Sound stuttering after Mountain Lion install

Dear community,


after having installed OSX Mountain Lion my sound startet stuttering whenever there is rapid movement on my screen.

This includes e.g. window movement, scrolling through image loaded websites or video playback (flash player, quicktime).

A restart didn't help. I'm using stereo output, not digital.


I have connected a second monitor but the problem persists after disconnecting it. Movement on the second monitor also causes the sound to stutter.

My GPU Diode temperature is at 85°C (there is some bug that keeps the GPU under load while a second monitor is connected AFAIK), but I guess it was the same under Snow Leopard.


In Snow Leopard the sound output was always perfect even under heavy load or heavy HDD I/O.


Any ideas?

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 5:48 AM

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1,223 replies

Sep 30, 2012 6:26 AM in response to Pink Mink

either works. the way you did is fine. I think the only difference is the combo package gets installed if you use (Command+R).


Restarting the compter holding command+R lets you reinstall OS X.


Restarting the computer holding option key lets you start up in the recovery drive. (If you choose this method, you should when it is convient go back and choose the first method of starting the computer by holding command+R and reinstalling OS X or reinstalling it from the app store, at a later time).


Restarting the computer holding the shift key lets you start in safe mode.


Message was edited by: Carlo TD

Sep 30, 2012 7:09 AM in response to FrederikY

I'm into another day of no stuttering. I ripped CD's in the background and used Safari while listening to music yesterday and no stuttering. Full-screen on iTunes worked fine.


I keep on getting an alert window to install Java after I did the system reinstall. I'm kind of afraid to add anything to the system at this point. I also dread the next incremental OS update. I've always just jumped on updates. Now I'm not so sure I will.


Glad the reinstall of the OS is working for some. Let's keep trading information.

Sep 30, 2012 7:26 AM in response to Jazzman

Jazzman wrote:


I'm into another day of no stuttering. I ripped CD's in the background and used Safari while listening to music yesterday and no stuttering. Full-screen on iTunes worked fine.


I keep on getting an alert window to install Java after I did the system reinstall. I'm kind of afraid to add anything to the system at this point. I also dread the next incremental OS update. I've always just jumped on updates. Now I'm not so sure I will.


Glad the reinstall of the OS is working for some. Let's keep trading information.

dont be afraid. install all updates. something just carried through that shouldnt have probably from a previous install of something. Also get in the habbit of using TimeMachine in System Prefences.

Sep 30, 2012 2:10 PM in response to Carlo TD

I received a call from an advisor at Apple who has been looking through the issues on this thread.


Just after sending over the latency log files relating to the iTunes stuttering I had another system shutdown so I was able to send those logs over to him too.


He was super helpful and is going to investigate this with the engineers and get back to me. I will of course keep everyone up to speed with the developments.

Oct 1, 2012 5:16 AM in response to FrederikY

My contact is called Robert.


I'd really recommend getting in contact, they will call you back. He'll just take some logs of the processing that is going on in the background whilst playing iTunes.


Luckily (or unluckily) I had a crash just after speaking to him so I was able to send those logs too.


The more data they have to play with the more likely we are to get a resolution.

Oct 1, 2012 4:23 PM in response to tttxx

Same problem here on a macbook air bought late 2011. There was no problem of that sort on lion, but once I switched to moutain lion, I got the same sound problem, whatever the audio output (bulid in speakers, jack, HDMI) and whatever the type of viedo file I tried to watch/listen to.


I don't have have any info on CPU usage during those stuttering since it never last long but happens often.


By the the way, I am a quite disapointed that Mac updates don't bring improvement but more issues about sound, battery life and OS reactivity, not talking about the user interface and personalisation that is surely not improving...


Would be good if any reaction from the ones who we gave our money to could patch at least some of those very annoying stuff.


Sorry for my low level in english.


Hope Apple will someday do something about it...

Oct 2, 2012 7:37 AM in response to FrederikY

Any updates on any fronts. I declined to run the command prompt yesterday because I can't have another system wide loss. I sent my profiler report, but I think this upset the apple tech calling me. If apple had done this months ago, then that would have been one thing. Instead, it was explained to me that this issue has been prominent since lion was released over a year ago, and now is being duplicated on additional machines with the release of mountain lion. So why in the world would Apple allow a bug like this to exist for almost a year and a half in time? The explanation was, that Apple thought it was just a limited number of users and that it was pertaining to the installation on just a few affected machines. I'm hopeful that they will go ahead and get this issue fixed, but for the interim I'm more than likely going to go ahead and buy lion and install it on the machines, and also buy Windows 7 or 8 when it comes out at the end of October if this has not been addressed yet and begin a transition back to Windows.


I can't afford to spend such high dollars on Apple hardware and have that completely undermined with shotty software support. Customers are not paying beta testers. They've got to understand this. I'm all about second chances, but there comes a certain point where you have to sit there and make a choice when you come to that fork in the road.

Oct 2, 2012 8:22 AM in response to FrederikY

In response to FrederikY


I tried the re-installation in recovery mode during boot-up (CMD+R) and I must say that so far the audio stuttering bug seems gone (logic, youtube, itunes, vlc). I also notice my CPU (i7 quad) doesn't jump as mcuh when the computer is pretty much idle...


Is it completely fixed? I'm not sure but this seems to be the only thing having an effect - and being a developper myself, you can trust me when i say i've tried a lot 😉

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Sound stuttering after Mountain Lion install

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