How to Fix Cracking and Popping Sound ?

This happens to me on my 16-inch Macbook Pro (2019) on the latest Big Sur version as well. Especially it happens when I am building things in Unity and play audio at the same time. Indeed a very embarrassing thing for apple I would say.

Mar 18, 2021 at 7:29 PM
ORIGINATOR
Update to this problem:
Besides the speaker corruptions mentioned above after installing Big Sur, It has actually expanded and Warped the top and bottom of the case, likely from overheating the internal battery, which may have lead to the speaker issue as well. The Mac no longer sits flat on a desk top but now rocks on the bottom of the case and the top screen of the machine no longer completely closes either due to the deformation of the case after installing Big Sur! I am very upset about all this. Today I called Apple to have them send me a box to send in the machine to repair it for me. I have already had to prepay $640 for that job and estimate to fix machine C02R90KQG8WQ. The fan is running loudly and the edges of the screen are separating from the heat. I believe that all of this relates to installing Big Sur onto the Mac.

I also am experiencing this problem. Any solution for us?

This sound problem just started for me about a week ago while watching Youtube videos. Xcode is not running.

Catalina 10.15.7, iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Restarting coreaudiod fixes it temporarily for me.

My MBP13 with Big Sur 11.2.3 works just fine.

Same problem here with my macOS Big Sur 11.1, MB Pro 16in 2019 :(
Could anybody fix this issue?

Thanks dream_emulator

This fixed my problem on M1

Simulator > File > GPU Selection > Prefer Discrete GPU

Restarting coreaudiod also fixes it for me.

(MacBook Pro 16" 2.4 Ghz i9)

Hi. This is my fix:
Go to Sound Preferences -> Input -> completely reduce the microphone Input volume.

Adding my two cents here, I'm a Mac Pro Early 2009 user and I always have this issue on any macOS version newer than 10.14.3 specifically. macOS Mojave 10.14.3 works just fine and I don't have any audio issues there!

So, I recommend each Mac Pro Early 2009 user to stay on macOS Mojave 10.14.3. If you're concerned about security, and the apps you use are available on Windows or Linux, I recommend switching to those OS's for more security as Apple has stopped providing updates to the Early 2009 Mac Pro for quite a while.

Lastly, if you don't care about audio and just want the latest version of macOS for Xcode or anything that doesn't involve audio, go ahead and install Big Sur! Audio will still be there but it does get unbearably stuttery and distorted once in a while.

I have macOS Big Sur and this issue has been plaguing me since installing it on my MBP 16". The temporary solution, posted some time back in this thread, is to open Activity Monitor and search for the process coreaudio (it's called coreaudiod) and kill the process (Force Quit). It will restart automatically. This avoids having to reboot your Mac every time this occurs.

Infuriating is an understatement.

• The suggested workaround, running Activity Monitor and Quit -> Force Quit'ing "coreaud..." worked for me.

• Apparently, the same can be done by running sudo killall coreaudiod in Terminal.

I suppose restarting the mac would also accomplish the same.

I know it's a little late - the issue is a problem with the power management and something flipping between modes. When I took my laptop in for this issue it turned out the battery was super weak and they ended doing a replacement - problem resolved. It's been about 6 months and the problem is resurfacing so thinking of taking it back in again.

Haven't found an option to turn off power management for the audio drivers.

I totally agree with BNJVisuals. This is an obvious issue with Safari. My version 14.1 (14611.1.21.161.7) on Mojave 10.14.6. By comparison Chrome version 90.0.4430.212 (Official Build) (x86_64) (on the same computer and Mojave version) do not have any problems with popping or cracking sound.

Apple engineers, please get off your ***** and finally fix these code bugs!

Little update:
Killing coreaudiod works for me as well. The question is: for how long..?

Select the simulator and choose I/O > Audio Output > Macbook Pro Speakers (Not System one!)

Happy Coding

This is still a bug in Xcode 12.5 on macOS 11.4. Have had to kill the CoreAudio daemon multiple times per day for nearly a year now. The simulator audio output control is new to me, have it set to an unused output when I don't need audio from simulator. Hopefully it holds. Thanks @Choonghee for the tip!