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Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

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Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#111

Post by nonninz »

TwistedWave wrote: post #52
tmikaeld wrote: post #14

The left/right channels drifting randomly is one thing (SoundSource fixes it), but it gets worse.. I've been trying to raise awareness of Apples horrible audio issues for quite a few years now. Driver re-starts and USB re-connects, for no apparent reason. [0][1] I have the issue on Mac Mini (2018) Intel, Mac Studio M1, Macbook Pro M2, so it's not device specific. [0] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/132423 […

I have just reported a bug where high memory pressure could cause memory pages from the real-time audio thread to get swapped out, causing audio glitches. I am not hopeful for a timely resolution now...

I have this using Firefox on a 2019 Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM.

If the laptop has not been restarted for a while, Firefox tabs will eat up more and more memory over time until it makes the mac kind-of unresponsive (*) and will need to get hard power cycled.

The only signs that this is about to happen are two:

1. Any audio-emitting webapp will start to get very choppy, whether is youtube on FF, Google meet on chrome, or a slack call/huddle. Which is the problem I think you are referring to.

2. Switching workspaces animation will get very very choppy. Usually when this happens it's already almost too late.

(*) this means that while the pointer is still moving smoothily, even from a BT mouse, there is no reaction to any click or keyboard typing.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#112

Post by ukuina »

Does not surprise me.

I recently discovered that interrupting the close-all-apps-before-reboot workflow when applying a macOS upgrade (e.g., "don't terminate my terminal process yet, one sec, okay, I'm good to reboot now") requires a redo of the ENTIRE update process (including redownloading the 13GB update!)

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#113

Post by nihilius »

soundnote wrote: post #68
kpmcc wrote: post #42

The fact that this has existed for so long and is common enough to warrant a third party program devoted to resolving the issue is an embarrassment for Apple. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/balance-lock/id1019371109?mt=1...

Apple is quite fine with their OS being an embarassment that needs 3rd party apps to fix, people will still hail it as the best thing ever. For example, window management on macOS is trash, and the shortcuts are command+arrows which is fine if you have both hands on the keyboard. Not so much when you have a separate mouse. The OS is built expecting you are on a laptop or using a trackpad of some kind.

Yes, my solution was to throw more money at apple and get the "Magic" Trackpad. Just so i can use it alongisde my mouse for swipe gestures....

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#114

Post by ben7799 »

I don't think I've ever seen this or heard anyone talk about it. I've had at least one Mac since 2006 and all the engineering departments I've worked in since 2014 have been all Mac. Mostly at work I'm not doing much with audio, but at home I have had external DACs and equipment, I have a Scarlet interface, etc.. that I hook mics or guitars too from time to time, etc..

There are plenty of things I can complain about and I kind of think Mac OS is getting worse, but this one hasn't hit me.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#117

Post by ipqk »

knute wrote: post #110
donatj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well dang. I have had intention on buying a new DAC largely due to the issue; for better or worse there goes that plan.

I also didn't realize that this problem was common, but I switched to using an optical toslink cable to an external DAC which seems to have fixed it for me. Although now the system volume control doesn't work, but I can work around that with the volume control on my amp.

soundsource gives you the feature to control an external dac with the system volume. I bought it specifically for this use case.

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#118

Post by soundnote »

nihilius wrote: post #113
soundnote wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is quite fine with their OS being an embarassment that needs 3rd party apps to fix, people will still hail it as the best thing ever. For example, window management on macOS is trash, and the shortcuts are command+arrows which is fine if you have both hands on the keyboard. Not so much when you have a separate mouse. The OS is built expecting you are on a laptop or using a trackpad of some kind.

Yes, my solution was to throw more money at apple and get the "Magic" Trackpad. Just so i can use it alongisde my mouse for swipe gestures....

Apple problems get solved by buying more Apple products, working as intended :)

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#119

Post by butlike »

rickdeckard wrote: post #7
Sakos wrote: post #2

What's the audio left/right balance bug?

To quote Apple's own (no longer available) KB-article from 2012 [1]: "In some cases the audio balance may unexpectedly drift towards the left or right channel. This can happen if you rapidly press the volume up or down keys while the computer's microprocessor is under heavy load." [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120630125615/https://support.a...

Do you think this issue would persist if I BootCamp'd Windows?

Re: Apple has not fixed the macOS audio left/right balance bug for nearly 10 years

#120

Post by butlike »

madaxe_again wrote: post #3
Sakos wrote: post #2

What's the audio left/right balance bug?

The audio balance on Apple computers changes randomly, and has done so for at least a decade. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/79384/audio-balanc...

FWIW, I just ran the following stress test for a bit in VSCode, and then mashed the Vol +/- buttons on an M1, and noticed that the volume toggle started to lag, but I didn't notice any balance drift. Is this something that would be reflected in the slider, or is it auditory-only?

+function() { while (1) { for (var i = 0; i < 1000000000000000; i++) { console.log(i); for (var j = 0; j < 1000000000000000; j++) { console.log(j); } } console.log('herewegoagain'); } }();

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