10.4.10 Snap, Crackle, Pop - a workaround

i spoke too soon. this previous bug seems to be still all too active. so now there are two audio annoyances.

good mercy. it's good to know at least they're spending all kinds of time on other products :P

The most likely reason the topic was locked is simply because it had become too large & multi-threaded to be of much use. Apple moderators frequently do this, whatever the topic, because the forum is provided by Apple as a place for user-to-user help in well-focused, easy to find topics, not as a place to (ahem!) vent frustrations, however polite.

For example, people looking for the "Pop Stop" fix will find it much easier to locate or refer to this topic than wade through the nearly 300 post monster the other one had become.

I've been having the same problem with the audio pops. I spoke with a Product Specialist @ Apple. He wasn't aware of the issues, and I forwarded him to several threads of the scenario. He's going to report it to the engineering department.

Hopefully there will be a fix soon.

iMac 2.33 C2D Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Just to add as a help resource...the workaround described in the original (huge) thread about this issue that involved changing the line out frequency under Audio MIDI Setup then changing it back did give me good results...just throwing that out there for those who don't want to run the silent mp3 fix or tinker with their kernel.

Thanks everyone for working to find workarounds!

The most likely reason the topic was locked is simply
because it had become too large & multi-threaded to
be of much use. Apple moderators frequently do this,
whatever the topic, because the forum is provided by
Apple as a place for user-to-user help in
well-focused, easy to find topics, not as a place to
(ahem!) vent frustrations, however polite.

For example, people looking for the "Pop Stop" fix
will find it much easier to locate or refer to this
topic than wade through the nearly 300 post monster
the other one had become.

uh....and because it grew to a "monster" thread just proves a lot folks are having a audio problem after the SU.

Maybe Apple will take a little notice?

uh....and because it grew to a "monster" thread just
proves a lot folks are having a audio problem after
the SU.

Yes, they obviously are, but it doesn't mean the update caused them all. For instance, one of the ... um, more vocal advocates of this theory in that thread was certain none of his problems could be the fault of installed software, including VMware Fusion. But look here: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/06/22/vmware-releases-fusion-4-1- with-more-usb-support

"Pop Stop" & other workarounds are great for those that need them, but don't forget to check with vendors besides Apple for updates to resolve your issues.

"Pop Stop" & other workarounds are great for those
that need them, but don't forget to check with
vendors besides Apple for updates to resolve your
issues.

Then essentially what you are saying it's up to the end user to ensure software update compatibility issues instead of Apple?

Saw this on another list. It seems to have worked for me:

"I have had some popping in my audio before and I fixed that by opening Audio MIDI setup and re-selecting the Audio Output format Hz or bitrate then back again. The popping stopped immediately in iTunes via both analogue and digital connections."



Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.9)

replacing /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext with the one from 10.4.9 appears to fix the popping issue with no negative effect to the system. just copy it over, repair permissions, and restart. hopefully apple will still fix this permanently.

Maybe Apple will take a little notice?

No, that's not what these Discussions are for. These Discussions are for users to help other users. In order for Apple to take notice, Feedback needs to be sent to Apple either through Apple Care or Apple's Feedback on the web.

So send your feedback to Apple. That's how we let Apple know:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

This appears to work temporarily. Once I rebooted, I had to repeat the process as the popping had returned. It's annoying, but a solution until Apple heads our supplications.

This file was not changed in the update (x.9 and x.10 both use version 1.3.2a5 from May 2006). I wonder if you have an updated version from some other install...?

PS the "Audio MIDI Setup" workaround did it for me.

AppleHDA.kext is a package that contains files. Within the package are files that were modified on June 15, 2007. The 10.4.9 version has files dated Feb 22, 2007. It has been confirmed that this will fix the popping issue.

The MIDI setup change does not fix the 10.4.10 pop issue after a restart.

Like youngman said above, installing the 10.4.9 version of AppleHDA.kext fixes the popping and at least I didn't notice any bad side-effects.

Here's a rough outline how to do it. Unix-heads like me should feel right at home with it but those scared of the command line might want to look elsewhere. 🙂

Extract the /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext folder from the 10.4.9 update package (note that AppleHDA.kext is a folder structure containing several folders/files). There are several ways to do this, I just mounted the disk image and used the pax command line utility. Whatever tool you use, make sure it preserves file ownership and permissions.

Use sudo to become root user.

Rename the current AppleHDA.kext to AppleHDA.kext.10

Copy the 10.4.9 version of AppleHDA.kext into /System/Library/Extensions. Again make sure that whatever tool you use preserves file ownership and permission information.

Delete Extensions.kextcache and Extensions.mkext from /System/Library.

Reboot. Pops are gone!

Note that the above process messes with kernel extensions and making mistakes with those can result in an unbootable or unstable system or even data loss. It worked well for me but YMMV.