Q: Sound stuttering after Mountain Lion install

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

@Waffle_man, great that this works for you!

I am a developer, too (so I tried almost everything^^)

I did this a few day ago as well, and stuttering seems to be gone! I hope it will not come back again!

My Apple support guy is due to call me back later today to guide me through creating a second partition to run tests through that.

He did suggest in the first call there 'may' be a hardware fault in here too.  I am slightly wary of that though, as I had absolutely no issues, I mean absolutely nothing went wrong with my computer prior to the installation of Mountain Lion.  It worked like a dream, as I have come to expect of an Apple product.

As BarrettF77 says, we are not paying beta testers.  By day, I am a software tester and have been so for 12 years and I would be ashamed if I allowed a known fault to be released to paying customers.  Away from my day job I am a wedding photographer and having a computer to edit my work is essential, I do not have enough hours in the day to have a third unpaid job as an Apple tester.  I bought a fully loaded high spec machine to avoid system performance issues, it seems that spending £2,300 on an iMac was my undoing and should have opted for a lower spec model as they don't appear to be suffering.

With regard to hardware failures, there was an interesting article on the BBC website today noting that Apple were not advising EU customers about the minimum 2 year warranty, instead trying to get people to purchase AppleCare.  If I'm reading this right, if there is a problem with my hardware then I am still covered even though my iMac is 18 months old?!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19788361

I just attempted the Command R trick and a reinstall of the OS.  Same garbage.  Cursor lags, was watching a video in iTunes and the video started skipping and audio tearing.  This is absolutely a garbage OS from the ground up.

I really wish Apple could fix this soon.  Two of my co-workers saw what it was doing today, and they were both disuadded from buying a Mac.  They have seen what I've been dealing with and how poor the quality has been on 10.8.   Makes you wonder how long till this dominoes and Apple starts to really be impacted by this sort of thing. 

Update:

Just had a crash...

It's so tempting to take the iMac to the apple store, lay it on the ground outside, and take a bat to the machine.  It's basically a 40 pound paperweight with my data trapped inside of it.  Then take that video and post it on Youtube, rake in some $$$ for it and go buy a PC.  It's infuriating to spend this much money and have this level of quality. 

Now, I don't want to count my chickens...but I tried the CMD+R reinstall method that everyone seems to be reocommending.  It took 4 hours to download Mountain Lion thanks to shocking UK download speeds, but....

...since booting up I've not had a single stutter on iTunes....and no mouse lag either.

I don't know whether it's my iMac lulling me into a false sense of security, but there is a tiny glimmer of a smile on my face at the moment.

Will keep you posted.

While this is no fix, it works for me and perhaps points to a core issue...

I installed istat pro and found my gpu temp rapidly spiked over 70c and once it did, the stuttering started. So I used the fan control of the app to adjust fan speed. If I keep the fans on and keep the temp lower I don't have stuttering.

Just stress your system and it will do it.  I started downloading the updates and then began a time machine backup.  While that was running I thought it was all fine.  Then about 10 minutes in, issues started all coming right on back.  Good luck!

I think it's a power issue mixed with the fans being too low.  I think Apple is screwing with fan speeds as well on mountain lion. 

Also reporting that the Cmd+R method is not solving the issue.

I actually don't have as much stuttering as I used to under older versions of 10.8. What's happening mostly now is the audio completely cuts out and I have to use Audio MIDI Setup to reset it as previously described in the thread. The problem is more frequent with full-screen applications.

I've also been increasing fan speeds manually to their maximum.

Thanks for the info Pink Mink. Please keep us abreast of things if you can.

I too was contacted by an Apple Support Specialist unfortunately I had reverted back to Lion 10.7 so I could not assist him with log reports or system snapshots.

But he did give me his contact info should I have any questions.

I feel your pain.

I know it's going to get messy again...it's just teasing me at the moment...I'm just enjoying it whilst it's ok, it's the first time I've been able to listen to ONE WHOLE TRACK on my computer for over two months! I'm going to kick off a Time Machine backup in a minute.  Prepare for a post on here in a few minutes with me in tears again, ranting and raving!

Oh well BarrettF77, I thought it was too good to be true.

I had previously reinstalled ML twice onto a new formated SSD and once to an extrnal disk and still had the problem. I was planning on buying a MacBook Pro soon, but that has been put on hold til this issue is resolved. I have never had a reply from my Apple Care ticket.

I honestly don't think they have a clue as to what the issue is.  However, I'd love to be proved wrong.

I've give you three guesses what my iMac is doing now...?  Actually, I'll give you one guess, that's all you should need.

Oh well, it was nice to nearly listen to a whole album as it was intended without the Apple 'stutter remix' version.

I've had enough tonight, I'm going to bed.  Four hours downloading = another wasted night when I had a stack of image processing to do.

Victor In Munich wrote:

 

Oh well BarrettF77, I thought it was too good to be true.

 

I had previously reinstalled ML twice onto a new formated SSD and once to an extrnal disk and still had the problem. I was planning on buying a MacBook Pro soon, but that has been put on hold til this issue is resolved. I have never had a reply from my Apple Care ticket.

Have you repaired permissions from the recovery boot drive recovery program? Does anything in you activity monitor look suspisious? Does your log in items located in the system preferences under users and groups have anything in it? Are you able to make a screen recording using Quicktime and post it on cloud app.