Music not picking up where it left off after 5.1 update

[alienux]

I have been searching google on and off for a couple of weeks, and have also searched here and on other iPhone related forums and have not been able to find any info on this.

I hook my iPhone up to my car stereo just about every day while I'm driving to and from work. Previously, whenever I got to my destination, I would just pause the song, hit the home button and go on my way. When I would go back into the music app later, I would press pause/play and the song would pick up right where it left off.

After upgrading to IOS 5.1 a few weeks ago, my songs always start at the beginning, even though I paused them at some point further along in the song as I always have. This happens every time. I often listen to albums that have songs that are well over 10 minutes long, and I would rather have the songs start where I paused like it worked previously, but now these longer songs (and any song for that matter) always start over after I haven't used the music app for awhile.

Is this some new feature that I missed the documentation for? I can't seem to find a setting in the music settings that would affect this. Or is it possible that something got goofed up with my music app when I upgraded to 5.1?

 

[nineteenatetwo]

The music app is being closed by the OS between listening sessions instead of just being suspended.

If iOS has enough free memory it'll leave closed apps suspended (paused) in the background so that when you go back to them they'll resume instantly and be exactly where you left it. If the OS runs out of free memory it'll start taking these closed apps out of this paused state and closing them completely so as to use the memory for an open app that needs it more. Either 5.1 uses more memory itself (so that there's less to go around) or you've just recently started using an app or apps that need(s) a lot of memory between the times you're listening to music.

 

[alienux]

The music app is being closed by the OS between listening sessions instead of just being suspended.

If iOS has enough free memory it'll leave closed apps suspended (paused) in the background so that when you go back to them they'll resume instantly and be exactly where you left it. If the OS runs out of free memory it'll start taking these closed apps out of this paused state and closing them completely so as to use the memory for an open app that needs it more. Either 5.1 uses more memory itself (so that there's less to go around) or you've just recently started using an app or apps that need(s) a lot of memory between the times you're listening to music.

That sounds reasonable, but I have a habit of closing most of my open apps regularly throughout the day, so I rarely have more than a few in memory, and I haven't really added any new apps lately.

But, based on what you said, it got me wondering if I've developed a habit of closing the music app more than I used to without realizing it, and it may just be a coincidence that it happened after updating to 5.1. I'm going to keep an eye on that and see if that's what it is.

edit: Yep, it was me and not the 5.1 update. I didn't realize that I had been inadvertently closing the music app when I was closing other apps, which is something I was not previously doing.