MacBook Pro (2018) Audio on videos cuts out randomly

I just tried this and it worked for me. Why the heck would something like opening an incognito window work over resetting the dang NVRAM?! My mind is in shambles over this.

I have had my 2018 MacBook Pro 13" w/ Touch bar, 1TB, 16GB for one whole week now. What even is this!?!

I am also having this issue on my one week old 2018 13" macbook pro w/touchbar. I read some replies and tried the incognito window suggestion, which has worked so far. I have no clue why it helps, but I do recall having issues with google chromes "hardware acceleration" option, which is usually turned on by default. I would suggest turning that off to anyone who has google chrome installed on their MacBook, it may help and can reduce & avoid other weird bugs, like the shaking browser bug from a year or two ago.

I've been having this issue as well. I got it the 18th of August. I had issues with headphones, mbp speakers, as well as an external DAC (RME Babyface Pro). I got this machine to work on audio for work (15" i7, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd), I really need the dac to work flawlessly! I disabled "hey Siri", let's see if that works.

The same exact thing happened to me - I got my 2-week-old laptop switched out for a new one but it keeps happening. I have another appointment with the Genius Bar but I'm guessing it has to do with software, not hardware which I guess is a good thing... hope they fix it in an update soon.

I have the 2018 Macbook Pro w/ Touch Bar and I am experiencing the same issue as well. First, I took it to the Genius bar in store but they couldn't determine what the problem was. Second, I just contacted Apple through their online consultation session and apparently, this guy who worked on software knew the problem. He said it wasn't a hardware issue and that the problem is purely Google's fault because there are these programs called "google chrome helpers" that you can see in the memory tab in your macbook's acitivity monitor. And these helpers help everything run smoothly but they also take up a lot of the memory. So they max out the memory capacity in your macbook and that's why the audio could be glitching (?). I tested it out by waiting for the audio to cut out on a YouTube video, then from the memory tab of the activity monitor, I quit all the google chrome helpers. When I did that, it basically crashed all the tabs I had opened and the extensions as well. I only refreshed the YouTube page and the video played like normal from the start. So from this test, I think it is a problem with Google's software. The guy also said to uninstall Chrome completely and use Safari or other browsers for now and the issue should disappear. Haven't tested that out though because I can't really give up Chrome since YouTube TV only works on Chrome and not Safari. If anyone can test it out and leave your findings that'd be great!

Just a heads up for everyone experiencing this issue, there is a bug with MBPs running High Sierra or Mojave and its AppleSmartBatteryManager.kext driver. It runs in the background every 60 seconds and it is old code. It uses a method that takes priority over any CoreAudio processes, and runs a long uninterrupted cycle ~1sec. So streaming audio can overload the CoreAudio buffer causing the drop outs. It’s more noticeable if you do pro audio work at low latencies. Streaming YouTube or music typically is high enough latency to avoid it. But there are other background processes that can also take priority over audio and when they line up with the battery manager and you have an audio stream, well then the audio loses out and you get the glitch. The reason is CoreAudio shares the System bus WorkLoop processes as part of IOKit. So they get threaded onto the same core. To minimize the problem. Don’t use Siri, turn off Safari and use something like the Opera browser, turn off iCloud, and you can disable the battery driver but it requires digging into system files, renaming the file and clearing the kext caches through terminal. But you lose battery status so not a real fix. They really need to move the CoreAudio work off the system bus workloop and give it high priority on a separate core.

Open console and leave it running. Next time you get an audio glitch note the time it happened and look in the console for the CoreAudio Overload message. See what was running right before it. Chances are a Kernel process called the AppleSmartBatteryManager started its poll. Other culprits are Watchdog events and Apple Push Service and iCloud stuff. I submitted a dev bug but the more people that point it out to Apple the more likely to get fixed.

Yes you lose it. It’s not for the faint of heart and definitely not for running off battery. AC adapter is highly recommended. Even though the battery charging and power distribution is handled at hardware level, independent of OS, you will lose your energy saving features, and will have no idea if battery is running out and neither will OSX. Basically OSX thinks you are running a desktop system.

Same probleme, with my new Mbp 13" just fresh 10 days).....

siri disable, same the audio lag sometimes... when i close all open app, everything goes in order.

It would not be a CPU load buffer problem? it looks like the bitrate jump ...

should I wait for an OS update (mojave)? or go to applestore?

First thing to check is if you have the latest MBP High Sierra Updates. There have been two supplemental updates. 1st for the CPU throttling, and 2nd for the speaker glitching.

It is going to be a cpu threading issue if both of the updates are installed and you still experience the glitch. Most likely cause is the battery manager running all of its command checks. It polls the battery state, and that poll method runs where all of its command checks lock out the cpu core it is threaded on until they finish. The process belongs to the IOKit framework, which CoreAudio also belongs in, and CoreAudio streaming and system bus processes all share the same code WorkLoop so they get threaded onto the same cpu core. There are other system bus processes too that can run a higher priority than audio. So when you get something with all these lined up, scheduled to run on the same core, then eventually the audio buffer overloads as it takes the lower priority to get done, which can cause the CoreAudio process to reset, and you get the glitch.

It's a limitation of the IOKit stuff. They just have so many processes running in the background now. Certain things definitely cause it more often. I recommend using a different browser and close Safari. Safari, iTunes, iCloud and Siri can all get a lot of background processes running that will eventually coincide with the battery manager cycle. If you have any system bus monitoring software, like a fan controller or third party battery manager, those will definitely cause the issue, so turn them off. Also check to see if you have a Bluetooth PAN network device and remove it. It is constantly pinging any iOS device around and can cause issues. It's a pain for sure. If in doubt take it back to the store, but a new unit won't fix the issues. It's OS related.

Thanks for your reply !

im on 10.13.6 without siri without bluetooth without monitoring soft, and same problem..

my problem come lot of for exemple i open a project in ableton with a music play same time in youtube...

i dont want back my laptop to the store cause i can't (lot of work)...

i think i wait mojave...

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[Edited by Host]

Is this related to the audio glitches (occasional crackles) that professionals are having when recording sound using USB interfaces?

It's doing this on our new MacBook Pro which cost £3.5k so unless Apple offer a solution we'll have to return it and switch to Windows.

I recently bought a MacBook Pro 15inch 2018 one and when I put videos in full screen on either YouTube or Netflix they glitch so much... I’m not sure what to do like I contacted Apple and everything and they said it’s not a hardware issue so I have to wait for the next update (I’m currently on Mojave) 😩😩

I too have a 13" 2018 MacBook Pro. There seem to be two separate sound problems with mine:

1) Crackling: Frequent audible crackling through built-in speakers during media playback (video or audio, through various apps including all browsers and professional audio recording software. I found a recommended fix online, and it usually works: Launch the Activity Monitor app and kill the coreaudiod process. The process will restart automatically, and the crackling will cease. This usually works for me.

2) Audio cutting out completely: Since upgrading the computer to High Sierra 10.13.6 yesterday, audio cuts out entirely (to silence) for 2-3 seconds every 10 to 20 seconds during media playback. The above fix for crackling has no effect on this problem. Restart has not helped. Diagnostic (hold the d key immediately after pressing the power button for startup) reports no hardware problems.

There is enough online chatter about these problems and various fruitless attempts to solve them by exchanging laptops that I am assuming the fault is a software issue and will be resolved in some future operating system upgrade. (Hint hint hint, if Apple is watching).

I suspect that an external audio interface will circumvent these problems, but I have not yet tried one.

This next remark doesn't help anyone, but I've been an Apple user since the early 1980s, when each new iteration was a huge leap forward. Nowadays each new iteration seems like just more of the same but with a few more lumps in the gravy. It's a complicated business, I know, but it ***** paying $4000 for a laptop that can't play an audio file or movie properly.

I have narrowed down this problem to a single process running: coreaudiod

When my sound blanks out and I have video issues, I open Activity Monitor and Force Kill the process.

This is very frustrating, as I will not know when the sound goes out and I then miss notifications, such as for Work Meeting!

I am tired of this. We need an answer.😠