Audio and Video freeze with MS Teams and other video conferencing tools

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Audio and Video freeze with MS Teams and other video conferencing tools

I have a Macbook Pro 2021 with M1 Max chip and 32 GB of RAM. I am running Monterey 12.3 OS. My problem is that audio and video cuts out frequently on MS Teams and other video conferencing tools (i.e. WebEx, Zoom). The problem seems to be more with audio than video but that may be more of a factor that the presentation material is usually not very dynamic (i.e. ppt slides) where as the audio is constant.

I have tried many things to narrow down the scope and am now convinced that this is something to do with the Mac and/or OS rather than the software tool, network or input devices. I primarily use MS Teams but also often use WebEx and Zoom in addition to infrequent use of other tools like Chime. I have experienced the problem with all video conferencing tools. I have not noticed the problem with YouTube, but I don't use that as much at work with this computer. I have tried this on several networks with the same results - home (multi-Gig fiber) both on and off VPN and using both wifi and tethered connection; work network both wifi and tethered; consumer wifi networks on VPN (i.e. Starbucks). All these networks produce the same freezing/clipping of audio and video. Finally, I have tried a multitude of input/output devices including AirPods, two other high quality USB headsets and a couple different plug-in headsets.

In terms of usage, I reboot my computer daily so that should not be a factor. I also do my best to keep running software to a minimum while working so I frequently close browsers, email, collaboration tools, etc. when not in use. Email is probably the one tool I keep up the most, but I have tried experiments where I use web email instead of Outlook client as well as killing the email altogether.

I have researched this issue in depth and cannot find anything that works for me. I have seen the articles about resetting the PRAM and SMC on the Mac but those seem to only apply to Intel based machines since the M1 appears to reset on reboot - which I perform daily. I have seen the articles about clearing caches and have done that as well to no avail. I have also seen the articles that indicate I should reduce the number of apps that have access to my microphone and have done that as well, limiting to only MS Teams for several test runs.

NOTHING has worked. I am at my limit with this problem. I absolutely require MS Teams and other video conferencing tools in order to do my work and I just cannot continue with a laptop that does not handle this seemingly trivial workload. Note, I never had this issue with my previous intel based Mac. This appears to be some new issue with M1 based Macs. I would appreciate anyone from Apple or the community that has insight to how I can resolve this issue.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.3

Posted on Dec 28, 2022 10:47 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

SuperHandyDan Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 31, 2022 07:54 AM in response to etresoft

@etresoft, I'm not sure what prompted you to post with a condescending and completely non-helpful non-answer to my question, but if this somehow boosted your community points, well I'm happy to be of assistance.

It's clear from the number of posts on this forum as well as StackOverflow and the numerous other community help forums that while many people may be successfully using video conferencing tools on Mac M1's, many are not. There are literally hundreds of posts on this forum alone about video and audio freezing on Mac M1's - it's not just me. And it is unlikely that we are all using the same "malevolent 3rd party software".

I always hesitate to post on forums like these - because of responses like yours - and instead prefer to research based on questions from other posters.

I'd like to respectfully ask that if you have nothing positive to contribute that you simply ignore my post - I'm sure many have done just that and they have my sincere thanks. I'd prefer for this thread to go dormant than to have my hopes raised with a new response in my inbox only to see a response like the one offered by @etresoft.

As for @AdvisorMP, I did mark your response as "Helpful" since I felt that it was a sincere attempt to help me out. Unfortunately, your suggestions did not fix my problem so I could not label it "Best Answer" - sorry for that. That said, I do appreciate the sincere attempt to provide some positive suggestions.

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Answer 2

AdvisorMP

Community Specialist

Dec 29, 2022 11:07 AM in response to SuperHandyDan

Thanks for reaching out SuperHandyDan,

It sounds like you're having some performance issues when using video and audio presentation tools on your MacBook Pro. We can help.

First, excellent job on troubleshooting common steps to narrow down the cause. The steps you've taken really do eliminate the majority of possibilities.

Here are some more steps you can try to further isolate the issue:

What happens if you create a new user account, and sign in with it instead of your primary account? Are the same issues present? If they go away, it could indicate a user settings issue with your main user account. Here's how to Add a user or group on Mac.

You can also test for hardware issues by running a diagnostic test to make sure key components are working correctly. You can follow these steps to Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac.

You also mentioned that you had trouble with most video tools, except for YouTube. Is it possible that the issue might be with the work server you are connecting to? One way to isolate this would be to try connecting to another device that isn't connected using your work's server, or VPN. For instance if you tried sharing a presentation with a friend's device, does the behavior still occur? If the issue goes away, you may want to get in touch with your employer's IT department to see what options they might recommend.

Give those a try, and let us know the results. If you find you're still seeing issues, or if anything you test indicates a definite problem, you can always Contact Apple for support and service.

Hope that helps.

Take care.

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Answer 3

Dec 30, 2022 06:57 AM in response to AdvisorMP

Thanks for your reply AdvisorMP. Since we are on holiday right now, I am going to wait to test the first suggestion until next week when I have someone to test with.

I did try running the diagnostics test and got back an ADP000 "No Issues Found" result so I am assuming the diagnostics could not find anything wrong with my hardware.

As for the 3rd bullet, can you please clarify your suggestion? The video conferencing tools I've mentioned are all SaaS - MS Teams, WebEx, Zoom - they are not enterprise servers in my corporate IT shop. I would imagine that I connect to a different physical server on pretty much every session with these SaaS tools given their scale. Note, I did try using these video conferencing SaaS services with and without VPN and from multiple Wifi and tethered networks so I'm pretty confident this is not a network issue.

I'll try the new user profile before contacting support. Thanks again for the suggestions. I'm really at the end of my rope with this one.

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Answer 4

etresoft

Level 9

55,286 points

Dec 30, 2022 07:06 AM in response to SuperHandyDan

SuperHandyDan wrote:

I have a Macbook Pro 2021 with M1 Max chip and 32 GB of RAM. I am running Monterey 12.3 OS.

The current version of macOS is Ventura 13.1. That isn't even the current version of Monterey, which is at 12.6.2.

I have tried many things to narrow down the scope and am now convinced that this is something to do with the Mac and/or OS rather than the software tool, network or input devices.

Then posting on this forum is likely to be a frustrating enterprise. There are many millions of people who have no problem with those 3rd party tools on M1 Macs. The most likely explanation is some other 3rd party software like antivirus or other scam system modifications.

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Audio and Video freeze with MS Teams and other video conferencing tools

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