2018 MacBook Air losing sound

[Arths]

Hi,

I currently own a 2018 MacBook Air which sometimes has a sound loss problem.
From time to time the sound icon in the menu bar becomes disabled and comes back a few seconds later along with sound.

When I'm doing a lot of work at the same time for example with Xcode it seems to happen more frequently.
There has been some cases where I had to restart the Mac to bring sound back.
Has anyone already encountered this kind of issue ?

Regards

 

[itsLorentz]

Hi Arths,

I was just looking for someone who had this problem, because I think I'm experiencing the same thing.

I am using a 2018 MacBook Pro and recently I've been having the issue with the internal audio (regardless if sound comes out via internal speaker/headphone-jack/external audio interface) dropping out occasionally.

If I look at the sound preferences (see attachment) you can see this "unknown" interface, and all else being disabled. It indicates that the audio has dropped out completely.

The second attachment shows what it should look like when the internal speakers are available.

What does it look like for you? For how long have you had this issue?

 

[Arths]

Hi Lorentz,

Thanks for your reply, I thought I was the only one having this problem.
I have this issue occasionally for quite a long time now, I think it started to happen after upgrading to Mojave ?

For me it seems to happen when there is a lot of CPU load going on, therefore I think this might be an issue when the OS tries to sync with the T2 chip which if my memory serves me well is managing sound as well as other core features of the Mac.
When it happens I do not have the Unknown interface as you do but an empty list as if the Mac had no speakers or microphone, in fact no sound input/output.

Do you feel that this seems to be the same issue ?
Regards

 

[itsLorentz]

Hi Arths,

Yes, that seems about right. Sometimes it does not even show up as "Unknown" and it's just empty there.

Very strange indeed. Thinking about going to my local premium reseller and let them take a look at it. Do you think that would be a possible solution?

Best

 

[Arths]

Would not hurt to bring them your Mac so they can check yes, I might do it as well.
Unfortunately we don’t know if this is hardware or software related.

All the best

 

[shad0wca7]

I am having this issue as well - it only seems to have started happening recently. I've tried resetting SMC and NVRAM and it keeps occurring - this really disrupts conference calls etc and it's extremely annoying...

Did you come to any conclusions on the above?

Edit: I've made a thread in the Apple Support communities about this as well: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251385764

 

[Arths]

Hi guys,

I've contacted Apple support using their chat and here's what the technical support manager asked me to do :

• Go to /Library/Preferences
• If there is a com.apple.soundpref.plist, delete it
• Navigate to the Audio subfolder and delete com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
• Go to ~/Library/Preferences, find com.apple.soundpref.plist and delete it
• Restart and Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

It's been two weeks and the issue seems to be gone for me
Tell me if this resolves the problem for you as well.

Best regards

 

[shad0wca7]

Great, I’ll try this although I’ve updated to 10.15.5 and one of the bug fixes for that is along the lines of ‘fixes issue with T2 devices not having internal audio as an option’ so let’s see....