Audio glitches on Mac after macOS Tahoe update

I did it once and since yesterday after I ran it in terminal it did not came back.

and I watched about 7 hours of courses.. shut it down twice.. so it’s pretty good solution..

does it come back after you typed it in terminal?

I'm seeing this issue as well with a couple of my colleagues at work who have moved to Tahoe.

Even when running the recommended command (sudo killall coreaudiod), the issue reoccurs fairly quickly again.

Anyone else have any other workarounds by any chance please?

Audio cracks very often when I run Xcode. Didn't happen before the update as I used to play videos in Safari without any issue. I think it must have to do with RAM pressure. Also the terminal command doesn't help much, the problem comes back quickly.

Adding my upvote to fix this issue as soon as possible. The `sudo killall coreaudiod` only works for a few seconds in my case. I'm not going to constantly reset this daemon. I might as well switch to another device in that case.

I'm only trying to listen to Apple Music. This is not third party software and shouldn't be difficult for Apple to fix as it controls both the OS and the application.

As a voice crafter who creates demos for auditions using Logic Pro, and who has a state-of-the-art analog vocal chain running through a professional audio interface Neumann MT48, I am absolutely furious.

[Edited by Moderator]

When I am using the bluetooth audio device (Airpods Pro 3, Sennheiser Momentum 4), each time I start to edit the code in Xcode, the sound in the headphones (regardless if it's being played from YT, Spotify, Apple Music), starts to get choppy, and eventually the sound disappears completely. It never returns afterwards and I need to switch the output device in the "Sound" settings for the macOS Tahoe, to figure out that I actually STILL want to hear things.

An extra insight would be that even when I am playing an audio through the Mac Mini's speakers, the sound gets choppy when Xcode is running.

I restarted the computer, the affected programs etc already. Nothing helps. It behaves as if there was some threading issue, and Xcode gets all the resources while other processes are getting starved.

You are my hero. I just changed my format. I don't know this setting before. Because before updating to Tahoe 26.1, this problem never showed up.

Image default after update to Tahoe.

and found your solutions. I changed the setting to format below.

and my sound become normal again. Big thanks for you.

Unfortunately this would resolve the issue for few minutes only (similar to sudo kill or switching audio channel) and the crackling sound would come back again (MacOS 26.1), I'm using a usb headphone connected directly to MacBook Air. The issue persists.

The sound has decreased drastically on my macbook air m1 after installing the OS Tahoe 26.

Updated with the 26.1 and Still Not working. The sound on youtube is disturbingly low.

POOR POOR POOR Tahoe OS.

For years I have played music every day which I purchased in itunes and downloaded onto my macbookpro 2019. I play it on bluetooth speakers. Suddenly, since upgrading to Tahoe, my audio is distorted. The distortion does not exist of I play the same music from my iphone.

I depend on this system as a ballet teacher and am at the end of my rope!

None of these solutions worked:

1.

Toggle your output device

2.

Power-cycle the audio path

3.

Reduce the trigger load briefly

4.

Change sample rate in Audio MIDI Setup (cannot change it on my JBL bluetooth speaker)

5.

Restart CoreAudio

6.

Give CoreAudio higher CPU priority

7.

Forget and re-pair the Bluetooth speaker

What else can I try?

Just did the 26.3 update (M4) and my mic is staying active, even after a clean reboot. Using @torch132's kill command worked. At least my finder folders have stopped flashing/blinking...

...maybe Elon should take over Apple.

How is that a solution? That's a workaround at best. Can't I listen to music while developing apps anymore?

Also, in my case the issue happens even with no simulators running...

Can't even say out loud how I feel about this, otherwise my posts are getting deleted again.

@elisatems Still having this issue. On my M4 Macbook Air. and my M3 Max Macbook Pro.

How would I follow up with Apple anyhow? Can't get any response through the Feedback Assistant.

Please anyone tell me it's fixed in macOS Golden Gate? 🙏🏽

Yes Bro I am facing Same issue in m4 macbook

Same issue on Mac M4Pro after updating to MacOS 26