Audio/Sound fails in macOS Catalina

Evening all,

So I've got similar issues but not as drastic as a lot of you...

I'm on a MacBook Pro 13" 2015 (3.1Ghz/16GB/512SSD) running 10.15.5

I'm a live sound engineer, so while I say my issues aren't as bad as others as the sound always returns, they can still be pretty bad and show stopping for me...

1) Audio Controls Freezing

This *seems* to be limited to when using an external soundcard, but I may be wrong... it just hasn't happened when using the minijack output yet... So... When using the volume up and down buttons slowly, or fast, the system can *hang* and either;

A - Mute playback and pause / freeze whatever video may be playing until it realises where the volume should be and then unmute at the volume level and the video then catches up fast forwarding to then be in sync

B - While it is working out what volume level it needs to go too, it continues to play the last 1 bar ish of music over and over and over on top of itself then jumps to the right volume and carries on - SUPER annoying...

It's got the the point now where it is that regular that the volume freezes that I don't even touch the controls and I use the volume knob on the audio interface I'm using - very annoying!

2) Audio Muting

Now, this one is more worrying but similar to what other people here have been experiencing

The Mac can be playing audio from anywhere, YouTube, Music App, Logic, Final Cut, Safari and just randomly mutes the output completely for around 2-5 seconds... then the audio returns, as if nothing happened...

In terms of programs I've got installed that others have mentioned;

• Clean My Mac X - But I've had this YEARS so really doubt it is anything to do with that...
• Parallels - This was installed recently but again, the problems happened way before that, all with Caralina, which was a completely fresh install too.

As others have said, if it's having big issues (but be aware in mine my audio always does come back so it's normally not enough time to open Activity monitor and restart core audio, or worth it etc) restarting core audio if you catch it quick enough does work. So does restarting and resetting the PRAM.

Just such an odd chain of events and makes the Mac not *good/safe* enough for live performances, or relying on even for video conferences... Glad I haven't updated the rest of them at work yet!

Luckily at the moment due to Coronavirus, this Mac isn't on live work. It's all studio based. but not ideal!!

The issue (ignoring the control ones as I don't touch them now) seems to happened not all the time too, can work fine for HOURS of a recording / mix session, not even do it once... But then later watching Netflix / Youtube it happens... so odd... (it has happened once when recording so Logic isn't exempt FYI too)...

Last thing to note is the Mac is setup permanently at the moment and never off, "prevent computer from sleeping when display is off" is selected, ie, the computer never sleeps, the screen goes off after like 3 hrs, if it did sleep then I might run into more issues like *having* to restart core audio or the Mac due to it properly going...

Very frustrating!

Any help / tips greatly received!

Cheers,

Chris

Hey Guys from Apple,

I have a small hope you are tracking such threads here. I am facing the same annoying issue on my MacBook Air 2019 with OS X 10.15.4. To be honest 10.15.3 has the same bug on board. Staying and working from home as most of us, having lot's of business conferences every day - the issue with crashing device makes me completely disappointed.

All of us been trained about workarounds (refer to https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063) and how to dance with tambourine after each crash of the coreaudiod.

Please fix that kindly immediately and save our souls. I am close to submitting the order for Lenovo as a replacement notebook.

Best regards,

D.

I've the same problem. I found out that unloading and loading again audio driver solves the issue without reboot.

Create a file Desktop/fix_audio.sh with the following inside in:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

Then issue chmod +x Desktop/fix_audio.sh command in terminal

When you experience problem with sound run sudo Desktop/fix_audio.sh command in terminal

In the new update 10.15.5 of OS X Catalina is a sound fix for Macs with T2 security chip:

• Addresses an issue for Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip where internal speakers may not appear as a sound output device in Sound preferences

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210642

Maybe it fixes the problem.

Same problem - no sound, and in the System Preferences, my computer actually couldn't see the internal microphone or speakers at all, so there was no audio input or output. Quitting the coreaudiod process via Activity Monitor or Terminal did NOT help for me, but what did work was doing an NVRAM reset (Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support). After the NVRAM reset, the sound came back, and it still worked after pausing a video and sleeping/waking the computer.



Hey Guys,

The latest update macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Supplemental Update fixed the issue with Audio device on my MacBook Air 2019. Try it!

macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Supplemental Update introduces iCloud Drive folder sharing, Screen Time communications limits, Apple Music time-synced lyrics view, and more. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.

BR,

D

Resetting Coreaudio worked on the first try (pulled from a google search)

In order to reset your core audio:

1. Launch the Terminal
2. Enter the following command: sudo killall coreaudiod
3. Then, simply press Enter (although you may have to enter your admin password as well).

Agreed - my audio appears to be well and truly forked... when looking at the audio preferences panel, devices appear and disappear with no apparent correlation to anything. Most recently my Sound prefs pane crashed entirely and I had to restart System Prefs to get to it:

I have found that SOMETIMES if I kill all the audio processes (using the Activity Monitor app) it will restore things; sometimes I just need to shut down and restart.

I thought maybe this had to do with the audio output in my HDMI monitor (which I turned off on the monitor, but it still shows up as an option)... but it has started happening even when I am not using any external devices.

Apple, you guys REALLY need to do something about this. In a world where working remotely is the norm and we need to take all of our meetings via video conference, having flaky or non-working audio is a deal breaker. I REALLY don't want to have to downgrade the OS, or worse leverage my old Windows machine - please fix this.

This solution can crash your computer. If the kext fails to unload, the script will attempt to execute the second line, which will crash the computer, and send it into a reboot.

I don’t write a lot of shell scripts, so I’m not sure how to do it, but execution of the second line needs to be within an if clause that tests for successful execution of the unload.

It’s probably better to unload and load outside a shell script.

The problem could be a driver issue. I had MJRecorderdevice.driver in /Library/Audio/Plugins/HAL. Some programs will let you change the volume setting on that, or you can get rid of it completely with sudo rm -rf <driver name>

The MJRecorder driver is installed by some programs when you start them up, so if you need it, it will come back the next time you use the program that installed it.

Thank you, but I have not this driver there. :(

Edit: I have the feeling, that it could be Sonos and Spotify Connect.

Every time, I’m playing songs in Spotify with Spotify Connect on my Sonos, it happens, that the system sounds are gone.

Best

Sascha

I have the same problem on Catalina. I have a Macbook Pro 16" (brand new, but also happened on my previous macbook pro after upgrading to Catalina). For me, this issue occurs with my Bose USB audio system and Apple Music.

1) Play Music

2) Pause track

3) Start track again - no sound.

What I have to do all the time is unplug and re-plug in the Bose USB audio. When I unplug the Bose USB audio, the song is playing through the next audio device (usually my displays plugged in via USB C). After reconnecting the Bose USB audio, the audio switches back over to the Bose and plays normally.

Is this a problem with older USB devices? I'm using a dongle to connect the older USB to USB-C port.

I have the same issue. Restarting audiocored does not do the trick for me. I had it on the previous OS too, was hopeful updating to Catalina would solve the issue but no. I have not found a solution other than restarting the machine. So frustrating :(

Killing coreaudiod doesn't help for me. To re-iterate, here's what i'm experiencing

I have a Bose USB Audio speaker system connected to an LG Monitor (bought from apple store) using a USB-A to USB-C Adapter. The LG Monitor is plugged into my 16" Macbook Pro running Catalina via one of the USB-C ports.

To simplify:

Bose USB Audio (USB-A) --> LG Monitor (USB-C) --> Macbook Pro (USB-C)

1) On Macbook Pro, open Music app

2) Play a song (via Apple Music)

3) Pause the song

4) Press play again - no audio. At this point I tried resetting coreaudiod, did not work. Only way I can get audio back is to unplug the USB-C cable and plug it back in. Very frustrating.

The kicker is that the above doesn't always reproduce it every time. Sometimes I can pause and play music fine, other times I cannot. Also occurs when waking the computer up from sleep. Also occurs when switching applications that use the audio, such as video conferencing.

Any help is appreciated.