Bluetooth dropping audio

[StellarVixen]

I have been having this problem with audio via Bluetooth probably since the beginning.


On 10.14.3, whenever I play something that is not from iTunes/Spotify or hard drive directly...I get occasional audio drop/pause which lasts for about a second. YouTube, SoundCloud...everything from browser and games...all of them drop audio.


Does anyone get the same, and is there a fix?


Thank you.

 

[Honza1]

Obvious question: if you play such music through cable connected speaker or built in speakers, do dropouts happen also?
As described, I suspect network connection.

 

[StellarVixen]

Obvious question: if you play such music through cable connected speaker or built in speakers, do dropouts happen also?
As described, I suspect network connection.

Thanks for chiming in.

No, everything is fine with both wired headphones and built in speaker. It only cuts while I am playing via Bluetooth.


I suspected headphones might be the problem, but they work fine on iPhone, both in music player, games and browser.

 

[Honza1]

OK, another obvious question: did you try different Bluetooth speaker/headphones? I had some older headphones which were misbehaving quite weird ways - threw them away when I realized, that those were something like BT ver2 or BT ver3, while today we have BT version5.

I have been fighting with BT in my house a lot due to interference - in our case heating/cooling system (but can be many other devices). BT is using some kind spectrum jumping to minimize interference, so if I understand correctly, it is changing frequencies routinely. Also, you may have combined wifi/BT chip/antenna and if you are using one side (wifi) for data and the other side (BT) for music, things could go sideways. Especially if older BT hardware is on receiving end and you are using older wifi (b/g) frequencies, which overlap with BT frequencies.

 

[StellarVixen]

OK, another obvious question: did you try different Bluetooth speaker/headphones? I had some older headphones which were misbehaving quite weird ways - threw them away when I realized, that those were something like BT ver2 or BT ver3, while today we have BT version5.

I have been fighting with BT in my house a lot due to interference - in our case heating/cooling system (but can be many other devices). BT is using some kind spectrum jumping to minimize interference, so if I understand correctly, it is changing frequencies routinely. Also, you may have combined wifi/BT chip/antenna and if you are using one side (wifi) for data and the other side (BT) for music, things could go sideways. Especially if older BT hardware is on receiving end and you are using older wifi (b/g) frequencies, which overlap with BT frequencies.

The headphones I am using work up to 4.2 (that was written on a box), and the Mac I am using right now has BT version 4.0. I am unaware if that might be problem, I think not.


And WiFi card is 802.11a/b/g compatible, thats what Apple says.

 

[Honza1]

Still, I would try with different BT speaker/headphones. Just to make sure it is not the headphones. It is much easier to switch headphones.

 

[StellarVixen]

Still, I would try with different BT speaker/headphones. Just to make sure it is not the headphones. It is much easier to switch headphones.

But why do they work flawlessly with my iPhone and iPad?

 

[Honza1]

Different chips involved, different versions of BT, different antennas, signal strengths... This stuff is designed to work, and most often it just does. When it does not, problems are usually weird edge cases. Unless you have lots of expensive and rare hardware, pinpointing the problem is difficult. Borrowing someone else BT headphones is free and usually painless. Try that and you at least know if the problem is computer or headphones. If it is the Mac, you can call Apple and may be they will be able to help. But reinstalling the system (their common suggestion) is not pleasant - especially if it would not be necessary.

 

[MIKX]

I run iTunes with a very large ITunes playlist but I turn the volume to zero - iTunes will pop up this complaint .. " AUDIO IS SET TO ZERO " a couple of times but after that you can tell iTunes to ignore the zero volume level. This keeps the BT link active while I watch a documentary.

The iTunes playlist is about 4 hours long. Just have to click on the first song to get another 4 hours of non-dropout BT.

 

[StellarVixen]

I run iTunes with a very large ITunes playlist but I turn the volume to zero - iTunes will pop up this complaint .. " AUDIO IS SET TO ZERO " a couple of times but after that you can tell iTunes to ignore the zero volume level. This keeps the BT link active while I watch a documentary.

The iTunes playlist is about 4 hours long. Just have to click on the first song to get another 4 hours of non-dropout BT.

That's a clever workaround, I will have to try that.

 

[melvynadam]

That's a clever workaround, I will have to try that.

Did it work for you?
If yes, I'll give this (absurd) solution a try.
My BT headphones work flawlessly with a whole range of devices (iPhone, Apple TV, etc) but on my iPad Pro I too experience the occasional 1-2secs of dropped audio.