MacBook Pro (2018) Audio on videos cuts out randomly

I bought the all-new 2018 MacBook Pro (13 inch, touchbar, 256 gb) yesterday and have been having issues since. While streaming video, every 5-15 minutes the audio of the video will cut out but the video will continue to play. If I stop the video and refresh the page, the video does not play. If I stop the video, wait about a minute, then refresh the page, the video plays with sound again.


This has been happening on Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube so it is not a problem with the site itself. I have reset my Wifi and router and have not experienced this problem from my iPhone, so I don't believe that that is the issue either.


Any thoughts? It's disappointing that this is happening when this computer is so new.

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Jul 17, 2018 2:29 PM

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Posted on Sep 13, 2018 5:09 AM

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.

75 replies

Jul 29, 2018 5:01 AM in response to GotDamned

No, not yet. I went to the apple store yesterday and they just decided to give me a new one on the premise that it's a hardware problem, but even the new one still has the same issue (way less frequent though). But I'm still in contact with Apple support. They now have the sysdiagnose results for both laptops, and I'm just waiting for the result of their investigation. Will let you know as soon as I hear back from them (probably Wednesday).

Jul 29, 2018 5:08 AM in response to GotDamned

It could very much be! I'm not really sure what's going on yet. But I wanted to check if you had any other issues with it?
For me for example, when I restart the Mac and sign into my user account the animation is very glitchy. Also when I sign into my iCloud account to link it to the MacBook Pro, I receive an email saying that I've signed into a 13" MacBook Pro, even though I have the 15"!!

Jul 29, 2018 4:05 PM in response to GotDamned

Glad to know that I'm not the only one experiencing this. Haven't been able to solve it yet. Private browser windows are very inconvenient because I am streaming video and I would have to log in every time, but that does make it seem like it's a software problem rather than hardware?


If anyone learns anything else, please keep me updated.

Sep 12, 2018 11:14 AM in response to Heraldo Jones

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.

Nov 23, 2018 1:39 AM in response to skylar73

I have a similar issue, which use to occur intermittently, but now seems to happen daily. When I try to watch a YouTube video or play an audio file, the sound is garbled. For example, I try to play a song from iTunes or Google music, and the sound appears to fast forward to the end. It happens across all browsers as well, so it's not a localized problem. Rebooting my computer clears it up temporarily, but usually by the next morning it happens again, and I have to reboot my MacBook yet again. Very annoying.

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MacBook Pro (2018) Audio on videos cuts out randomly

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