How to Fix Cracking and Popping Sound ?

I'd be interested to know how many people experiencing this issue have tried @Milos23's suggestion of removing any Intel audio plugins from /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL, and also reducing the number of Intel processes you're running — and whether it helped. For me this hasn't completely solved the issue, but it seems to have significantly reduced its frequency.

I am one of those people. I also thought that it reduced significantly. But the experience over 3 or 4 months shows that the problem is always present, recurrent, and the regularity of the bug can not be properly appreciated.

On a machine at this price, you want zero problems. I will not be consoled to know that I have only one scratch on my new car! for me it is the same. I'm with Apple products, it's precisely to have strictly no problems of this kind.

What worries me the most is that the first returns of those who have installed MacOS Ventura beta still have the problem.

The issue is not solved on my side, but now the audio can work fine for days after a reboot. With the Teams audio plugin I started to get the sound issues within 2 hours after a reboot. Killing all Intel processes won't resolve the issue, but it still may be the cause, as I didn't try using macbook without any intel process since boot for a couple of days. Once it starts to have the cracking sound issues only a reboot seems to solve it (restarting coreaudiod helps just for a couple of minutes).

Since no one seem to read comments, I'll just write a new post. Since I switched to a new router, I noticed the problem is 100% gone on ALL of my office macs. I can also reproduce this by downloading music locally, disconnecting the network entirely and restart - then play music and there is NO crackling, not even after hours. This tells me that playing media over the network is what triggers the issue, so please try with a different NEW router.

I know it's only a temporary issue for travelers, but for offices it's a permanent fix.

Since my clean re-install more than a month ago I only had the crackling happen exactly once. I restarted the laptop immediately and had no distortions since then. I have some friends who upgraded to apple silicon too and had no issues with the sound. Might be just a coincidence, but all of them did the clean install when they bought their devices.

So there's that. If you are really desperate, I say give clean re-install a go.

Cheers

Have the same issue with my macbook pro 16" bought in 2020. They changed everything inside, but it still appears. Working on premiere pro, i'm waiting for a solution !... It getting crazy. Monterey 12.1

I was having the same problem for a long time. Only updating Spotify fixed it.

Might be best to find out which program is causing the problem. So when you hear the crackling sound, try to listen something from another program.

I've discovered that I can trigger this glitch consistently by running "sudo fs_usage bash". You can replace "bash" with the name of any running process.

(Although I don't recommend running random sudo commands that you find on the internet, this one just displays which files are being used by one of the running processes).

Not sure if this is at all useful....just thought I'd point it out.

Same issue, and happening for months. Audio is crackling/popping from internal 16" M1 speaker. On external monitor, unusable. And on airpods, usable but still has issues. OS 12.2.

MacBook Pro (16" 2021) M1 Pro running OS 12.4. I have the same issues with popping and crackling. The noise is present on built in speakers, speakers connected to the HDMI output and Bluetooth.

Have tried the following command in terminal and it has no effect.

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.audio.coreaudiod && sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

Just like everyone else on this tread, I cannot believe we're still experiencing these issues. Please, Apple, get your act together.

This issue bothers me since purchase. I sent my computer back to apple and got audio hardware replaced. Not helping. Tried Ventura, no luck.

Still exactly the same in Ventura..... possibly worse. might return MacBook Pro m1pro . is useless

In my case, it looked as if 12.6. update helped, cause I hadn't had the issue for a long time. Nevertheless it's still here.

Following this problem I had to totally change my music listening habits. Today, I wanted to listen to music, and I must admit that since this early morning I have not had the slightest crackle (over 6 hours).

Do you also feel a recent improvement of the phenomenon? or is it still there for "everyone" ?

Still a problem on mine. I'm on the beta program so I got Ventura before the general release. This solved the problem for a bit but with the subsequent updates the problem returned. So tired of this...

Hi there,

You might have better luck asking this question over in Apple Support Communities run by Apple Support.

The popping had been reduced drastically before I updated to Ventura. Now I get cracking anytime I use any music on social media. I produce music so you can imaging how annoying this is.

I am using an updated OS: MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) 

Hi there,

You might have better luck asking this question over in Apple Support Communities run by Apple Support.

Another voice to the chorus, running 12.6 on MacBookPro18,3.

Relevant console message: 3587 HALS_OverloadMessage.cpp:222 HALS_OverloadMessage: Overload due to HAL client proc exceeding io cycle budget

This stinks. Please do better, Apple.

I reinstalled everything from scratch without TimeMachine to try and get rid of this problem. I did this on the recommendation of some of the others on this forum and of the Genius Bar people. It was no mean feat as I have a lot of music and development software on my laptop. I initially thought that it had worked as I couldn't hear the glitches, but as I reinstalled some of the software and started working on development stuff again the problem returned. I find that in order to listen to music from the MacBook Pro speakers I need to close most other programs, including Docker, pressumably because it reduces some of the memory pressure. Honestly at my wits end with this.

Same issue on MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) M1 Max chip. Luckily this is just my work laptop for programming, but as someone who's produced a ton of music in the past and uses an older Intel MacBook Pro for DJing this is honestly ridiculous Apple. I mean, I'm really telling people who produce music or DJ to not get the latest and greatest M1 laptop because of an issue that's been around for 2 years. Very un-Apple and very sad because the M1 is a ***** in all other regards.

One way to bypass this enormous issue, which unfortunately will only apply to fairly specific use cases, but provide releif for some, is to use the iOS app BitPerfect, the app integrates with iTunes (Music) to ensure bit-perfect playback of audio files. When this app is running and doing it's thing increased CPU load will no longer cause pops and cracks in the audio stream.

Nothing else I've tried has come close to actually fixing the problem.

NOTE:

The app needs some updates, can be buggy on up-to-date OS, can freeze Music and BitPerfect altogether sometimes requiring restart, this seems to occur when switching between audio output devices.

Same issue on the 14'' M1 Pro chip MBP. It's really annoying that MBP always have quality control issues... My last MBP was the notorious butterfly keyboard one.

It's not even annoying or funny anymore. Basically, my M1 Max MacBook is useless now, I can't write music, can't perform music, I had to switch to desktop Windows machine for music production, and MBP is merely a horribly overpriced thing for Safari now. So so so disappointing. Wouldn't buy if knew this would happen.

Just to add - I actually use external speakers on my Macbook Pro M1 Pro chip - and they also pop. I recently replaced them because I thought it might be the device or a short in the cabling... but no. It's the device. I moved the same speakers over to my Windows desktop, and they didn't pop once. The pop is loud enough, and frequent enough (even when I'm not listening to audio) that I have to unplug them every night. Which for how expensive this device was, is inexcusable. I am require to use Apple products for work, but I'll never understand this obsession.