Unexpected interrupts from different apps or OS services causing a lag in something time critical (like streaming audio for playback without dropouts) would not result in consistent "gapped" playback. There would be random dropouts/lags. Otherwise those mystery services would have to coincidentally be turning on exactly at the same time a song segues to the next track. Every time.
Two possible causes for gaps between songs that are supposed to segue:
1. Using a video player that indexes by chapter. Chapter boundaries need to land on frame boundaries. Frame divisions are coarse for audio. You end up with the last song ending before the frame boundary and get that gap.
2. Ripping a CD with ancient software. CD's also use frame boundaries for index points. Ripping that with certain crude old 20th century software leads to gaps at frame boundaries between songs. In fact, there was an old workaround going on with people ripping a CD as a single file and then creating a cue file with track start times. Some older media players supported using cue files and let you navigate tracks by them. 20th century. And I digress as usual.
I wrote sudo explanations quickly there just FYI. Someone can make corrections/additions as they see fit.
VLC is a chapter player. Gaps.
Use an app that caters to music files more smoothly. Pretty sure Kodi works though.
