can send you the .swf file, which you can play with Media Player. Not sure how to attach a file here and I tried to upload this Flash Video to YouTube but that did not like it. Let me know if you like it e-mailed please.

Hi Peter, I uploaded this file to my DropBox and you can download it from there with the following link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98322427/RoteStar_2016-06-15_1442.swf

Hi Edwin, thanks for the DropBox file. This is proving to be a tricky problem: it seems to be limited to Android / Samsung devices. We're continuing to work through the documented possible causes of Samsung audio hang-ups - it seems it is not an uncommon issue...

Hope you find it. I can work around it for time being, but it will be nice when it works as designed.

When I play any other audio (eg. Skype, Music, Whatsapp, etc) I do not seem to have any noticeable issues.

My wife has same phone, but with way less apps and she experiences the same hangs.

Hi Edwin, we have been able to trigger audio hang-ups by placing the phone (or moving the phone) across locations where the wireless and 3/4G signals are weak: a hang-up can occur when the phone switches from wireless mode to 3/4G mode, depending on exactly when in the audio play cycle that switch happens. When the phone is near the wireless modem and has a strong signal it seems to play without break, and similarly if it is away from the wireless signal and has clear 3/4G reception. This issue with audio hang-ups has been reported in various chat rooms. Your video indicates you had a constant, strong wireless signal: was that the case?

Yes we have a very strong Wifi, a pretty good quality WAP just 2m from me.

Just started a test with the Wifi off on the phone and I got a hang in the first list I tried.

Then turned the Flight Mode on (no communications at all) and that also hangs 4 items into the list.

I must add that the audio snippets all play fully to the end and they do not seem broken up or so. It is just moving to the next item in the list that stalls. Also sometimes it speaks the English bit and stalls on the Spanish part.

Hi Edwin, thanks for all the information you have provided! We're now looking at the coding to see how we can make it more robust at maintining audio continuity. I'll report back on progress asap.

Hi Edwin, the coding team have implemented a trial fix on an old version of the app which appears to stop the hang-up problem. Would you be happy to try it on your device? If so, could you please email me at admin@rotestar.com and I'll send you a link which will let you download the APK from Google.

Since the last night's update the audio plays very well. Thanks for fixing that.

Hi Edwin, thanks for the feedback! Changing the default media player seems to have fixed the issue. During checks on a Samsung S3 I did get a couple of random stoppages when playing very, very long word lists (e.g. Nouns / Play All) but think that may be related to internal memory management issues. Tapping Pause / Play restarted the audio quickly.