How to Fix Cracking and Popping Sound ?

Venture 14.4 on MacMini M1 2020

I've had this for more than a year.

It first appeared while I was using Zoom. Since then I've kept removing the coreaudiod files, which worked for a hour or two.

I think Boom may be a culprit and just used the Boom Uninstaller, but it came back.

It happens regardless of which browser and I virtually never use Safari.

I think it is a memory pressure (?) issue, as I think the memory is always running high when the problem comes.

I'll try reinstalling the system and see what that does.

If anyone is finding this, the issue is related to memory usage being too high. As soon as your memory is in the orange on activity monitor then the sound cracks and as soon as you close applications to lower the memory the sound will come back and stop cracking.

Hope this helps.

They're never gonna fix this are they... I mean it has been over 3 years since I first experienced this issue and I'm on my second laptop and it's still happening.

Macbook Pro 2015. Everything has worked fine. Updated from 11.7.4 to 11.7.8 (yes I know I'm running older OS because it is al older computer) and the crackling problem now happens to me too.

First it was right speaker. Panning to left allowed me to work around it for web calls yesterday. Now it is both speakers.

Crackling is there even at very low volumes, so I don't think this is a blown speaker issue. If it is, it is very strange that both speaker **** out 1 day apart from each other.

• Reset SMC, PRAM. No difference.
• Killed coreaudiod, no difference.
• Restarted, no difference.
• Ran hardware diagnostics, all clear.

Cranked up the volume and reboot. Crackle is present on startup chime, so I am guessing this is an audio firmware issue rather than a coreaudio driver level issue.

So now I am trying to research exactly what firmware updates were applied between 11.7.4 and 11.7.8 and whether it is possible to downgrade the audio firmware if an update was applied.

Pretty sure clean installing to Mojave/Catalina or earlier Big Sur will not downgrade the firmware but I may try that too eventually. What a waste of time this expensive hardware is.

Super annoying as the laptop is useless for anything that requires audio now because of applying an update. THIS is why I tend to avoid apple OS updates as long as possible, security be damned. Too much waste of time to learn UI changes and have things broken preventing me from getting work done.

I know Apple is not too concerned with supporting older hardware, but I'm unlikely to continue buying their hardware with infuriating issues like this that apparently have been going on for a long time without resolution across a range of laptop models.

Apparently some good news after a few years in the making: some people are reporting this is finally fixed in macOS Sonoma. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audio-stutters-with-usb-dacs-on-macbook-m1-pro.42001/page-15#post-1652819

@mnovaes Thanks for sharing this! Looks promising, I am crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that our ears can be at peace once this update rolls out :)

Hello, I have been tested MacOS Sonoma Public Beta in my MBP 14 M1 Pro (3 days). And I didn't hear any crackling or ******* on my speakers, although before the update I got them 100% once every 15-30 minutes. When I press memory to yellow zone I din't get any cracking again. I'm hoping this is the fix and when I upgrade to public I'll never hear this again. @mnovaes thank you for link, it's work <3

Cautiously optimistic...I've been running Sonoma for a couple of days, with the usual memory pressure, and haven't heard it cutting out yet.

Well I just updated to Sonoma on my MBP M1 Max and I still have the audio glitch with my RME UFX III via usb while listening to music through Apple Music. I’ll get the audio garble glitch randomly where playback kind of stutters and distorts. I reinstalled my UA Apollo x6 which connects via thunderbolt and no issues using it instead.

it is hard to believe that Apple does not accept the bug in their firmware or Hardware issue. I am facing this issue with my Macbook 2022 14-inch laptop from May 2022. I have been to the Apple store 3 times and they say it will be fixed in the next software upgrade but it hasn't. They do not take it for repair because they say it is a software issue, not a hardware issue. I had no option and had to deal with the crackling sound. I stopped watching movies/videos on my laptop just using it for work.

I've been trying to solve this on a Mac for months now without success. Today, for kicks I disabled (not uninstalled) the SalesLoft extension in Chrome video started playing just fine. Toggle it back on, and the crackling noise comes back.

I've had this issue with my 2021 M1 MBP since I bought it. On the basis of this thread I upgraded to Sonoma but that doesn't seem to affect it at all. My biggest offender is Bitwig, which seems to be unusually common in these replies for a relatively niche DAW. My issues don't seem related to buffer overloads or high DSP activity, and aren't fixed by increasing the buffer length. Really irritating.

I use the latest version of MacOs Sonoma 14.1.1:

If the memory pressure of my macbook air m1 goes to yellow, then the music playing randomly lags, it makes like a micro click.

My typical workflow is having various chrome tabs, firefox , Spotify (for music) and a couple of IDEs for programming.

Honestly this is the first computer that has audio that lags....and if the problem doesn't resolve it will be my last mac... With what it costs it is in my opinion a serious problem, a user experience that is inevitably damaged by not being able to serenely hear music without it being ruined by some random ms of interruption.

years and years after, still have crackling and poping issue with a brand new Mac 16, only solution found is rebooting another observation I have is that Microsoft Teams is often the app that starts crackling, then afterward it's a crack-fest in youtube videos in chrome and other app that emits sounds

Wow, seems like a serious thing, it happens in fact sometimes for me while coding with bunch of chrome tabs and big software like QGIS ... MB Pro 14 M1 32 gb RAM... Interesting to see how they will fix that...

I have the same issue with MacBook Pro 16 M1.

When I'd faced with the issue for a first time I am also as other guys thought it is due to bad quality of audio.

Currently I have only one solution is to use Bluetooth Headset.

It is shame on Apple for not fixing this issue for laptop that is not so cheep

M3 Max 36GB MBP 16" (no usb dacs, just native speakers)

Back to Apple after 18 years. Waited for apple silicon to mature a bit and decided to go with this generation. Am absolutely dumbfounded to see this issue. I don't have any crackles or popping. What I do have is the sound having micro cuts, be it Youtube, Spotify and it doesn't even need massive loads or spikes for it to happen. No memory pressure at all. This is actually unbelievable and unacceptable on such an expensive computer. Have dirt cheap laptops that handle audio better than this.

Clearly something is amiss with Core Audio, not sure why Apple aren't addressing this as sound performance is absolutely mandatory for a smooth experience. Thank God I'm not back to doing audio engineering on Macs this is unacceptable.

I'm on Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71) on an M1 MBP. I've had the staticy issue for 3 OS versions now. It always shows up when the memory pressure goes yellow (higher than 75%) in activity monitor. Thankfully I've been able to fix it (for a time) by switching outputs to MacbookPro Speakers, then back to my external USB DAC. Force quitting CoreAudio works too, but is more disruptive. The problem also resolves if I quit some memory heavy apps or close tabs.

It's definitely CoreAudio interacting with low memory situations that causes it. I wish this machine had more than 16GB of RAM.

This is ridiculous I have been having this issue with my 2019 Macbook Pro, now got a 2023 Macbook Pro with M3 Pro and 36 GB of memory. Memory usage is usually low and still get this crackling, popping sound when listening to music, being on Google Meets calls on Sonoma 14.1 (23B2073).

it is mind-blowing that after all these years iMac users are still experiencing this crackling sound issue for a ridiculous expensive laptop! I bought my MacBook Pro in 2020 and had on and off issues with the crackling sound ever since. It was gone for quite a while, now I did an update (sanoma 14.4.1) yesterday and it's back again! Never will buy an iMac again because of this. Did anyone find a way to fix this problem??

I started getting these crackling/popping noises on my 2023 MacBook Pro along with my 2024 M3 MacBook Pro. I'm surprised this issue has been known for this long and still hasn't been fixed.

I listen to music via Bluetooth on a BoseQC45 headphones on a M1 Max (64GB Ram) without any memory pressure, and this glitch happens very often (while typing this text, the glitch happened at least 3 times - it sounds like a scratch sound you would get on the old vinyl records).

For me I noticed the glitch or pop / crackle sound occurs when a A2DP packet flushed occurs. At first I thought it was RF interference, but I am doubting this more and more. I am considering getting a bluetooth dongle for the M1, but have not gotten round to do that just yet.

Has apple responded to this problem in this thread yet?

Here is a log extract of when the sound glitch occurs: error 19:46:49.546658+1200 bluetoothd A2DP packet flushed: L2CAP (chip) flush occured. Current sequence=40623, timestamp=18463685

I have Sonoma 14.4.1 and the crackling just started today. Do we know how to fix this?

Same problem here. Left speaker started cracking today. On Sonoma 14.4.1 - MBP M2 Max - 64 GB. To be honest upgrading to Sonoma is very disappointing. Very unstable system. Anyone have any idea when Apple will release an update of the OS?

💡Some potential causes/fixes

Coreaudiod

I've seen this happen a lot on macs that are rarely ever shutdown completely coreaudiod may have some kind of memory leak but using the terminal and running the command 'sudo pkill coreaudiod' has solved the issue in these cases the coreaudio daemon will restart. Complete shutdown/restart should work too in those cases if you don't want to run anything in the terminal.

Sampling Rate

"The I don't know *** is causing it but this seems to work for me fix" run the Midi click on 'Macbook Pro Speakers' or whatever other audio devices you use. Changing format on the right from 44khz -> 48khz has made the popping go away for me before. As to why it worked? 🤷🏻

3rd Party Audio Daemons/Plug-Ins

I have seen some issues like this come up If you have any third party audio daemons or plugins like Boom2/Boom3D, Sound Booster, BackgroundMusic. You may want to do the same thing as above with the Midi app for their virtual devices. If that isn't working, it may be worth trying to 'thoroughly' removing them.

Hopefully this'll be useful for some of you. I doubt it'll cover every potential cause but I've seen these work for popping issues in several cases.