Hello, just wondered if any other music tech-y people have had any trouble with glitchy audio files when using Dropbox to share them?A track that I have mixed and bounced down on my studio pc, which plays fine with no problems, once shared On DB if you listen to the track on a different device it is full of digital glitches and audio dropouts.Any ideas?

Yea, not a tenable situation for me. I'm paying $9.99/mo and then I wound up using Google Drive. Not good. I'll send in a ticket as well.

Daphne wrote:Thanks for joining us here dabu2012! I've just passed along your comments to your ticket you mentioned. I can see that you received a reply from my colleague there, can you please check your inbox for that email and reply there? Through our Support channel we'll be able to have a better look into this with you alongside some account specific info. bassdude007, since you didn't get a ticket number can you please submit a new ticket from here. Then if you can let me know that ticket number I can follow up with you there. Let me know!Hi, it seems that we are going around in circles here... It's really quite simple and I'll fill out a ticket as well but here is what the issue is. When we upload an audiofile, it plays back within dropbox with audio glitches: skips, dropouts etc. When we take the file out of dropbox and play it directly from our computers: No Problem. *If someone @ dropbox would just take the time to do this, it would be very clear to them. I know others have submitted tickets over the last few weeks so if you need redundancy, fine, I'll play along but we also need a resolution or we will have to use another service very soon because in our line of work, I can't have this issue for weeks on end. thanks

I've been informed that this is now fixed -- I've tried a few files that had dropouts before and they have indeed gone.

This seems to be new. It's not the poor quality transcoding that has been discussed before, but short dropouts. I've been using Dropbox to share audio files with clients for some time, and this has just started happening.

Yes, that will cache the original file rather than the Dropbox "preview". I agree Dropbox was great for this purpose until this started happening. Now I've had people thinking it was really bad editing on my part! I've raised a support ticket and pointed them to this thread, and also given them access to some examples where it's happening. It's surely a change made on their side, so hopefully they can fix it.

When previewing audio files on Dropbox, the playback skips or drops out. Any ideas?

74 Replies

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kroft
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
FWIW, I haven't been able to reproduce the problem using uncompressed audio (AIFF or WAV). So that might be a workaround, but I don't want to be uploading huge files. Or has anyone had the problem when the file uploaded is in an uncompressed format?
Tinlinmusic
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
I initally noticed the problem when using mp3s, but the same thing occurred when I tried a 16bit WAV file. However, it seems to be ok if you 'make available offline' i.e. download it to your device. Though this kind of defeats the object of having a Dropbox folder.
kroft
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
Well, there goes the theory that the problem is only with compressed files. Thanks for saving me the trouble of testing more AIFFs and WAVs! Let's hope they sort it out soon.
SECRETSOUND
Helpful | Level 5
6 years ago
After I gave my clients the workaround I got this from one of them:

Something is definitely off with these files. After downloading you are correct there is no more skipping. But after (deleted) and (deleted) there is this drop off of volume for the next 3 songs and almost sounds like it’s in mono not stereo. Vocals sound like they are coming thru a transistor radio. So that’s as far as I got I’m stopping there.
When I listen to (deleted) wav file directly from Dropbox is sounds perfect. And doesn’t have this drop off. Only when listening after downloading.
May I suggest trying Google Drive if you have that option? I use it for all my videos and films and it has always worked perfectly. I think Dropbox is just having some issues.
So I wound up using Google Drive. Reported all this to Dropbox. Waiting...
Tinlinmusic
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
Wow, that’s not good :/
kroft
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
Really? Wow -- that's much more serious than bad playback. If it mangles the file then Dropbox is not a safe repository for files, which is its main purpose. Are you sure this is happening?
SECRETSOUND
Helpful | Level 5
6 years ago
No, I only know what he told me which I reprinted. Too many issues though. My ticket is in. This needs to get fixed pronto. I've used DB for years and have never had a single problem until this week.
Daphne
Dropbox Community Moderator
6 years ago
Hey everyone, just jumping in here!

For those who mentioned submitting a ticket with our team, can you please let me know the ticket numbers (eg. #1234567) you received so I can check up on those?

Thanks!
kroft
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
Hi Daphne,

Mine is 10657128.

Thanks!
SECRETSOUND
Helpful | Level 5
6 years ago
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Forum Discussion

When previewing audio files on Dropbox, the playback skips or drops out. Any ideas?

74 Replies

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