Macbook Pro M1 16 inch popping audio

Alright. I think that I've finally found at least one set of conditions that leads to this issue and a couple fixes (one that sucks and one that a lot sucks less). So I've been closely monitoring CPU / memory usage and the states of things when there are no pops and when the pops start showing up.

Essentially, what I'm seeing is that when there is memory pressure that goes into the "yellow" in your Activity Monitor, which for me happens during usage and pretty much only when memory usages hits the ~14GB of usage mark (on a 10-core, 16GB build). CPU usage doesn't seem to always have a direct impact, but I have seen that when I trigger something heavy on the CPU and stop it, that can trigger a pop sometimes (inconsistent). It seems like some CPU usage / swapping / etc. is at the least correlated with this issue. This tracks with what @virgil237 said above re: his memory usage being at 14GB.

Would love to hear if anyone using a larger build (32GB) or if you have a friend with one has the same issue when hitting the yellow, but not before. At least that would give us something material to run up the flagpole and get an Apple dev to look into. Also, considering whether to return this 16GB build and just go with an M1 max 64GB build and skirt the issue altogether as I'm guessing a fix won't be forthcoming very soon in any case.

The first fix, as you would imagine is...close things until you get under the 14GB mark and in the "green" and it seems that the issue is at least MUCH rarer, going from every minute or few to once in awhile. Not sure if this will be a software fix or a firmware fix. What is still interesting is how this still does not happen via Bluetooth at all. So, there's something there that further narrows down the possibilities for a sound system Apple dev out there. Core audio daemon routing specifically to the internal speakers?

That got me thinking about audio routing, so I went to get SoundFlower to play with some audio routing to see if I could route through SoundFlower and then to the Speakers with any improvements. SoundFlower not supported on M1 macs yet, which led me to the BlackHole 2ch audio router (existential.audio). So in the Midi Device setup you can add a Multi-Output device and make BlackHole 2ch the primary and set the speakers as the other device. Then set your main output device to the Multi-Output device. So far, popping is either gone or at least a lot rarer. Note that I'm still running heavily into the yellow in memory pressure with no popping. The one caveat is that you have to change volume in the Midi Setup due to the way the devices work...that may be easy to find a control for given all the good DAW software / routers out there. Seems like this should help a dev narrow things down even more. @Apple please look into this.

Hope this helps someone not go crazy. Let us all know your mileage with the proposed fixes and / or other solutions you find! I'll report back on whether this second fix seems to hold or not.

Hi Folks... I am noticing the popping issue more often than not with an external display attached. Taking it a step further, it seems to occur more often when the GPU is under pressure -- resizing/moving windows, fast scrolling, multiple windows open, etc. I have attempted another minor adjustment. Try dumbing the Refresh Rate on your built-in XDR display (14" or 16") back down to 60 Hertz. I have been most of the day @ 60 Hz without popping. @Apple can you not produce a GPU that can handle its own XDR display seemlessly? So frustrating, but if it circumvents the popping until a fix has been determined, I'll take it. I want to throw this stupid computer through the window every time it pops or snaps at me during the simplest of tasks.

This temporarily fixes the problem.

1. (Menu Bar): Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences > Audio
2. Delete the com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist and com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist files
3. Empty trash
4. Restart your computer

A reboot into safe mode itself also got rid of it for a week. But it always comes back. I've sent timestamps and a system log to apple, so I'll update if they have a solution. I don't have this happening every 30 seconds on my 14 inch m1 pro thankfully.

I did manage to get it to happen more often by stressing the CPU (Blender Render) to 750% or so (this puts a bit of stress on the 16GB of memory though to, so it could also be that. A GPU stress test (world of warcraft at high res with unlocked frame rate) didn't have the same result, so it's not just a power issue.

After a few weeks of not using Microsoft Teams and the Facebook Messenger app, both non Apple Silicon apps, I can confirm that the popping stopped. I strongly believe this is a Rosetta 2 issue.

It's probably because Teams is still running on Rosetta. I have the same issues when Teams is running or when I am using a simulator.

Exiting Teams resolves the issue for me and when I launch Teams while listening in Music or Spotify, the issue immediately comes back.

solidliquid315 wrote:

SMC/NVRAM didn't help for me. Though I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with RAM. Happens a lot on Teams and having 10+ browser tabs. If I close the browser, it improves greatly. But then again, my 2013 Macbook Pro could do both so not sure why an M1 Max can't....

?

There is no SMC/NVRAM on an M1 Mac..

what worked on your old 2013 Intel Mac does not apply to M1 SoC - SMC reset equivalent is Shut down, close the lid 30 secs+ , reboot as normal

and

a NVRAM equivalent is— SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

ref: See If your M1 Mac starts up to Options with a gear icon:

If your Mac starts up to Options with a gear icon - Apple Support

For your sound issue try making a change—try making a change from the default setting to for ex 44,100

and test. Reboot if necessary.

Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI setup.app

Contacted with senior tech advisor from Apple and collected several system logs when the popping sound occurs. They informed me that the software team is aware of this software issue and they are working on a software update. Not sure when it would be released but hopefully it will be out soon with the next update (now is Monterey 12.4).

I have the same problem on 14" M1 Max MacBook Pro with 64GB - constant popping on a number of applications, but especially consistently on MS Teams. I just tried sliding in a headphone, and setting:

• System Preferences to output from the headphone
• MS Teams to ignore the headphone and output from the MBP's speaker

and this happens to eliminate the popping noise. Does anyone have the same experience?

PS. not sure if it matters, but the headphone is in the headphone jack, not USB or Bluetooth.

A call to Apple recommended restarting in safe mode, then playing sample audio sources to see if the random noise occurred. It did not.

Then restart normally and try again.

The popping audio is no longer present, at least for my 16 in Macbook Pro. Hopefully it will not return.

Here’s a thought, I’m running a fiber connection with 1gb down and I can not stream 24bit lossless in Apple Music without the pops. I changed the streaming setting to regular lossless and I get far less pops. When playing from a downloaded file I get zero pops. No pops from my recording session now. Might have been the OS version.

Seeing the same issue. MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021) M1 32GB

Happens on the laptop's built-in speakers and my Bluetooth headphones. The headphones work fine with my phone. Tried a number of things discussed in various forums. Monitored the memory usage and there seemed to be a correlation but it wasn't perfect. That is, it seemed to occur more often when there was memory pressure from green to yellow but it wasn't consistent.

Along with memory pressure, there also seemed to be a correlation with how active the kernel_task process was. If I opened a lot of apps and did a lot of "intensive" work, the popping would get pretty bad and I'd see that the kernel_task was more active (for me it seemed to be around 40% or more CPU). If I closed a bunch of apps, and just sat there and listened to some music (kernel_task drops down to 7% or so), the popping would go away.

Not really very scientific but if it can help lead to a solution...it's very annoying in meetings, etc.

I had this issue too. It started a week ago. Turns out for me it was related to "yellow memory pressure" I closed a memory hog app and now my music is playing pop-free.

Upgraded to the newly released 12.4 and I haven't had any cracking all day! 🎉

Same issue. M1 Max with 32 GB of RAM. Incredibly frustrating on such a high end machine.

• Adjusting frequency in Audio MIDI Setup like suggested did nothing for me.
• Turning the volume down didn't help

Quitting nearly all my apps makes the popping either stop entirely or become far less frequent.

so, I've gone through everything: deleting the .plist files in the audio folder, killing intel processes, changing the frequency - nothing helped. even in safe mode it was cracking. but then I saw this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/tlqpc0/my_fix_for_the_2021_m1_macbook_speaker/

and oh my god, installing a third party equalizer helped. no annoying farts coming out of the speakers all day long.

FYI, I've had noises like the ones in the video, but they were quite rare - 1 to 6 times a day: https://vimeo.com/694482273/89de0896da

I'll report back if the sounds reappear.