Just switched to Monterey and having audio problem on Facetime and Whatsapp calls

I may have found a workaround. A friend of mine who used to work at Apple suggested disabling noise cancellation. This can be done by opening System Preferences, clicking on Sound, clicking input tab, and unchecking "Use ambient noise reduction". Note, the option is only shown (can only be enabled or disabled) BEFORE opening FaceTime or any other affected app.

Have got the same issue here on a 2015 MacBook Air / Monterey 12.3.1.

Monterey used to work, now it doesn't. I think the problem began with a recent Monterey update. So it's a software problem.

It affects most web communications: FaceTime, WhatsApp, Google Meet - but oddly not Zoom.

Here is an easy way to test/reproduce the issue: https://webcammictest.com/check-mic.html

If you get cracking/distortion there, you will have the issue in other apps.

None of the suggested solutions have worked for me:

• Restarting the computer
• Resetting SMC & PRAM
• Deleting the pref files in /Library/Preferences/Audio
• Changing the mic device sample rate in Audio MIDI Setup
• Disabling Ambient Noise Reduction in Sound prefs

...apart from "plug in a set of headphones and then unplug them". (!)

This fixes the issue for me. I suspect there is some bug in Monterey where it doesn't initialise the audio device properly. Apple need to fix this ASAP!

hi

i finally manage to fix the problem.

i have opened the Audio MIDI setup, in the built in Microphone section there is an option to pic a format of sound.

i changed it to 16bit -48.0KHz, than my problem was solved.

unfortunately I have the same issue even after 12.2 update. I have cracked noise in FT while zoom, teams etc. works fine.

I managed to find out that changing the freq while in the call from 44kHz -> 48kHz in Audio MIDI Setup.app fixed the issue while in the call. On a new call the 44kHz is selected again and the problem persists.

A good way to test is to setup a FT meeting and then play a demo sound on "Configure Speakers" in Audio MIDI.

Furthermore, on a 2019 iMac i dont have a "ambient noise reduction" option.

Not sure how this is related, but def. strange as

Well, my problem (FaceTime with no sound with Macbook early 2016) is resolved by Monterey 12.2 (released yesterday)

:-)

Yes! Thanks! Actual just plugging in headphones to the back and unplugging them worked for me. AMEN!

As far as I understand bug was already reported but we have not received any feedback from Apple.

This issue is about no incoming audio from other end during audio/video and audio calls (including cellular calls from iPhone via FaceTime audio on Mac) for 2016 Macbooks, 2014 Mac minis & similar.

Third party software like WhatsApp is also affected but Zoom/Skype is working fine.

My case has been escalated to the engineers at Apple - expecting a response in the next day or two.

A reinstall of 12.1 was also completed, general consensus is that this is an audio API bug that crept in with 12.1, affecting Safari/WhatsApp/Screenshare/Facetime (on my 2017 iMac anyway) - Zoom is fine as are all other audio applications.

Go to "Built-in Output" and "Configure Speakers.." and click Left+Right test sound. Should be cropped.

Oddly enough I picked up on this and found the following:

using Audio MIDI Setup.app you can change "Play Alerts and Sound Effects.." via the other USB-C device and this makes it go away for me!!

Go to "Built-in Output" and "Configure Speakers.." and click Left+Right test sound. Should be normal.

I had this problem with all audio. I have an iMac - Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017. Since it is pre 2018 the options in settings people are saying to toggle do not exist. BUT I noticed the audio was fine when I used an audio interface and headphones. Then I tried simply plugging headphones into the back and unplugging them. When I did that the audio was fixed. Go figure. It's worth a try.

Thanks a lot for this trick ! Everything is fine again with the sound in FaceTime, just had to plug a jack headphone in my iMac 27' 2017 under Monterey 12.2.1 to fix the issue. It happened since I upgraded from Mojave to Monterey 12.2.

If there is no incoming voice at all , in my case iMac 2017, I connected a(ny) Bluetooth Speaker and used this instead of the integrated speaker.

For me it looks like that this actually is the only way to get the incoming audio stream working.

No, it's definitely software related, spent over 2 hours trying different fixes with a very patient Apple Apple support representative made some progress and managed to get audio working again if we set up a guest account or set up a new account.

My problem (FaceTime with no sound with Macbook early 2016) is resolved by Monterey 12.2