16" MacBook Pro sound sometimes stops working

[jafico1]

Hey everyone,

My 16 inch MacBook Pro works pretty well, apart from a quite minor issue. Sometimes (once every few days), the sound from the internal speakers will randomly stop working. I am running the most recent macOS version, and I have tried logging into a different account when the issue happens, but the sound still doesn't work until I restart. I called Apple yesterday, and they suggested servicing my laptop (tried an NVRAM reset last week, but the problem came back yesterday), but then I restarted coreaudiod through Activity Monitor, and the sound started working again, which was weird - I used the Terminal last time and even that didn't start the audio again. Is anyone else experiencing this issue, and should I consider service?

 

[bsamcash]

I had this same issue. Happened twice within my two week return period and only a restart would fix it. Ended up returning it.

 

[jafico1]

I'm way outside the return period though now (got it in early December), so I am stuck with this machine now. Do you think repairing it is a good strategy now?

 

[ArPe]

Can you try resetting the SMC if you haven’t already. Do both methods, one per boot up.

Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

The SMC is responsible for managing power on your Mac. Resetting it can resolve certain uncommon issues related to power or thermal management.

support.apple.com

 

[jafico1]

Just did that - we will see whether that shall work shortly. I am not the most hopeful, however, as I used the speaker test in Audio Midi Setup, which you can see below, and I noticed some clicking noises when I pressed the Test buttons while I was playing a YouTube video, and once I stopped the video it still clicked. With Apple Music it's fine however :-/.

Have booked an appointment at my local AASP for tomorrow (the Apple Store closest to me is a hour's drive), does anyone think it's still worth going to see what they say? It's currently the same bug that's documented here - https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/10/macbook-pro-popping-bug-partial-fix-macos-10-15-2/ - , but I'm on 10.15.5 and have had this laptop for 7 months, plus I reinstalled macOS completely 5-6 weeks ago, so my installation is fairly clutter-free.

I mean, I can live with this (it is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things), but it's not great on a $/£2700 laptop. Would Big Sur fix this, or is it because I have one of the first batch of 16" MBPs potentially?

 

[ArPe]

Just did that - we will see whether that shall work shortly. I am not the most hopeful, however, as I used the speaker test in Audio Midi Setup, which you can see below, and I noticed some clicking noises when I pressed the Test buttons while I was playing a YouTube video, and once I stopped the video it still clicked. With Apple Music it's fine however :-/.

Have booked an appointment at my local AASP for tomorrow (the Apple Store closest to me is a hour's drive), does anyone think it's still worth going to see what they say? It's currently the same bug that's documented here - https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/10/macbook-pro-popping-bug-partial-fix-macos-10-15-2/ - , but I'm on 10.15.5 and have had this laptop for 7 months, plus I reinstalled macOS completely 5-6 weeks ago, so my installation is fairly clutter-free.

I mean, I can live with this (it is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things), but it's not great on a $/£2700 laptop. Would Big Sur fix this, or is it because I have one of the first batch of 16" MBPs potentially?

No clicking or popping in Big Sur VP9 audio is fine.

 

[jafico1]

I will let you know what the AASP says - off there at 3pm British time

 

[jafico1]

UPDATE:

So I ended up not going to my appointment, as my Time Machine backup was not completed in time. Instead, I have installed Big Sur onto a partition on my Mac's SSD, to see if the issue would be fixed once it was updated. However, I tried the same thing - Safari on YouTube, then using Audio MIDI Setup's speaker test, but it still popped once the test sound was completed. I tried all four sample rates when doing this. At this point, what should I do - is it perhaps a hardware issue?

 

[jafico1]

Further update: Just as I was about to write this off as a simple software issue between Safari and Audio MIDI setup, I was using Firefox and playing some music on YouTube, and the audio started getting glitchy again, as you can hear here:

I tried changing the sample rate between 44,100 and 48,000, but this did not do anything to alleviate the crackly audio. Is this still a software issue or could my hardware be at fault, due to it being an issue in both macOS 11 and 10.15?