High Sierra Bluetooth Audio Stuttering

Okay,

I think I really figured it out. My MacBook sound preferences had selected the bluetooth speaker as a microphone. When I selected the built-in internal microphone instead, the stuttering stopped.

I have a solution which resolves the problem ~99%: change the bluetooth process priority level to the highest possible.

Previously, I tried moving away from sources of interference, restarting the bluetooth process via the debug menu, etc.

For me, the stuttering corresponds to high memory usage, like loading Youtube in Chrome.

To change the bluetooth process priority:

1. Open Terminal: CMD+Space, type "Terminal" and hit Return.
2. Type "ps -ax | grep blue" to see a list of bluetooth-related processes.
   1. Example: "/usr/sbin/blued" and "/usr/sbin/bluetoothaudiod"
3. Note the process ID (PID) of each one.
   1. Example: "92" and "3517"
4. For each process, assign the highest possible priority with "sudo renice -n -1 -p {PROCESS_PID}", and enter your admin password when/if prompted.
   1. Example: "sudo renice -n -1 -p 92" and "sudo renice -n -1 -p 3517"
5. Verify that issue is resolved by playing music via bluetooth while using greedy process like Chrome on a greedy website like Youtube.

This did it for me, hope it resolves the issue for you as well.

Okay, I *think* I may have the solution, or at least a solution. My bluetooth audio was constantly cutting out and various other issues. I switched off voice recognition (in Settings > Keyboard) and shut down the utterly pointless Siri (Settings > Siri) and so far so good! It is also much faster switching audio sources too.

So try shutting down those.

My music was stuttering badly through my Panasonic-UA7 speakers and I've tried everything. The problem didn't stop until I had switched "Bluetooth Sharing" off. Now I can finally enjoy streaming my music from my Macbook Pro late 2015 model.

I've spent a lot of time troubleshooting Bluetooth problems with my MacBook and wanted to share a finding and solution. My problem was with Bluetooth headphones (Bose) and even Airpods were very choppy and experienced frequent disconnects. The first step of troubleshooting the problem was to determine if it was happening consistently regardless of physical location. I took my laptop and connected my headphones and started walking around the house until I found areas were the connection and sound were very good vs. areas that were problematic. From this round of testing, I pinpointed areas in the house that were most problematic. Step 2, I started unplugging any source of electronic noise in hopes of pinpointing a noisy device that was causing the interference. I did not find anything, so I started unplugging network routers and extenders and bingo, the problem stopped. As I started adding the devices back to the network it was not clear which one was the problem, it was a bit of wait and see. I eventually narrowed down the problem to a network extender that had been on the network in the same physical location for a year was causing the problem. I can only assume at this point the device was failing and causing excessive noise or a "network storm" of sorts w/the other routers on the network. Apple's guidance on moving away from wifi routers and other sources of noise was spot on. In my case, the root cause turned out to be a network device that is defective, not the actual location of the device. Hope this finding helps others find similar situations.

Hi I had the same issue and finally fixed it on my Bose headphones, Remove the device from bluetooth on my mac and reset the headphones so that they both have no memory of each other.

Then just go through the connection process again seemed to work. In the past I was only removing it from my mac but looks like you have to reset the headphones as well. Worked for me anyway.

I had to disable both the iCloud drive and bluetooth sharing for the problem to stop. I had switched one on as a test and it started to stutter again.

The initial shutdown of Siri did not help but clicking the "line in" setting for the microphone icon in the keyboard settings worked perfectly! Problem solved!

Here is something else to try

Simple, simple fix … hold down Shift and Option, click the Bluetooth menu, select the “Debug” popout menu and then “Reset the Bluetooth module” option.

Man, i dunno the f this worked and i was searching for fix for years but it effin did. I love you.

It did fix the issue the first time and consistently. I tried resetting bluetooth module and other command line things but none did the trick. Could be something broke or whatever between bluetooth and iCloud.

System Preferences > iCloud > Uncheck iCloud Drive (follow instructions) > Retry bluetooth

I personally had to uncheck "iCloud Drive" in System Preferences->iCloud to get the audio stutter to stop, but to disable bluetooth sharing go to System Preferences->Sharing and uncheck Bluetooth sharing! Let us know which one worked for you.

Joe

FYI, keep the bluetooth pane open, minimize it and you should be able to hear perfectly as long as you keep it like that. Move away from the Bluetooth config and you will hear the stutter again.

Not sure what the problem is, but if we have to update every firmware to comply with apple, then there is no point in buying a mac.

What solved it for me was turning off bluetooth on my iPhone.

Clearly the Mac is pinging the iPhone or another bluetooth device and causing bluetooth dropouts on the audio stream to the headphones. Pretty bad programming on Apple's part. Apple doesn't really have a QC department I don't think. This problem has been around for quite a while and should have been patched a long time ago.

I have written in the past to Apple about bugs in the OS which believe it or not are still there 10+ years later.

THANKS!

MacBook Pro 13" running High Sierra

Bose SoundSport wireless earbuds

Amazon Audio (use with old receiver and speaker system)

Siri was already off as was Keyboard dictation - still had issues with music stuttering.

Turning off iCloud drive did the trick.

I diabled icloud drive

no more stutter

Wow simple but this worked for me 🙂

thanks