Bluetooth audio problems Catalina

Same issues with 2 different sets of bluetooth headphones on MacOS 10.15.1. No other bluetooth items are connected. It doesn't happen as often as others are stating, but maybe once every couple of days or so.

It's annoying as **** when I'm rocking out in a coffee shop, and then suddenly my machine starts playing from the speakers... loudly. 😳

Hi guys I've been having this issue too, I use only bluetooth audio devices and they keep connected sometimes but are not selectable as audio devices, after seeing in many sites I didn't find anything that helped me to fix the issue and I realized it may be not a bluetooth problem but an audio problem since in Mojave I had a similar issue, so what I did as a partial solution is to reset Audio device from the terminal using one of these commands:

Mojave

sudo killall coreaudiod

Catalina

sudo kill -9 168

I hope they work for you

--

Best regards

When this happens, the bluetooth menu and speaker selection still show that my external speaker is connected, just no sound (except from internal speaker). When I turn off bluetooth, the external speaker beeps, so bluetooth must still be connected.

Looks like the problem is in redirecting output, not the bluetooth connection itself.

These actions presented by javotroya are too specific, and cannot work. You should rather find coreaudiod in Activity Monitor and kill it there. Otherwise, you can try a restart of your Apple computer. These actions are basically the same, except that the killing will cause problems when you restart. If you do the kill, the music will be interrupted for a short time.

I am not sure if this is going to solve the problem. Not for me.

I can only speculate in the soda/super user command, perhaps a user dilemma? I don’t have an answer.

Edit: It worked for about an hour and in the last couple of minutes the bug happened twice. :(

We're almost 500 persons having the same problem and Apple didn't bother yet?

I'm wondering how many thousands should be be to get their attention?

Yes - what i've noticed on my headphones is that the "high quality stereo" bluetooth profile becomes disconnected so that music/sound output is redirected to speakers - HOWEVER my headphones are still connected on bluetooth but now on the "noisier 8kHz phone quality headset" bluetooth profile that you would be utilizing for skype audio, for example. So they are still connected to bluetooth in one mode but not the other. I hope that's helpful to apple developers troubleshooting the issue. I wonder if they've been able to recreate the issue or if they are even looking into it? I wish there was some official place they could acknowledge bugs and issues - if I wasn't so lazy I guess I should go up to the apple store.

For God's sake Apple... Can you please fix this? I'm downloading 15.2 right now but it looks like that is not a fix. How are you taking so long?

I will never buy an Apple product for the rest of my life. It's bad enough that I have to use one for work, you could at least make it bearable for me by making it work as advertised.

Hurry up.

Sorry I should have been more emphatic in the PARTIAL SOLUTION phrase. Because it is not a solution it's a WORKAROUND while @apple solves the issue. The commands will only kill audio and then the system restarts it again that way you won't have to restart the whole computer. To me, it happens only during idle time even if there's music playing, being idle detaches audio from bluetooth and then I see the device connected on the bluetooth list but not as audio device selectable.

TL;DR

The commands are just a workaround

macOS Catalina 10.15.2 it connects to my surround sound system via bluetooh but the sound does not play.

Volume is at maximum on the macbook and up high on the surround sound unit. It used to work fine (pre catalina) no issues. Something is very wrong with BT audio in catalina.

I have the same problem with my JBL headphones. It switches back using the Macbook Air speakers after a minute or two and the only way to get it back onto the headphones is to switch the headphones off and on again.

I have the same problem on my Macbook Pro Retina Late 2013. I even factory reset my mac and the problem still persists. Bluetooth speaker stays connected while audio is played through internal speakers.

To assist Apple in the unlikely case they are reading this, mine is MacBook Pro 13" late 2017 model (MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports))

Bluetooth audio does not play to my surround sound once it is connected.

My macOS is 10.15.2 (19C57)

For me i can only use my freaking AirPods, because with my Bose SoundTouch or other bluetooth devices it keeps messing up with the sound . Already update to the latest 10,15,2 and the same miserable bug.

Drama phrase: I wish I had never met you Catalina