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OS Catalina sound issue

I recovered my old 2012 MacBook Pro recently when the disk died and after installing OS Catalina it now has an odd issue where during usage the internal speaker stops working randomly after a while every time it is in use.


It works again after a reboot but nothing else seems to help with the issue and the laptop works perfectly fine otherwise. When it happens it affects all apps such as Safari, Quicktime, Spotify and VLC that use the internal speaker but will play sound through headphones or to external speakers like a Sonos Beam.


Restarting constantly is incredibly frustrating especially when it happens in the middle of playing films or music. Has anyone come across this before and found a fix in the past, resetting the NVRAM has not helped unfortunately?


MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 8, 2022 3:09 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 8, 2022 7:40 PM

You may want to try some basic troubleshooting techniques and see whether that resolves things.

  1. Reset SMC by following the directions applicable to your MacBook here ➔ How to Reset SMC. If that does not solve things then-
  2. You have already tried this one. Reset NVRAM/PRAM by following the directions applicable to your MacBook here ➔  How to Reset NVRAM/PRAM. If that does not solve things then-
  3. Enter ➔ Safe Mode and see if the issue still exists in Safe mode. Log out of Safe Mode and then reboot computer. If that does not solve things then-
  4. Finally if none of the above works then you can enter ➔ macOS Recovery Mode and reinstall the macOS and see if that solves it.


Axel F.

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 8, 2022 7:40 PM in response to Daz2300

You may want to try some basic troubleshooting techniques and see whether that resolves things.

  1. Reset SMC by following the directions applicable to your MacBook here ➔ How to Reset SMC. If that does not solve things then-
  2. You have already tried this one. Reset NVRAM/PRAM by following the directions applicable to your MacBook here ➔  How to Reset NVRAM/PRAM. If that does not solve things then-
  3. Enter ➔ Safe Mode and see if the issue still exists in Safe mode. Log out of Safe Mode and then reboot computer. If that does not solve things then-
  4. Finally if none of the above works then you can enter ➔ macOS Recovery Mode and reinstall the macOS and see if that solves it.


Axel F.

OS Catalina sound issue

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