[wnm]

I think it's a network issue. I just installed Slacker on my iPod touch and listen via wifi. No buffering, skipping, drop outs etc.

[faydina]

when the stations are cashed there is not that skipping but you have to keep up on the updating of the card on your PC

and there are only so many songs that cash at a time so eventually the cashed stations have to start streaming,

the skipping is just some form of catching up with itself.

Cached stations will never stream; thus the whole point of caching them. When you cache a station it stores 100-125 songs per stations. When you plug your phone in via USB it will refresh the stations, offloading songs you've banned, add new songs, etc. In the off chance you don't plug your phone in and you've gone through all the songs initially cached you'll get the same mix over and over. . .the station will not start streaming.

As for Slacker running slow, it is a bit slow on start-up, it takes at least 30sec-1min to get to the station select screen. Hopefully they can get this optimized in newer builds. . .

As for skipping and noises, if you are streaming stations it is possible for the signal to be lost, and if the signal isn't restored in a certain amount of time it will skip the song. Think of making a call on your phone. . .you drive down the road and as you pass between towers it hands off your call, well if this isn't done in a certain amount of time or there is a gap between towers then you get dropped calls. . .kinda the same idea with the skipping. Some things to try:
-check permissions and set them all to allow
-cache stations (saves on battery life)
-make sure you have a good signal strength
-if you are hearing the popping/noise when using external speakers (car radio, speakers, etc) try plugging in another device and see if the same thing happens. . .it's possible there might be a short in a cord/plug.

[cassandraj]

try caching the station. that fixed my skipping. my skipping would be the first 10-30 sec of a song and then would kind of smooth itself out, suggesting to me, like simeon, wdavidson and bearkat say, buffering. slacker has a good FAQ on caching. you just connect your berry to your pc, access your berry as a drive, launch the slacker icon and it will sync them for you. that fixed my skipping