For the past year or so since I've had the dock, It's worked well but I've had a persisting issue with a random audio crackle that happens sporadically while playing in docked mode.

I don't know what causes it and I don't know why it happens but occasionally while playing, the audio will cut out or crackle briefly before going back to normal. Once it goes back to normal after a couple seconds, the crackle or cut usually returns after anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour. It happens only when docked to a TV and regardless of the game I have been playing if any at all.

I've restarted the deck and dock, have both up to date with recent updates, have tried changing audio settings, playing games in desktop mode instead of gaming mode and yet nothing seems to fix it. I've used an HD Vizio TV with an HDMI cable and a 4K Samsung TV with a different HDMI cable but the problem happens regardless. I've tried to use the TV speakers instead of a sound bar and the problem still persists. I have no clue what the issue is caused by or how to replicate it but it is very frustrating because if I'm playing on a larger screen with the dock I have to be prepared for audio cutouts at random which kills the experience unless I learn to tune it out.

I repeat, I have no clue what causes it or how to replicate it and it only occurs in docked mode with the official dock. When I'm playing games in handheld, the audio never crackles or cuts. I don't know if some docks are faulty, if it's a software issue or what but it is a really bad caveat to a dock that I've had little issues with besides this and I really hope someone finds a solution or the team can do a bug fix that eliminates the issue since I've seen many other's have similar problems with this for a while now when plugging the Steam Deck into external displays.