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Adobe patches bug that could blow up MacBook Pro speakers

If you run Adobe Premiere Pro on a MacBook Pro, then it pays to go find the latest update, because it patches a bug that has permanently damaged MacBook Pro speakers.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

While it's pretty rare for software bugs to damage modern hardware, a bug in Adobe's Premiere Pro video editing software has been permanently blowing up some users' MacBook Pro speakers. Yes, you read that right. This software bug was capable of permanently damaging the laptop's built-in speakers.

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The problem has been reported on Adobe's support forum by a number of users. The laptops affected all seem to be the newer 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops.

Here's an outline of what happened, from forum user andripeetso:

I have a new 2 month old 15" MBP. I Was working on a project, macbook volume was about on half, when suddenly an audio bug occurred with really loud screatching [sic] noise and not letting me pause it. After it stopped, the speakers were really quiet, and after the next restart they're clearly blown. Initially I blamed the hardware, though the same thing happened a day later with my Sony 1000X-M3 headphones, luckily the headphones are ok, but that did give me a heart attack.

The situation is not ok, I am not happy. Adobe customer care chat is ridiculous.

There are more than half a dozen other reports claiming a similar problem.

Adobe support responded to this issue as follows:

Adobe had a small number of user reports about an issue in Premiere Pro that could affect the speakers in the latest MacBook Pro. Adobe has released a patch via the Creative Cloud app to help address this issue. Please update to 13.0.3.

It's highly recommended that MacBook Pro users apply this update.


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It's not clear yet as to whether Adobe will pick up the bill for damaged hardware, although I would suspect that if the company doesn't address this issue soon it will be facing a lawsuit, similar to the one that followed after a cache clear bug resulted in the deletion of a photographer's media files.

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