Upon logging in for the first time after the self-reboot, the OS presented me with the standard “The machine rebooted - can we send a message to Apple?” dialog box… which it then sent on its own without me clicking “OK”. Sound went out just like before – only today it went out after the machine crashed and rebooted itself.

The third time I experienced it was today. Upgraded the OS, sound was back to normal.

Futzed around with things a little, then decided to upgrade to Monterey 12.5.1, seeing as how that fixed the problem for so many others. I turned Wi-Fi off and then back on again - got Wi-Fi back, but sound stopped working. Prior to the sound going out, I had a weird (and unprecedented) issue where my Wi-Fi briefly stopped working. The second time I experienced it, I was running Big Sur 11.6.8. After installing the update, sound was back to normal. As it happens, I received a notification shortly thereafter that Big Sur 11.6.8 update was available to download. The first time I experienced it, I was running Big Sur 11.6.7. Twice I’ve fixed it, twice it’s come back. More accurately, I’ve had this problem on my Mini three times since 9.2.7 was released.

External speakers for mac mini