Bug 241680 – Distorted audio from Safari user after 10 minutes in the webrtc call

• Component: WebRTC
• Status: NEW

Audio becomes distorted after 10 minutes in the webrtc call.

To reproduce the problem 
1) join google meet (or any other webrtc solution) from safari
2) join another participant (I used chrome on another laptop and tried safari on another laptop)
3) wait ~10 minutes
4) chrome participant starts hearing distorted audio from safari user

Issue is reproducible on macOS 11.6.5-11.6.6 (MacBook 15” late 2013, MacBook 15” mid 2015) (always)

Was not able to reproduce the issue with the mac mini 2018 and MacBook Pro 16” 2019 (macOS 12.4. with Safari 15.5)

[youenn fablet]

> Issue is reproducible on macOS 11.6.5-11.6.6 (MacBook 15” late 2013, MacBook
> 15” mid 2015) (always)

Which Safari were you using there?
Were you able to reproduce with Safari Tech Preview?

Reproducible on safari 15.4 and 15.5 

NOTE: this is reproducible only on old devices 2013-2015 years...and not on the newest (macbook pro 16 2019 works fine)

[youenn fablet]

Could you reproduce the issue and send me a sysdiagnose ([e-mail]) with the precise time the audio becomes distorted?

[Radar WebKit Bug Importer]

<rdar://problem/95769350>

[Malcolm]

We are facing a very similar issue with WebRTC connections from iPad devices. Reports of impacted device types:

Model name: iPad (6th Gen)
Model number: MR7F2B\A

Model name: iPad Pro 10.5"
Model number is A1709

Tested WebRTC platforms:

Pexip
Google Meet

Similarly to the report above, the issue does not occur straight away but can take up to ~10 minutes to appear. The iPad's audio will then become grossly distorted, almost to the point of unintelligibility.

NB - we had been impacted by this bug before:
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=239285

We have noticed that the same workaround of connecting a device to the 3.5mm jack resolves the issue. However, if the device is disconnected, the issue will eventually return.

[youenn fablet]

(In reply to Malcolm from comment #5)
> We are facing a very similar issue with WebRTC connections from iPad
> devices. Reports of impacted device types:
> 
> Model name: iPad (6th Gen)
> Model number: MR7F2B\A
> 
> Model name: iPad Pro 10.5"
> Model number is A1709
> 
> Tested WebRTC platforms:
> 
> Pexip
> Google Meet
> 
> Similarly to the report above, the issue does not occur straight away but
> can take up to ~10 minutes to appear. The iPad's audio will then become
> grossly distorted, almost to the point of unintelligibility.
> 
> NB - we had been impacted by this bug before:
> https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=239285
> 
> We have noticed that the same workaround of connecting a device to the 3.5mm
> jack resolves the issue. However, if the device is disconnected, the issue
> will eventually return.

Can you tell us whether this is reproducible in the latest iOS 15.6 release?

[Malcolm]

Hi Youenn,

I can confirm that the reports were specifically concerning iOS 15.6. Furthermore I have heard that the "fix" of connecting a device to the 3.5mm jack only works for a few minutes, even if the device is left connected. Eventually the distorted audio will return.

If there is some diagnostic info that could help that can be pulled from the iPad then we should be able to provide it.

Regards,
Malcolm

[youenn fablet]

(In reply to Malcolm from comment #7)
> Hi Youenn,
> 
> I can confirm that the reports were specifically concerning iOS 15.6.
> Furthermore I have heard that the "fix" of connecting a device to the 3.5mm
> jack only works for a few minutes, even if the device is left connected.
> Eventually the distorted audio will return.
> 
> If there is some diagnostic info that could help that can be pulled from the
> iPad then we should be able to provide it.
> 
> Regards,
> Malcolm

@Malcolm, if you can reproduce the issue, can you send me a sysdiagnose ([e-mail]) with the timestamp where the issue starts reproducing?

Also, do you have reliable repro steps? Is it just about waiting 10 minutes in a Google Meet call on Safari?

[Malcolm]

Hi Youenn,

As requested I shared a link for the sysdiagnose file via email, along with an MP4 of the issue. Correct, it is enough to simply join from an affected device and wait a few minutes. In the latest reproduction it was less than 6 minutes.

Regards,
Malcolm

[Malcolm]

Hi Youenn,

Just checking on this one - did you manage to find anything of note in the sysdiagnose that was uploaded?

Regards,
Malcolm

Hi Youenn,

Do you need any additional info?

We also observe issue with distorted audio on IOS 16 same as before on some MacBook models (macOS 11.7 (MacBook 15” late 2013, MacBook 15” mid 2015)) and some iPad models (iPad Pro 10.5" 1st/2nd gen, iPad (7th Gen))

[Malcolm]

Hi Youenn,

We were doing some further testing with the recently released iOS 15.7 for iPad and made a couple of observations:

The issue is still reproducible with the iPad (6th Gen) Model number: MR7F2B\A that we have used for most testing. I believe that this model is equipped with an A10 chip. However it is not reproducible with a couple of other iPads (namely iPad Air2 and iPad Air3). I understand that those have A8 and A12 respectively.

Looking at the reports of the issue so far, we have had iPad Pro 10.5"as well as iPad 6th and 7th Gen. I think it's correct to say that these all have an A10 chipset - could this issue be specific to that?

Regards,
Malcolm

[Malcolm]

As we now have iOS 16.1 for iPad we did some more testing and unfortunately the issue is still reproducible with the iPad (6th Gen) Model number: MR7F2B\A. In fact, the results seemed to be worse on 16.1 than on 15.x as we now also have an issue with the audio pitch, which alternates between too low and too high. This new issue is apparently from the beginning of the call, whereas the original issue (crackling) still takes between 5 and 10 minutes to kick in. At that point, both of the audio glitches can be heard from the iPad user at the same time.

[darren]

Hi Youenn,

Just checking on this one, is there any progress?

Regards,
Darren

[youenn fablet]

(In reply to darren from comment #14)
> Hi Youenn,
> 
> Just checking on this one, is there any progress?
> 
> Regards,
> Darren

This is being investigated.

[Malcolm]

Hi Youenn,

Just wondered if there had been any further progress? 

Regards,
Malcolm

[youenn fablet]

(In reply to Malcolm from comment #13)
> As we now have iOS 16.1 for iPad we did some more testing and unfortunately
> the issue is still reproducible with the iPad (6th Gen) Model number:
> MR7F2B\A. In fact, the results seemed to be worse on 16.1 than on 15.x as we
> now also have an issue with the audio pitch, which alternates between too
> low and too high.

This should only be transitionary, are you saying you are hearing these changes al the time?

[Malcolm]

Hi Youenn,

On 15.x we had the issue of the audio distortion kicking in after between 5-10 minutes.

On 16.1 we still have the above issue, but also an additional issue regarding the audio pitch, which alternates between too high and too low. This issue happens persistently throughout the call.

Regards,
Malcolm

[Malcolm]

Hi there,

Just checking if there was any news on this one, or if there's anything else we can do to help diagnose the issue?

Regards,
Malcolm

[darren]

Hello Youenn,

We have tested 16.3 this morning and the issues described by Malcolm in https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=241680#c18 are still present, we can share a recording of this if it would help.

Rgds
Darren

[darren]

Hello,

Just checking in for an update, is there any progress on this one?

Thanks
Darren

[darren]

This week we tested IOS16.4 beta and there is a significant improvement in the audio, we no longer encounter distortion after the 5-minute mark.

There are some pitch issues throughout the call and we also noticed some ‘popping’ when the participant spoke, I'm not sure if this is related to the pitch issue.

[Rico]

We can confirm the same issues in WebRTC in Pexip Infinity.
this makes it very hard to understand what the person from the iPad says, beacuse of the distortion that start at almost exaclty 5 min in. if we disconnect we get 5 min again until the distortion start again.


We can also see the same thing as mentioned in the thread, that it works on newer devices and this bug is releated to older specific models.

The devices we have tested on is a:
iPad Gen 7 - MW6A2KN  on the new 16.4 release (29/3-2023)

[Brent Fulgham]

This is actually being tracked under:
<rdar://99744591>

Hello, the issue still exists in 18.6, join a webrtc call, keep the tab in background, when you comeback after say 5mins or more, when you turn on the mic other side starts hearing robotic voice

Created attachment 476729 [details]
Distored audio recording