Bluetooth Explorer "Audio Options" Crashes

Question

Level 1

12 points

Bluetooth Explorer "Audio Options" Crashes

macOs: 10.15.4 (19E266)

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)

I've been trying to sort out some audio issues with my playing audio via bluetooth where it would be very choppy. I went into Bluetooth Explorer's "Audio Options" and updated the values and tested to find it's actually gotten worse. I restarted my machine and went back into Bluetooth Explorer's "Audio Options" and it crashed; it happened a few times so I went through and did the SMC reset and also tried resetting the bluetooth module via the debug menu (shift + option + click bluetooth in menu bar) but to no avail.

Looking at the report I see this:

Application Specific Information:

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'Modifications to the layout engine must not be performed from a background thread after it has been accessed from the main thread.'

terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

abort() called

Anybody have any ideas on how to fix this that's not a full re-install of the OS?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Apr 2, 2020 3:19 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 7, 2020 1:24 PM in response to Wolfie Zero

I've just run into this issue as well.

I enabled AAC, reset the Bluetooth module, BT Explorer was open so it crashed, and then relaunched Bluetooth Explorer with no issues.

I increased the AAC bitrate, quit BT Explorer, reset the Bluetooth module, relaunched BT Explorer, and then this crash occurred on launch. It now happens every time I launch the app.

AAC codec is working fine, but I'd like to use the Bluetooth Explorer again.

Looks like we have some other threads about this issue:

I too would rather not reinstall.

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Answer 2

Apr 7, 2020 1:46 PM in response to mira-evan

Okay so I got my Bluetooth Explorer working again. It's pretty clear that this exception is because the code is updating UIKit objects outside of the main thread, so a developer will need to fix that. The app is probably trying to update the AAC Bitrate slider from a background thread without a dispatch to the main thread.

You can see that Bluetooth Explorer wrote a plist key/value when I moved the AAC Bitrate slider:

% sudo defaults read bluetoothaudiod
{
    "AAC Bitrate" = 160;
    "Enable AAC codec" = 1;
    "Enable AptX codec" = 0;
}

I deleted it with the following terminal command:

sudo defaults delete bluetoothaudiod "AAC Bitrate"

So now Bluetooth Explorer will launch. If you want to use it, this key must not be present in the plist. As a workaround, you can delete the key, not reset the BT module, and launch the Explorer. Downside is that the bit rate doesn't calculate correctly in the Audio Graph window.

For anyone else that experiences this crash, simply delete the offending plist value that's causing your crash of Bluetooth Explorer. Hopefully some developer from Apple sees this and fixes the issue; I've made a number of crash reports. Thanks for making this app whoever you are!

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