My MacBook Pro 2018 version speakers are crackling.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH F*CKING TIME MACHINE GUYS!!!

I don't understand the confidence of your conclusion. If it did not return after intensive use and with the audio software not on it your conclusion would make sense. However it did return after to 2 to 3 days. Surely it could still be a hardware problem because it just can't handle certain audio tasks that sends it into a frenzy? You tube and listening to music is a pretty light task and it crumbled with this after just a couple of days.

The fact that there must be a ton of people using Logic, Ableton, Traktor, Blender, Bootcamp, Spotify or any of the other things mentioned here and not having issues makes me feel like it is not a software problem (otherwise everyone would have it!) but instead points to a bad batch of laptops?

My guess is that it IS a hardware problem as is happens to most people after a certain time of use, for me it will do it after about 40 minutes of running Spotify.. I tried changing feq and it did not solve the problem.

Yo , so i was on a 40 minute conversation with a senior apple advisor this morning and basically he has personally attached himself to my case. He is escalating my problems to the apple engineers and we data captured my computer and i will hear back from him soon.

I think everyone should contact apple and ask to speak to a senior adviser and express how annoyed they are. This clearly is an issue effecting many people.

Let me know if anybody has dealt with things differently where it has actually worked. By the sounds of things Apple aren't onto this yet.

In the US you have 2 weeks after purchase to exchange it if you bought it from Apple. I'm not sure what options other countries offer. The options vary according to legal obligations imposed by respective governments.

It doesn't look like replacing it will solve the problem, that assumption is based on posts in this thread, but it's worth a try. At minimum the processing of returns should help bring this issue to Apple's attention if they aren't already aware of it.

Social media is a good idea. All companies loath bad publicity.

I also have the speak crackling issue, mbp13, 2018.

Happens when pressing ESC key (normally should produce a system sound) and playing music (e.g Symp5 Beethoven on Amazon music).

Restart temporarily solve the problem but it COMES BACK after several hours.

Resetting NVRAM and SMC does not particularly help (same as restart).

I just received this from my senior case advisor in regards to them sending this off to an engineer. Pretty annoying they I have to randomly wait now for an update.

Hey Mike,

I’ve just received an update regarding your case.
Engineering have reviewed the logs you’ve sent and they seem to be in agreement with the Apple Store. All signs point to it being a known issue that we are actively working on. *****

[Edited by Host]

I spoke to a friend that has a good friend who’s a Mac engineer and he said this is most likely a hardware issue that affects all particular models.

I hope your guy is right but at the moment without them coming forth and saying exactly what it is I don’t trust that the software fix isn’t going to remove some of it functionality, maybe in ways we will never know but still paid for.

When various magazines have approached them about this issue they have declined to comment, which is indeed worrying.

Even so waiting for Mojave or installing the beta won't fix the issue. Even if it fixes it partially, by stopping the sound crackling on the OSX side of things it will still be present when it comes to using bootcamp so an update to the system as a whole would need to be done as the issue will still be present when running windows which is where the sound crackling is a lot worse. Just like the supplemental update for the throttling issue it had only been applied in OSX and not bootcamp where the issue is still there. In addition to this, if its a hardware issue apple should recall these devices its as simple as that.

Its causing a lot of issues that they haven't done anything yet, because what happens if the speakers get damaged from the crackling sounds will they be willing to replace them? When the quality of the speakers degrade then what?

Yea to be honest I am no satisfied with this answer. I am going to be calling him tomorrow to discuss alternative options as it’s just not good enough if you ask me.

How’s everyone else’s issue going ???

Okay , i just had my senior adviser guy call me who is personally handling my case. Apple engineers have internally acknowledged what is going on but nothing has been done publicly. They have told me that i can chose to wait for the mojave update but if i dont want to then they can look at other options as the device i have is not satisfactory. He seems to think that the Mojave update will come within the next month.

In regards to Apple repairing your product i will deffo challenge them on that as i know they arent "repairing" the 2018 models right now as they dont even have a repair program going out for them yet. I am going to wait a week or so and if i have any issues im going to ask for a full refund and then just look at other device options.

If this was a small deal then they would have just released a quick software update and everything would be fine. Instead with all their genius engineers the best you get is that their might be a solution in a month? My friend who works for Apple knew about a couple weeks back so they have been known about it and have failed to come up with anything. What a joke. They won’t issue a public statement because they don’t want to recall their machines.

Similar audio problem with my MacBook Pro 2018 (i9, 32GB, 2TB) from the UK. Have the laptop for 2/3 weeks, patched and updated. Started pretty early on.

No crackling as far as I can hear but after a while of watching videos on any software (QuickTime, VLC, Chrome, Safari) and any website (YouTube, Netflix), the sound will stop (the sound icon in the top bar next the to time will flick, like it got disabled for a second and come back), the video will keep on playing for two or three seconds then stop as well.

Now... On Safari, the playback (netflix, youtube) will resume after few seconds while VLC/Chrome/QuickTime will not resume. Even refresh the tab on Chrome doesn't work. I must close the tab, wait a few seconds, and restart the video.

I reset PRAM, SMC, and booted in Safe Mode to clear the boot cache. It's still happening. Hard to reproduce as sometimes it won't happen for a while and then happen while watching a random 20mn video.

I'm having the crackling issue as well. Talked with AppleCare who acknowledged there was an issue that was being investigated. If you have this issue, please call Apple so they continue to have reports of the problem and understand how widespread it is. They must have their own staff using the computer running into this as well.

I also had this problem. Try disabling “hey Siri” and check again! Worked for a lot of people including me. Also installing the latest Mojave beta should fix the problem as well (even with “hey Siri” ON)

Yes. Thanks for the info. But now i know all the steps dont do a **** about this issue. So lets see what we are going to face a recall or a repair or a software repair. Let's hope for the best i don't want to return it again and wait a couple of weeks to get it. Will soon do a video as well and reproduce the results. 🙂