Do you have any issues with audio on the Mac Mini?

[canyelles]

You don't get any dropouts?
There's some dude over at macbook pro forums that also gets drouputs.

I'm the dude. Yes, I get audio dropouts using USB audio

The daemon timed runs every 30 minutes. Straight way after this the audio system stops and restarts. This is the cause of the glitch.

I have tried various things (including turning off automatic time/time zone setting) but nothing works 100%

This is on a 2018 mini by the way, not a MacBook pro

I think there are other causes of dropouts. I once had a long drop out which happened at the same time diskarbitrationd was writing 1000s of messages (all the same) to the log

 

[Ploki]

I'm the dude. Yes, I get audio dropouts using USB audio

The daemon timed runs every 30 minutes. Straight way after this the audio system stops and restarts. This is the cause of the glitch.

I have tried various things (including turning off automatic time/time zone setting) but nothing works 100%

This is on a 2018 mini by the way, not a MacBook pro

I think there are other causes of dropouts. I once had a long drop out which happened at the same time diskarbitrationd was writing 1000s of messages (all the same) to the log

this pisses me off so much... I'm just gonna return mine and buy a 2012 until apple gets their "#$= together. the dropouts have been happening for a year now

 

[F-Train]

You don't get any dropouts?
There's some dude over at macbook pro forums that also gets drouputs.

I’m not having sound issues regardless of whether I’m using the mini’s audio card or my Sound Devices USBPre 2.

Out of all the 2018 minis that have been sold so far, we have a grand total of three people reporting sound problems in this thread.

 

[Hessel89]

this pisses me off so much... I'm just gonna return mine and buy a 2012 until apple gets their "#$= together. the dropouts have been happening for a year now

well you can buy mine late 2012 core i7 with 256SSD + 1TB HDD

 

[Duncan68]

This is interesting:

iPad Pro bug makes music apps stutter and crackle

https://www.cultofmac.com/595330/ipad-pro-bug-music-apps-stutter/#more-595330

 

[tehStickMan]

You have got to be kidding me. So the 2018 line is bust (in audio) and their latest redesigned iPad is also bust.

 

[Duncan68]

You have got to be kidding me. So the 2018 line is bust (in audio) and their latest redesigned iPad is also bust.

This is just a wild guess, but I think it's probably the same code (in both macOS and iOS) that's causing the problems.

 

[Jorbanead]

You have got to be kidding me. So the 2018 line is bust (in audio) and their latest redesigned iPad is also bust.

Would hardly say the lines are “bust” since only 3 people in the poll have serious issues. Definitely some bug in the software, but it doesn’t seem to be effecting that many people.

 

[seble]

First time I've had audio issues with my MM yesterday. It was playing audio from spotify (sent via USB-A to an external DAC) and it kept getting blips and stutters with the audio dropping out or literally slowing down. Not sure if this was a spotify thing, a bug, or this audio thing. It seemed to correct itself after a few minutes.

 

[Bartjes]

I do experience very slight dropouts from time to time when playing audio via my TEAC UD 501 and Audirvana. Perhaps once every 4 of 5 hours. No hub between the DAC and the Mini 2018. I never had this problem with my old Mac Pro. Might be a RAM issue (16GB vs 32 GB on the Mac Pro).

 

[canyelles]

I do experience very slight dropouts from time to time when playing audio via my TEAC UD 501 and Audirvana. Perhaps once every 4 of 5 hours. No hub between the DAC and the Mini 2018. I never had this problem with my old Mac Pro. Might be a RAM issue (16GB vs 32 GB on the Mac Pro).

Sounds like the issue I have outlined above. If you can you should run console, take a note of the time of the dropout and look in console for occurrences of timed and IOAudio.

 

[Duncan68]

So every time I think I've found a solution to the dropouts I experience, further listening reveals it to not be the case.

This time, after reading helpful posts on this site and others, I think I've found a temporary fix. After unchecking "Set Date and Time Automatically" and "Set Time Zone Automatically" in Time and Date in System Prefs two days ago, I haven't had any further dropouts. So it appears (like others have posted) that the daemon Timed which does the system clock sync (and runs every 30 minutes or so) is the cause of the dropouts on my system.

I will enable those two settings manually once a day so the system clock stays relatively accurate, but keep them unchecked the rest of the time.

Hopefully Apple releases a fix for this soon.

 

[Fishrrman]

I did a quick search and found this page with info about "Timed":
https://eclecticlight.co/2017/10/27...high-sierra-has-changed-time-synchronisation/

I'm wondering if simply deleting the "Timed" daemon could solve the problem?
Of course, then you'd have to set the date & time manually.

 

[Duncan68]

I did a quick search and found this page with info about "Timed":
https://eclecticlight.co/2017/10/27...high-sierra-has-changed-time-synchronisation/

I'm wondering if simply deleting the "Timed" daemon could solve the problem?
Of course, then you'd have to set the date & time manually.

I wouldn't delete it, when you can just turn it off in Date and Time in System Prefs.

 

[canyelles]

I wouldn't delete it, when you can just turn it off in Date and Time in System Prefs.

That doesn't stop timed running. It also doesn't stop timed having and effect on the audio subsystem.

I have all the date/time checking turned off and timed still runs, I also still have dropouts.

 

[Duncan68]

That doesn't stop timed running. It also doesn't stop timed having and effect on the audio subsystem.

I have all the date/time checking turned off and timed still runs, I also still have dropouts.

I have it turned off and haven't gotten any dropouts in 2 1/2 days. I'll see what happens.

 

[8SlaiN8]

Ok, some more observations here:
I've been mostly running Logic pro X with cpu/hdd monitor and all of the times when it was "glitching" it had a significant spike in cpu activity. like all 12 bars (1 thread each) hitting the top for a portion of a second. Sometimes just something on the currently active core, without affecting the others. But I couldn't find any correlation or repeatability with console or smth. Also, after idk which Mojave update it shows some activities in console as "deleted"... some info on that?

Anyways, it's mostly non existing during normal system use right now with this update. Only cpu hungry audio apps appear to suffer right now. So, it's hardly system wide anymore....

 

[zedsdeadbaby]

I just want to say that from an MBP user dealing with this for a while now the issue has nothing to do with Logic, DAWs, or external audio devices... (At least on my machine.) I've had it happen on the speakers and the headphones. Although I haven't tried it on an interface I've read enough threads to see that hardware seems to basically behave the same. As others have pointed out the issue appears to be bridgeOS related.

I can reproduce the issue using only iTunes. Quicktime, or anything else producing sound for long periods of time also produces the issue. I've also noticed it gets worse with multiple audio streams... I.e. if I open a video link in Chrome while Logic or iTunes were playing the crackling turns into a stuttering/buffering issue.

On my machine I notice it kicks in after about 45 mins but sounds like it might behave slightly differently for others. It's cyclic whatever it is, last night I did tests on a clean-installed partition of 10.13 and it happened during the same song of an iTunes playlist 3 times in a row...

I've been able to can stress test it by leaving iTunes playing while I go out for a while or leave music playing overnight... Shows up without fail every time. Volume also has no relevance on whether it shows up or not, even at quiet volumes it's there if I l run a test and come back later... Also noticed it can be a lot louder than the volume setting so be careful if you decide to try some stress tests...

 

[Ploki]

a guy on another forum fixed the issues when he did a fresh install as opposed to a migration.
I'm beginning to suspect that some migrations from non-T2 to T2 aren't that good.

in any case, I did a clean set-up with the mini and it works fine regarding audio.

The i9 I had refunded didn't and crackled all over the place, but i never tried a clean install unfortunately.

 

[Duncan68]

I've never had a problem with speakers crackling, just audio dropouts that typically average about 3 a day(with auto time sync disabled). For reference, I used to own a MacBook 12" 2017 that was rock-solid and never had dropouts.

I'm using a Schiit Eitr DDC and Modi Multibit DAC, and I'm wondering if my problem's cause is different from the issue being reported by others.

 

[Marco Klobas]

I chime in just to confirm that I do experience audio dropouts from time to time on my 2018 Mac mini.

I've a USB DAC connected to a USB hub which is connected to the Mac via a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port. An external audio interface (RME Babyface Pro) is connected as well directly to a USB 3 port.

My Mac mini 2014 with Mojave with the same devices didn't suffer audio dropouts. It sounds to me either a USB bus or T2 related issue.

The problem appears randomly. It's difficult to find the culprit, let alone a possible fix.

I'll keep updated if I'll discover an improvement.

 

[Duncan68]

So far today, I've had 7 audio dropouts while listening to music. On a "normal" day I have 2-3.

I will note that my cable internet connection is pretty crappy today, very laggy. I'm using Safari at the same time I'm listening to music.

 

[Ploki]

I chime in just to confirm that I do experience audio dropouts from time to time on my 2018 Mac mini.

I've a USB DAC connected to a USB hub which is connected to the Mac via a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port. An external audio interface (RME Babyface Pro) is connected as well directly to a USB 3 port.

My Mac mini 2014 with Mojave with the same devices didn't suffer audio dropouts. It sounds to me either a USB bus or T2 related issue.

The problem appears randomly. It's difficult to find the culprit, let alone a possible fix.

I'll keep updated if I'll discover an improvement.

there's a post about USB audio specifically over at RME forums, and there are issues with it

 

[canyelles]

I chime in just to confirm that I do experience audio dropouts from time to time on my 2018 Mac mini.

I've a USB DAC connected to a USB hub which is connected to the Mac via a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port. An external audio interface (RME Babyface Pro) is connected as well directly to a USB 3 port.

My Mac mini 2014 with Mojave with the same devices didn't suffer audio dropouts. It sounds to me either a USB bus or T2 related issue.

The problem appears randomly. It's difficult to find the culprit, let alone a possible fix.

I'll keep updated if I'll discover an improvement.

There are probably several reasons but one reason is that the daemon 'timed' can cause the audio system to stop and restart. Read the whole of this thread for more details.

 

[dspdoc]

Yes. 3 day old Mac Mini 2018 3.2ghz i7 with 16gb and 256gb. I’ve been testing it very carefully with long ‘sink tests’ playing soft non-transient music (much easier to spot glitching), on loops of 1 to 5 minutes and allowed to cycle until I hear any glitching.

With a USB connected RME UFX, I’ve tested buffers from 32samples to 256, in Pro Tools 12 2018.7, Ableton 10.05 and Reaper 5.93

The audio is glitching randomly anywhere from 20 seconds into looping playback, up to maybe 5 or 6 minutes in. It’s hard to define a frequency of the glitches but they are pretty bad and make the Mini unusable for audio right now.

This may be related to the T2 chip, or USB controller.

I’ve also discovered the bluetooth on the mini has an incredibly limited range, perhaps 3ft and much shorter if USB3 activity e.g. drives are connected, then the magic mouse has to practically be touching the mini to work without jittering. Fairly sure this is the classic USB3 radio interference problem.

The Mini is on 10.14.1

Otherwise the Mini is very silent, and cpu meters very low even on heavy projects, but with this glitching the machine can’t be taken seriously right now. I will be returning it in the next day or so.

Very similar problems here. Will report back more later on this.
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So I’ve had my mini for about a week now. I use both ProTools and Logic for audio production and run everything through an Antelope Discrete 8 Interface.

When I first got my mini, I had a LOT of weird stuff happening with audio. Both Logic and ProTools had some weird hiccups. It sounded like the word clocks weren’t synced properly. My discrete 8 can manually change the sample rate separate from the DAW if I force it to, so I switched it back and forth and restarted ProTools. After that - I actually just got weird static/noise. So I updated the software on my discrete 8, restarted my mini, unplugged and restarted my interface, and then hooked everything back up.

Everything seems to be working fine now. Officially - Mojave is not supported yet for my interface. I have a feeling this is a Mojave issue more than a T2 issue though they could be related.

Check your drivers! Many companies don’t have official Mojave drivers yet.

Very very similar behavior as you as well here. Pro Tools and Logic exhibit random weird very short/small bursts of static that cause Pro Tools to throw -9173 and -6101 errors. In Logic it doesn't throw an error, but playback will stop. Initially I thought it was CPU spiking thing, but now I think there is more involved. I think it could be a combination of things. The "perfect storm" if you will of Mojave not being totally ready and the DAWs in question not getting along with Mojave and external devices. I am using Universal Audio hardware (Apollo x8 and two OCTO Satellites) via TB3 and there's definitely some stability issues here. I am not sure what the deal is with Mojave, but many if these developers like Avid and Universal Audio seem to have issues with it. I mean we are 4 months from its release and many of them still do not "officially" support it. There's something up. I have been working with Apple on this and will continue to, but to say I am disappointed would be an understatement.