Bluetooth audio problems Catalina

Honestly, this has to be the most frustrating and disrupting bug I've ever witnessed in a major release in my 15 years of using apple products...

Second update and this issue isn't even acknowledged in any way.

Come on! Restart your Mac, restart your Bluetooth unit and just run the necessary programs, and cut down on the screensavers as well.

This could happen on Mojave as well, for instance when I used Steam. I always solved this with a restart. There is something with the activity on the Mac that causes this problem, but there is no solution. It happens more often with Catalina.

At first, I really though you was kidding.

I strongly invite you to read how hard we tried to find a viable solution to end this matter.

I’m happy your bug appeared related to one app. Well for us, it’s not the same.

FYI: I tried quitting all apps but iTunes to eliminate a similar reason.

So no need to burst in and suggest that complex (restart your device) solution.

I literally work all day long on my mac and need to use my headphones. And this kind of bug is just unacceptable.

Keep things straight. There is no iTunes in Catalina. I use Music, and I have mentioned Steam, but I had a few 32 bit games, so I haven’t tried yet. Therefore, it is not necessarily one app nor one operating system nor update.

This problem occurs often when you work all day on your Mac. It is the same for me.

A restart isn’t complex. This is how you can work around the problem. Otherwise, you can use a wire.

I am definitively not kidding.

I have also tried to delete all bluetooth related files and the one you mentioned. I had one from 2012.

I haven’t fixed this issue. I just have to work around the problem.

I believe the problem is also related to the «stronger» 2,4 Ghz connection that Music has in Catalina in some way compared to iTunes in Mojave. I don’t know exactly, but I experience more stability. The problem can also be wireless related, not necessiraly the wireless connection, but instability and disturbances. I experience much less disturbances from other sources (such as a smart phone). Then, perhaps, it cuts out when there is no connection at all. You cannot know when this occurs. You can check the variability on the wireless through an app. I wonder if 5G can solve the problem in the long run.

Every self help article tells you to reset PRAM/NVRAM and delete the bluetooth plist. This doesn't work even after 10.15.2. Here's what I observed so far: Bluetooth audio will randomly drop, remain connected to the computer but the audio device will be set to the internal speakers and cannot be changed to the bluetooth audio without disconnecting and reconnecting from the device.

Uptime of a bluetooth audio device is anywhere from instantly failing to a half a day. normally it seems to be about 20 minutes or so. After a while audio will stutter on bluetooth which so far i only seem to be able to remedy by rebooting the machine. next time I may try killing the coreaudiod and bluetoothaudiod though.

Audio forgets its volume after every disconnection, usually being set to max volume. Sometimes, bizarrely, it will be set as low as possible while still having some output. Even more bizarre is that if the system update screen is open it will flash that it failed to update at the same time.

System log at time of error is "com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.bluetoothaudiod): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 1 seconds." repeated ad nauseum. coreaudiod also has an error "unable to write all data".

Running a 2014 Macbook Air 6,2. OS Version 10.15.2, but started since 10.15.0.

I have been having this since Catalina. None of the proposed solutions fix this. Some days it BT stays connected for a long period of time, some days it's horrible with it constantly disconnecting and switching to internal speaker blaring sound out in the office.

I also have the disconnects at home which where the environment with "interference" devices is different as well.

My keyboard and mouse occasionally disconnect and reconnect within a minute. So it's not just audio, however mouse/kb reconnect, audio doesn't.

As per above post, you can't switch sound back to your BT audio device, you can also see in your device properties that you can not "manage" it whilst it's says it's connected. The BT context menu also shows as if it's connected.

This is happening with all my audio devices, including AirPods.

I really wish this would be taken seriously.

Guys, the only thing I found to avoid the awkward blasting speakers in inappropriate places is to turn internal speakers volume all the way down before connecting your Bluetooth audio device.

So when the bug happens, the original low/muted volume limits its awkwardness.

Hope they solve it soon

Can't speak for everyone but I didn't paid extra for WIRELESS connectivity to fall back to wires and pretend for months now that it's OK. Also in my job reboots are not an option: I have several network connections that need to be up as close to 24/7 as possible AND I need to be able to communicate 24/7. A "workaround" that impacts my productivity and availability is not really a workaround. Catalina and it's BT issues make macOS feel like 1999 linux 2.2.* on a very expensive hardware. I switched to mac precisely to enjoy stable desktop environment that I can trust. And for years Apple delivered, until now which is very disappointing.

Same problems here with my Sony WH-CH500. Listening to audio is working but using it with Microsoft Teams or Gotomeeting ist not working because the headphones disconnects by switching to them as an input device.

I can reproduce this behavior if i go to AudioSettings -> Input and switch devices. Headphone gets disconnected!

Adding to the issue backlog in hopes Apple will pay attention!

Switching my internet to 5ghz instead of 2.4 helped for a time, like a week, but this bug showed up again today. It's also insanely annoying you can't even disconnect the audio device in the BT dropdown! It still registers as connected, and like others have said you need to turn off BT then back on, then reconnect to bring it back. SMH

I had trouble with this immediately after upgrading to Catalina. I connect primarily to a Pioneer X-CM32 stereo system, which has worked flawlessly for years together with my Mac prior to Catalina. After the upgrade, it would drop back to the internal speakers at random times, usually 3 to 4 times a day, without Bluetooth stopping or disabling. I simply had to disconnect and reconnect using the BT menu and it would be fine again.

Around three weeks after the problem started, it completely cleared - without upgrading, restarting, reconfiguring or re-attaching any devices. I have no idea why.

So today I tried something different. While leaving the Pioneer turned on, but disconnected from BT, I connected my BeatsX earphones to see whether the issue was device-related. The result was interesting. Within 15 minutes the sound stopped in the BeatsX headset and somehow the Mac reconnected to the Pioneer - it just re-established the BT connection switched over.

Now that's very weird, and I have no explanation for it. So I turned the Pioneer off completely and reconnected to the BeatsX - which has happily remained connected to the Mac for some hours now without interruption.

So now I wonder whether this is a result of BT devices interfering with one another. I know for certain that they can - I have a problem with my iPod Touch and iPhone, where both are associated with all my BT speakers (Car systems, Pioneer stereo, BeatsX and Wonderboom). If I turn the Wonderboom on, for instance, and connect the iPhone to it, the iPod will interfere if it's in range, causing the sound to glitch every few seconds - until I either stop BT on the iPod or tell it to forget the Wonderboom. The same happens with the BeatsX and Pioneer.

I have opened an issue with Apple about this, and even spent time at the Genius bar and proved this to them - but they have no idea what causes it, and prefer to just say it's one of my devices (I have two iPhones and an iPod) - although this happens with a combination of any two devices: iPod+iPhone1, iPhone1+2, iPhone2+iPod.

I've had a few other problems with Apple devices and both of my my cars' BT systems, and I can't help thinking that this is an issue with Apple's interfaces with Bluetooth systems, rather than BT in general.

Found this on in a reddit thread about the issue and this seems to fix it for me as well:

"I was d*****g around with the Bluetooth Explorer application, I noticed my headphones were defaulting to AAC in Catalina. Turns out, my headphones are quite old and s**t and don't like fancy new codecs. I went and force-disabled AAC (which is default in Catalina?) and now my audio is in sync."

The Bluetooth Explorer is available as a download in the "Additional Tools for Xcode" package on Apple Developer. You can only disable AAC for Bluetooth Audio and force usage of aptX globally and not for each device, though.

Apple: "With great power comes great capability"...

And no Bluetooth audio? And no solution yet?

Apple engineering can't make its users to stream BT audio. A super basic nowadays.

I'm sorry for you Apple, truly.

Same issue here Macbook Pro 13" 2017 Catalina 10.15.2. Using Powerbeats Pro. Originally I thought the issue was with the beats and sent them to apple repair (twice) and they came back with no issue. Now that I found this thread I understand that its an OS issue. Anxiously waiting for Apple to fix. I use my beats to take meetings for work and it's not fun when the audio goes out in the middle of a call.