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Mac Audio Balance Bug That Apple Knew About 12 Years Ago Still Exists

Chaos215bar2 said:
Sure, you might not prioritize an issue like this in any given release. But after 10+ years, this becomes a poor excuse for failing to fix an admittedly rare, but still potentially high impact issue.

Imagine you’re a professional audio engineer using macOS who ends up having to remix an entire production due to a stupid, “low impact” bug like this. macOS is heavily marketed to creatives. It needs to actually work reliably for the job.
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Well, this bug has existed for 22 years, and it hasn’t stopped audio engineers from using macOS.
Also, I don’t know if you’re expecting an operating system to be totally bug free but that’s not possible.
Some type of computer that works totally reliably every second of the day just doesn’t exist i’m afraid.
 
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Yup, I’ve been using balance lock for years for my creative soundblaster. Don’t seem to have the issue with built in speakers or Bluetooth, but with the USB every time I sleep and wake one of the channels is at 100% ready to blast my eardrums. Balance lock to the rescue! Apple needs to fix this
 
Apple’s quality control, on the software side of things, has been going downhill since the early 2010s. It’s a major shame.
 
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Chaos215bar2 said:
Sure, you might not prioritize an issue like this in any given release. But after 10+ years, this becomes a poor excuse for failing to fix an admittedly rare, but still potentially high impact issue.

Imagine you’re a professional audio engineer using macOS who ends up having to remix an entire production due to a stupid, “low impact” bug like this. macOS is heavily marketed to creatives. It needs to actually work reliably for the job.
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As an audio engineer, we would notice this bug within seconds. The chances of someone mixing an entire project and not noticing this issue is literally zero.

Regardless, there are at least two of us in this thread who have been doing it for 20 years and never encountered this bug.
 
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Lounge vibes 05 said:
Well, this bug has existed for 22 years, and it hasn’t stopped audio engineers from using macOS.
Also, I don’t know if you’re expecting an operating system to be totally bug free but that’s not possible.
Some type of computer that works totally reliably every second of the day just doesn’t exist i’m afraid.
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Not only that, but audio engineers also aren't even discussing this as being a known issue. If it was that serious, it would have become a punch line in the audio production community, and it isn't.
 
Does this affect digital out ? I've been using Macs since about 2011 and I've never experienced this bug, but I'm always using digital out to an amp/wired speakers. Although from skimming seems people mention AirPods , so perhaps it does. Also when it drifts is it a hard left/right drift or somewhere in between ?
 
In 2013 I bought my first Mac (Mac Pro 2013 trash can). I was stunned after paying around $5,000 for the computer that the balance would always drift to one side. After way too many times manually changing the balance I finally found the Balance Lock app and saved my sanity. Now I use an M2 Mac Studio and have not had the balance issue. However, now the problem I have is screen flicker. Yep, all brand new cables and still does it. Rrrrrr.....
 
Yeah I've been using Balance Lock for years because of this. Usually happens when you connect bluetooth headphones and immediately lower the volume
 
I remember this being an issue years ago, but I presumed it was a minor fix. Amazing that it's still a problem today.
 
Haven't you noticed guys? Apple only develops abandonware. Only fixes bugs when very-very necessary. :(
FTFF!
 
Dawizkid said:
I can not believe that after all these years there is still no system wide 20 Band Equalizer.
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There is AU Lab offered as part of Apples developer "additional tools for Xcode". It offers 31-band system wide EQ. Not obvious on its usage for the general user however.
 
This bug happened to me all the time 10 years ago... I think it had something to do with switching output devices from time to time (music production). I was so annoyed that I wrote little script to always set to center after I switch output device.
 
I've had this annoying bug on my 2010 MBP for years, I thought it was me at first. I'd manually adjust it until it sounded balanced again. It didn't do it from day 1 of owning the device. I hope it doesn't become an issue with M3 MBA's.
 
In the 15 years I've been using a Mac I had this issue two times in recent years with my AirPods Pro. I fixed it by using the Audio MIDI Setup. Know I know what caused it but it barely every bothered me to be honest
 
coffeemilktea said:
Maybe they didn't bother fixing it because it's a relatively rare bug? I've been using Macs for almost 20 years now and I've never heard of an issue with audio balance before. 🤔
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neuropsychguy said:
There are bugs and then there are bugs. This is one of the bugs that is so random and harmless that it’s at or near the bottom of the list of bugs to address.
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longofest said:
As someone who develops software, I agree with this. While it might be embarassing that this issue has been open for so long, the reality is some times bugs happen so rarely and lack sufficient impact that the team decides either to prioritize it incredibly low, or they say they won't fix it at all. The decision not to fix something is often made based off of the priorities of new development and/or the risk that fixing it could accidentally create a different, more serious bug.
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This bug is from the Obama administration era. LMAO. Surely they could've rolled out a fix by now.
 
I was impacted by this bug or a variation of this bug for years. My topology is CalDigit TS3 Plus Dock, and headphones plugged to the Audio out of the CalDigit dock. Two laptops, or just same laptop. Whenever I put one laptop to sleep and swapped the other in it would pretty much invariably come with out of balance audio channels. I got used to have Audio MIDI Setup Apple application open all the time to balance the channels. Eventually I installed Balance Lock and it definitely does the work. Then I think around Mac OS Sonoma (the latest), a few months back, the problem solved itself. Now I don't start Balance Lock at boot up and this particular bug seems to be solved.

I think some commenters have mentioned issues with sleep and USB audio. I think my case might be a variation of it, as my laptops connect to the CalDigit TS3 Plus through Thunderbolt port. It was really annoying as what it usually did was increase the volume of one channel, so if I forgot to check the volume and adjust the audio channels I could get welcome with ear damaging audio volumes. So, this is not a totally innocuous kind of bug, it borders into a safety issue and could be the subject of a class action lawsuit for hearing damage. If you set the audio volume low and when you plug back your laptop one channel (I think it was usually the left channel) is set really high (close to 90%) it is really bad. Glad that at least this issue seems to be gone/fixed. Kudos for Balance Lock. If I had a suggestion for the software, if I remember well how the GUI works would be to have a chance to specify a volume to lock too. I think it tended to balance to the higher volume so I would still have to be careful to check the audio volume before putting the headphones.
 
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