Audio has stopped working reliably about 95% of the time

[DJR]

I'm used to the weekly reboots for audio, especially when it involves SiriusXM, but for some reason, ALL of my apps, including car play via BlueTooth have started glitching. I mean like 90's audio CD's on a bumpy road glitchy. I'm also experiencing hiccups, or massive hiccups that cause the audio to stretch and slow down. This happens across every app. Initially a reboot would resolve it, at least until I parked it again, but not it's happening immediately after a reboot. Cellular signal shows 2-3 bars, so I don't think that's the issue, and to reiterate, bluetooth does this as well. I can't seem to figure out a way to force audio over the USB cable from my phone (is that even possible on this car? it was on my old one).

It's gotten so bad I'm having to listen to my phone over its tiny speaker because the audio system just grates on my nerves. It's like a badly damaged CD, or a really crappy Zoom or Teams call. Robotic sounds, hiccups, cutouts, or the audio just stops working in all apps.

Rebooting no longer seems to help.

Any suggestions? I'm beyond frustrated.

 

[Chrome]

I've always called this the "garbled audio" issue. Everything is terribly choppy and slightly slowed-down from normal. It's happened to me at least 30 times in the past 10 months. What's intriguing is that it affects all audio, even the UI feedback sound that plays when you tap different elements on the Pilot Panel. Sort of like an "audio processor" problem, as the music source has nothing to do with it. Sometimes it'll be present as soon as I enter the car, other times it has shown up suddenly while driving around. No apparent cause. I've also heard it fix itself a couple minutes later. My go-to remedy is to pull over and conduct a Logo Reset; this does fix it for that specific instance 100% of the time (at least in my cases). I haven't seen anyone mention a Service-applied solution, so I suppose we're just waiting for an OTA update to address it.

Unsure if this is related, but I also currently have an audio "click/pop" that occurs every 15 seconds or so, and is only really noticeable at higher volumes. Haven't tested if it's present from sources other than SiriusXM.