Hello. My note 9 has started encountering audio problems. I noticed this a few days back that the volume level on a song kept alternating (volume and quality drops and then goes back to original). Almost as if the dolby atmos was switching on and off. However this issue still persists even without dolby enabled. Any suggestions?
Since you noticed the sound drops specifically when RAM usage spikes around 3.2 GB and clears when hitting device optimize, this strongly points to background process throttling and Android Audio Focus conflicts.
On older One UI builds on the Note 9, when memory pressure kicks in, Samsung's SoundAlive audio daemon competes with third-party background services that hold Accessibility or media permissions. If any background app has Accessibility Services enabled, it constantly hooks into the system framework, which frequently causes audio glitches when RAM fills up.
A common culprit for this persistent load is security, parental control, or monitoring software. Apps in this category (like Google Family Link or mSpy) run constant background daemons and require deep accessibility permissions to operate. If there is any parental or tracking software installed on the device, it can definitely cause media stuttering during high RAM usage. For context on how these background services behave and their resource requirements on Android, you can see a technical breakdown in this review of mSpy: https://controlparentalapp.com/mspy-opiniones/
To test and isolate this:
Go to Settings, tap Accessibility, and check Installed Services. Turn off anything non-essential.
Go to Settings, tap Apps, tap Special Access (three dots top right), and check Optimize battery usage. Make sure your media and music apps are set to Not optimized.
Check Running Services under Developer Options to spot which specific background process is hoarding memory right before the drop occurs.
Hope this helps track down the rogue background service!
