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Not a safety issue? Mine started exhibiting this defect with a sudden loud squeal into my ears barely 3 weeks after the warranty expired. It was so loud my ears hurt for the rest of the day.

On top of that, they were either so incompetent or so deceitful that they tried to tell me mine weren't manufactured within the range of serial numbers for weeks before they finally admitted they "made a mistake" and agreed to replace them. Then, the replacement pair succumbed to the defect again, this time after only 9 months. At this point they informed me that the replacement pair was only warrantied for a month or two and I was out of luck. My wife's pair had also started exhibiting the defect at this point but they had already "ended the program" and so she was out of luck as well. So eventually we broke down and bought 2 pairs of APP 2s which thankfully have been great so far.

Apple deserves to have the book thrown at them for how they handled this. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was forced to buy new products at my own expense due to Apple's total lack of interest in standing behind their products.
 
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Wait there was a repair program?! I have these Airpods with these exact issues, so I clicked the program and it ended? Definitely should be a payout then to help us pay for new ones.
 
Good for Apple. So many legal troubles for Apple in the recent past. Waiting to see the final verdict in this battle.
 
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I've owned 3 AirPods Pro 1st gen (popular Christmas gift). All three started cracking after a year. All three were replaced under the repair program. The repair program ended and all three started cracking again.
same here - it's ridiculous really. Three times and they just kept replacing them with the defective ones... that's the actual problem here. (And like a sucker I went out and bought AirPods 2 - ha)
 
Now some AirPods Pro 3 owners are reporting bleeding in their ears, possibly from pressure coming from the new heart rate sensor. It might be isolated to some units which weren’t manufactured properly. I think the fragility of these things make manufacturing them tricky and the addition of the new sensor even more so.
 
I've had this issue too. I refused to pay to replace. The issue appeared just after the repair program ended and only option given was to pay for replacement bud. My issue (apart from having to pay for a known inherent fault) is what about the other bud? The design fault must exist on that too? I am not paying to replace one bud for the other one to fail weeks/months later.
 
Yeah, I have a problem too for myself the AirPods Pro 1 The left was working the right it didn’t work. I didnt hear anything. I have to go to the Apple Store to fix both AirPods and one of them didn’t match.
 
Had them replaced. It happened again and finally I just dealt with it, because the crackling was with noise canceling, but was ok with transparency.
 
My AirPods Pro 1 developed this problem too. It's clearly a logic problem (software or hardware?) as they blast white noise, either to check your ear (like the fit test), or for some other feedback issue, and then it just never turns off. Mine work fine in normal mode, but transparent and noise-cancelling mode they are useless.

I took them to an Apple Store here in Japan, and they just said the only fix was to buy a new pair.

I "fixed" the problem by getting a pair of third-party ANC headphones for one-third the price.
- The third-party headphones are larger, but they are much easier to put on and take off than the AirPods are to put in and take out.
- They don't fall off like AirPods will fall out at times.
- The batteries last much, MUCH longer.
- It is slightly more onerous to change devices, but at least they work.

This kind of poor customer support, and Tim Cook's appeasement of our tantrum-thrower-in-chief has made me stretch out the life of every Apple device as long as I can. I have numerous Apple devices, but I am certainly not a loyal customer. Tim Cook's number-driven greed precludes any loyalty on my part.
 
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Mine still work as I had lost the case and they sat for a couple of years. I replaced the case from a used one off an auction site. They were working fine until recently. Now the right one is having intermittent static the last month or two.

I never was fond of them as they will jump between devices during calls. Kind of hard to use when they don’t stay on task. Couldn’t find a setting that would apply to calls either. Just other audio. Still happens on *OS 26.
 
I used my Pro 1st gen's for 3+ years and never had any issues. I now have 2nd gen's but still have my Pro 1st gen and they continue to be crackle free. Seems some people either received defect free Pro's or for some other reason, we've been spared from this issue
 
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The amount of people defending this 4 trillion dollar megacorp against legal matter that aims to defend consumer rights and quality standards is quite special. Just hope you know you've utterly surrendered your right to complain about any quality issue with any Apple product going forward since you seem to be so against holding them accountable to the trash quality we're seeing from them lately.
 
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I use one of my buds at a time when walking the dog, so I do not totally close off my hearing to the outside world as I walk him in the dark in the evenings. So as I walk the dog twice a day usually bar weekends, I swap them round. I use them to just listen to You Tube rubbish, but I don't have the crackling. Mine were the last build of them though as got them when the Pro 2 was released. It is a shame some people have issues though, very odd and random. But it can be like that with these things.
 
I used my Pro 1st gen's for 3+ years and never had any issues. I now have 2nd gen's but still have my Pro 1st gen and they continue to be crackle free. Seems some people either received defect free Pro's or for some other reason, we've been spared from this issue
Seems like you are one of the few lucky ones with no problems.
 
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