Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

cdm.link

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 338 posts

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#21

Post by mastazi »

komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

The article comes from CDM which is a music production website, MacBooks are very popular in that field, and basically all audio producers use external audio interfaces, it's not an uncommon use case. This is not the first time that this type of issues happens (from memory, last year an OSX update broke compatibility with Native Instruments Maschine, a very popular music software). So I think the point that the article is trying to make, is that music producers are one of the most Apple-leaning crowds, and yet they feel like they are being ignored by Apple. But at the same time I understand your point, this is a small market in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#22

Post by godzilla82 »

_asummers wrote: post #19

Semi-related: But does anyone know why unplugging headphones while audio is muted causes the audio to become unmuted? This is easily my least favorite bug and results in a 10 second shuffle of frantically finding the mute button again, sometimes with the laptop closed. It seems like something that would never pass QA in previous iterations of Apple, though I could be remembering the past more fondly than was true.

Have you tried reproducing this with other headphones, 2 channel ones etc.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#23

Post by dahfizz »

_asummers wrote: post #19

Semi-related: But does anyone know why unplugging headphones while audio is muted causes the audio to become unmuted? This is easily my least favorite bug and results in a 10 second shuffle of frantically finding the mute button again, sometimes with the laptop closed. It seems like something that would never pass QA in previous iterations of Apple, though I could be remembering the past more fondly than was true.

Was the audio unmuted last time the headphones were unplugged? I don't have any apple hardware but this is a common feature of Android. Your laptop might remember the state "speakers are on but headphones are muted". So when you remove headphones, it switches to the speakers and starts playing.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#24

Post by sudhirj »

_asummers wrote: post #19

Semi-related: But does anyone know why unplugging headphones while audio is muted causes the audio to become unmuted? This is easily my least favorite bug and results in a 10 second shuffle of frantically finding the mute button again, sometimes with the laptop closed. It seems like something that would never pass QA in previous iterations of Apple, though I could be remembering the past more fondly than was true.

Volume value is stored separately for each audio interface, and I don’t think they’ve added a special case to zero all interfaces of one is zeroed.

Also begs the question of the reverse. If I muted my headphones and then slightly raised the volume, did I intend for my speakers to start very softly when I do go back to them?

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#25

Post by ajross »

komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

To be fair, a MacBook pro is the highest end premium product in this space being used with official software for a well-defined industry use case.

That's hardly the same thing as a bunch of developers installing an aftermarket OS on a midrange laptop. And even then, "you have to install a BIOS update" is just shorthand for Lenovo fixed the problem, right?

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#27

Post by _asummers »

godzilla82 wrote: post #22
_asummers wrote: post #19

Semi-related: But does anyone know why unplugging headphones while audio is muted causes the audio to become unmuted? This is easily my least favorite bug and results in a 10 second shuffle of frantically finding the mute button again, sometimes with the laptop closed. It seems like something that would never pass QA in previous iterations of Apple, though I could be remembering the past more fondly than was true.

Have you tried reproducing this with other headphones, 2 channel ones etc.

I have not tried that, though I will experiment. It seems to be an issue with the latest OSX version (Mojave), as I cannot recall it happening on the last OSX major version (High Sierra?). I do not have new headphones across this version switch.

As a workaround, I have to go to the audio app and explicitly pause, which I frequently forget to do if the audio is muted. My desk mates have heard way more samples of my library than they'd like, I'm sure.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#29

Post by pfranz »

_asummers wrote: post #19

Semi-related: But does anyone know why unplugging headphones while audio is muted causes the audio to become unmuted? This is easily my least favorite bug and results in a 10 second shuffle of frantically finding the mute button again, sometimes with the laptop closed. It seems like something that would never pass QA in previous iterations of Apple, though I could be remembering the past more fondly than was true.

I see this with other stereo systems. It remembers the volume for each input used. If you were playing out of your speakers and you had the volume set low, it remembers. If it was playing through headphones with the volume high, it remembers. It also remembers if you had it muted or not. It can be frustrating if you don't know what's going on, but if you do its a really nice feature.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#30

Post by egypturnash »

siquick wrote: post #14
uvu wrote: post #3

Generally, Apple MacBook Pro suck since 2017!

Not sure why this getting downvoted. Had my MBA for 6 years and worked perfectly the whole time, just needed to install a new battery after 4 years but that was a personal preference. I've had my MBP w/o touch bar for 13 months and I seriously regret spending $2300 on it. - The keyboard is continually sticking, the left Command key is now completely separated from the keyboard and falls out all the time. I make so ma…

You're not alone, I seriously regret my six month old maxed-out touchbarless MBPro and really wish I'd managed to hold on a couple more months for the Retina Air. Its keyboard hasn't started sticking on me but its battery life is trash, half the time it dies after like an hour and a half while thinking it's at 20% battery so it doesn't even hibernate to disc like it should.

Last week I started migrating back to the five-year-old Air. Would've done it if not for the fact that my home directory is larger than the free space on it, I should try reinstalling the Air from scratch and see if that clears up enough space. Or just look into getting a new SSD for it.

Post reply on HN