Audio/Sound fails in macOS Catalina

Same issue. I have the blackmagic external gpu which connects to my monitor. The monitor has a sound out that I use to drive speakers. When connected the sound output device is LG HDR WQHD. If I leave the laptop for any length of time such that it sleeps then when I come back I still have video to the monitor, but the sound output is coming out of the laptop (clamshelled in a stand). The audio device for the monitor doesn't show up in output devices. I have to click to disconnect from the GPU (and monitor), open the laptop (so I can see), then unplug the usb-c that goes to the blackmagic and plug it back it. Then it re-connects to the blackmagic, the sound output device shows up, and sound starts coming back out of the speakers that are connected to the monitor. So, it seems Catalina has an issue with going into sleep or power saving and preserving sound devices.

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.

Restarting coreaudiod made it worked. Looks like bug in Catalina

A senior advisor told me to log into as test. Audio worked fine. Went back to regular login and it still works. He wanted us to stay on as test until 2 days from now and only login into regular account since we can't remember FB login. We'll see.

I installed the supplemental update at the time it was released, and the situation seems to have improved. But since I did then the problem occurred at least once. At least it seems to reduce the frequency of the issue.

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

God this is really frustrating, The 10.15.4 Catalina update has not resolved the bug at all. I still have to keep restarting the coreaudiod service when on a call or listening to anything for that matter. If this does not get resolved soon a trip to the Genius bar it is for an exchange or refund.

Same issue here (MacBook Pro 2017), specifically after upgrading to Catalina. So this is a Catalina bug.

Restarting coreaudiod does not help; only restarting the entire system helps. This needs to be fixed.

I have an almost brand-new Mac mini. When I upgraded to Catalina, the same issue started. It seems to occur arbitrarily. I can go for days without issues, then I observe it several times a day etc. I reached out to Apple Support on Twitter and got some BS answer along the lines of "bring your Mac to the nearest Apple Store". Ummm, no? Because that would leave me w/o a computer for no reason other than Apple doesn't have their sht*t together. Basically, they need to fix this, and they need to fix this NOW. There are YouTube videos about, it. Support threads. You can Google it, Apple Support, and you'll find it is NOT an individual machine. Etc. etc. The following link has helped me, and it fixes it for a little bit, but it is not a long-term solution. This is BS, and now I'm researching how I can revert to my last operating system. It makes me rethink my decision to even get a Mac, and I thought PCs sucked - at least a PC doesn't come w/ the price tag of a Mac. Apple has been of ABSOLUTELY NO HELP. https://www.ikream.com/how-to-fix-sound-problems-on-your-mac-running-macos-mojave-32751

This is extremely annoying and I'm feeling like a Windows user who has to reset his computer all the time. Sometimes killing the coreaudio works but not always. All the "correlations" you guys are pointing out are not the cause because I can report that I have the issue and I don't use Spotify or Bose or Parallels, etc. This is an OS problem because I didn't have the problem before Catalina.

How do you restart coreaudiod ?

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

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.

Restarting "coreaudiod" via Terminal does nothing for me. Interestingly if I also try to connect to my AirPods these also now don't work, in fact they connect then disconnect a few seconds later. Disabled Bluetooth, re-enabled, and still no joy. If I re-boot the MacBook, I know it will start audio again, but I really don't want to have to do that (again). This audio behaviour is unique to Catalina, I've never experienced it before. Apple, can you please sort this s*** out?

PS Not attempted the SMC reset yet, may do later but I know the re-boot step will generally make the audio issue temporarily go away.