Determining Gapless Playback Information over and over for the same files

Have not seen any recent activity on this problem so I thought I would relate my lastest experience.


A few months ago I related this Problem:


I have a large music collection of over 120,000 files.  Everything worked fine except for the system “Determining Gapless Playback” on several thousand files every time I started the Music App or added new tracks.  I had to click on the activity on the bottom left to open the activity window and stop the process and then everything worked fine.  I do not use gapless playback and there is no longer an option to disable it. This was annoying but once I stopped the process everything worked until the next time I opened the Music App.


A few months ago after adding new tracks to my library I noticed right away that this was no longer happening? I closed and opened the music app several times and this problem seemed to have miraculously fixed itself? I can only assume that it was fixed in the last update and since I usually leave the music app open all the time I had not noticed it was fixed. I am not unhappy but wonder if it was actually fixed or if it was something I did not realizing that I fixed the problem. I did submit a couple of Feedbacks about 2 months ago to Apple reference this problem but did not really expect anything to be done about the problem. I searched for information hoping to find out about it being fixed with the last update that was made to music and found nothing.


All has been well for about a year now until I recently replaced my 2017 MacBook Pro with a new M1 MacBook Air and decided to move my music library to my new laptop now that I have plenty of room. I also decided to prune some the the music that I don't listen to.. After a few thousand files were imported the problem reappeared. These were all files that were working just fine and not causing any problems on the old laptop that is running the same version of macOS Ventura 13.4 as my new laptop and the same files now being rechecked for gapless playback every time I open the Music. App. There is clearly still a problem.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.4

Posted on May 31, 2023 10:37 AM

Reply

Similar questions

3 replies

Jun 1, 2023 01:34 PM in response to Pudge2019

Hello Pudge2019,


Thanks for posting! As we understand it, you're seeing a "Determining Gapless Playback" message every time you open the Music app on your Mac, and it seemed to be working as expected for some time on a new Mac but has since happened again. is that right?


To double-check a few details that could be relevant, are you using an Apple Music subscription? How about Home Sharing? Use Home Sharing to share media from a computer to other devices


Also, we'd like to have you try booting your Mac up into safe mode to test. This runs a quick basic disk check that could help clear things up, and it also prevents items from launching on startup, so we can use it to rule out a few possible causes. For your M1 Mac you'll use these steps: How to use safe mode on your Mac


"Apple silicon

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window.
  3. Select your startup disk, then press and hold the Shift key while clicking “Continue in Safe Mode.”
  4. Log in to your Mac. You might be asked to log in again."


Once you start up in safe mode, open the Music app and see if you get the same message. Once you test it out, you can click Apple menu () > Restart to get back to normal.


Let us know the results!


Cheers.

Jun 1, 2023 08:13 PM in response to ryane77

No home sharing and no change in Safe Mode. Right now I have about half of my library loaded and it is checking for gapless playback in on 14,000 tracks. I suspect most are MP3 and I only have about half of my library transferred.


The same thing was happening on my 2017 MacBook Pro then about a year ago it just mysterisly stopped after a Mac OS update and never happened again. The tracks are all from that library and were working fine on the MacBook Pro.




This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Determining Gapless Playback Information over and over for the same files

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.