Hifi Walker H2 playback judder/skipping (appears to be sd issue)

[Elm1825]

Rockbox Version: ae01ea7fd9-240223
Hifi Walker H2 native port original firmware v1.5. Playback stutters when starting a new album or occasionally when switching tracks. Have to restart the track around 5 times to get playback to resume normally. 512gb Samsung Pro Select micro sd. Fat32 formatting 32kb cluster size. 16bit 44.1KHz flac file with level 5 compression. Embedded album art. I have no eq enabled and I’m using a very simple theme.

[Elm1825]

After some setting tweaks it still does this. Usually once per album. Random cut outs. Once the track cut outs it will do it several times even when the track is restarted. It does clear up but is very frustrating. I have directory & database cache off. Number of items per folder and glyph's are set to their minimum values. Last I checked buffer size was around 26mb.

[Bilgus]

Not always but usually those are buffer under-runs not familiar with the device but it might just be barely keeping up due to under powered processor or even a misbehaving thread or background task

Ive also seen it happen with flaky storage causing rereads

[Elm1825]

Any tips on how to troubleshoot this issue. Not sure of what to look at to narrow things down. Any tips on how to limit background tasks when playing audio? I have most everything turned off (no dsp effects).

[Bilgus]

maybe try a different encoding in the same filetype or try a different codec mp3 or opus etc and see if it still stutters, try a smaller/different sd card

does it get worse with dsp settings enabled?

[Elm1825]

Appears to be better now in version 53e7176196-240324. I played 3 hrs of music today and it didn’t act up once. This update also fixed my Line-out port not working. Not sure what caused it to goof up. I also grew the partition by a few kb. The card had a small gap in the front with unformatted space.  I’ll update if anything changes but so far so good.

[Elm1825]

It acted up again this morning. Restarted the track a handful of times before it played right. Track played fine several times yesterday. Not sure. This was the first track after it booted. The player was off all night. It resumed playback right away. I restarted the track and after a few seconds it started cutting out.

[Elm1825]

It acted up on a .m4a iTunes aac purchased song today. For the day it acted up on two flac songs and one aac. I may try a slower card. This one I had and it’s way overkill speed wise compared to what this device states on its Amazon page. Just throwing stuff at it at this point.

[Elm1825]

I reformatted my card with a cluster size of 64kb instead of the 32kb it was originally. Maybe if I’m having a buffer under run that might help. I’ll update if there’s anything new. So far after 2ish hours it’s been good.

[Bilgus]

my guess would be If that works its likely corruption on the drive and will prob return at some point

[Elm1825]

Seems better. It still cuts out occasionally but it usually only drops out once instead of a handful of times in one song. Tends to still happen towards the beginning of a playback session if not the first track after the device resumes after it’s woke up. So it’s much less noticeable so far. I wonder if it’s related to the rock box storage driver for this device. I understand this port is still listed as unstable. Maybe since it’s a large fat32 volume, or device quirk. Maybe by working through this on here I can help the development or others. I’ll update if anything else changes.

[Elm1825]

Update.
It does it in the original firmware too. Maybe it is the card. I’ll try to close the bug I created on fly spray. I apologize if I wasted anyone’s time. I’ve appreciated all the advice. I’ll update if I get anything figured out.