"coreaudio: Could not initialize playback" error on MacOS 13 image

[victorlazaro]

Description

Our team uses a MacOS 12 image to run Android tests that spin up a (Gradle managed device) emulator, specifically a Pixel 10 running API level 30. We are now looking to upgrade the VM image to MacOS 13, but the job is failing. Looking at the emulator logs, we can see this error:

coreaudio: Could not start playback
coreaudio: Reason: status code 268451843
Failed to create voice `goldfish_audio'
coreaudio: Could not initialize playback
coreaudio: Could not get device buffer frame range
coreaudio: Reason: kAudioHardwareUnknownPropertyError
qemu-system-x86_64: warning: opening audio output failed
...
ERROR   | detected a hanging thread 'QEMU2 main loop'. No response for 18959 ms
ERROR   | detected a hanging thread 'QEMU2 CPU0 thread'. No response for 18940 ms
coreaudio: Could not initialize playback
coreaudio: Could not get device buffer frame range
coreaudio: Reason: kAudioHardwareUnknownPropertyError
ERROR   | detected a hanging thread 'QEMU2 main loop'. No response for 15307 ms
[17068:79676:20241029,221226.840982:WARNING crash_report_exception_handler.cc:235] UniversalExceptionRaise: (os/kern) failure (5)

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Image version and build link

20241023.237

Not public.

Is it regression?

Yes

Expected behavior

Emulator is spun up and runs tests successfully.

Actual behavior

A coreudio error happens, causing a hanging thread 'QEMU2 main loop', which prevents the tests from running.

Repro steps

1. Create an Android project, configure a Gradle managed device emulator
2. Create a pipeline with a job that runs Android instrumentation tests on a MacOS 13 image
3. Run pipeline

[sureshe456]

@victorlazaro We will look into the issue and keep you posted with updates.