Mac mini 2018 w/eGPU & USB Audio, coreaudiod freezes, causes loginwindow to not respond video/audio playback to stop
All:
I'm looking for any help here. This is a REALLY weird one that has existed from Catalina now to Big Sur (although with a slight variation).
We've all dealt with the fast video playback bug that forces you to do a killall of coreaudiod to restart the system. Now I've got an issue where randomly (twice today, but normally only once per day), audio/video playback will stop, pressing volume up or down takes about 2 minutes per press to pop the indicator on the screen, and loginwindow goes unresponsive. Only a reboot fixes the issue. I could be browsing on a website the clicks over to YouTube, and when I hit play it just sits there looking like its buffering. Music won't play, and when I do the volume up and down on the keyboard, there is no audio sound confirming this.
With Big Sur, I now can kill coreaudiod, and it will just die whatever death it does. Meaning, volume up/down buttons become responsive again but it just has the volume icon then a circle with a slash through it (just like when you have it muted).
I don't have Boom3D installed (that was one I've heard can mess with the audio subsystem in bad ways). I originally thought it was Zoom, but that's not the case as it is happening after uninstall. I know its happening if I try to play a YouTube video, and it doesn't matter which browser I choose (I run Chrome, Firefox, and Safari for different things).
Nothing is showing up interesting in the Console logs, I'm not seeing anything related to coreaudiod there, and I cannot reliably reproduce it. Only recovery is reboot. Killing loginwindow does nothing.
I'm looking for ANY ideas on what diagnostic tools I could use or logs I could check to help me figure out what subcomponent is completely losing it and bringing down macOS.
Setup:
MacMini 2018
External GPU to drive a Samsung CRG9
USB speaker (Dell AC511 USB Soundbar)
Also have a Jabra Speak 710 connected for conf calls.
Before you cool cats seeking fake internet points respond, I've had a support session (level II) with Apple to no avail, reset SMC and PRAM, and done all the normal generic stuff that pops up as a response. We can save us both a click right there.
Mac mini, macOS 11.2