Un-googleable problem? Glitch on Samsung Tab A

General Questions
#1

I have a problem with my tablet. I’m pretty good at fixing things from cars to plumbing to PCs, and often turn to the internet to help. However, this problem has stumped me, and I can’t seem to find any similar issues mentioned, nevermind a solution!

So please help me with this - whether it’s a solution to the problem, some tips for better Google searches, or just similar stories about stuff that is surprisingly hard to find online…

The problem:

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 (2016)
In SOME apps, in particular YouTube Kids, it seems like there are phantom touches on the Back key every few seconds. A video will play for 2-3 seconds, and then pause, as if the Back key has been tapped. Tapping play works again for 2-3 seconds and then pauses again. This also happens in a few other apps and games, with pauses every few seconds.

MOST apps do not have the issue, including YouTube itself.
I have tried a soft reset, and reinstalling the glitching apps
Software up to date - Android 7.0
2 months old - the problem seems to have started in the last 1 month
In developer mode with touch traces switched on, I do not “see” any phantom touches.

Any ideas?

#2

Are you using WiFi or mobile data, and how is your signal? Could it be that the videos are streaming “poorly”, so that they need to buffer every few seconds, them resume play? I’m not familiar with the YouTube Kids app, but maybe it’s poorly coded compared to the regular YouTube app, so that it has a smaller buffer.

#3

Spotify and Audible sometimes do this on my Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 8.0). (I notice this when plugged into the car using Android Auto, which is the only context where I use these applications.)

Usually I can get Audible to get back to normal play by forcing it to seek to another location in the brief instant when it’s playing (for instance: press Play and immediately press “Rewind 30 seconds”).

#4

I’m on a strong Wifi signal (tablet is Wifi only, no 3G), and it doesn’t seem to be a buffering issue. In fact the issue is still there when I turn off Wifi completely and try to play the remainder of a buffered video - still pausing every 3 seconds.

Same thing with one of the other apps affected - Sonic Dash pauses every 3 seconds both with Wifi on and off.

It seems like a hardware issue, but that doesn’t explain why most apps don’t have the issue!

Still stumped.

#5

Well good news and bad. The glitch has suddenly corrected itself! All of the apps which were affected are now OK. So I’m pleased that we no longer have the issue and the kids can watch Youtube Kids app again.

However, deeply unsatisfying to not find out what the issue was, or how it corrected itself. There was certainly no Android version update which corrected this, although the individual apps are set to auto-update. However, as this was an issue across several different apps, it seems unlikely that they all suddenly corrected an issue simultaneously.

Still still stumped.