Sound Problems with Streaming Audio/Video

Hi All,

I started having problems with the Sound on my Intel Based iMac after tinkering around with a program called audacity. It seems like I may have turned something off somehow, but I'll be darned if I can find the problem.

Some details on the problem:

The speakers work fine, system sounds play, iTunes works, I can play Movie DVDs. I tested the Audio in and out jacks, sound works fine through those ports.

What happens is, I go to a site with streaming video and/or audio and get no sound. These sames sites were working fine last night before I was playing with Audacity.

I called AppleCare and the support there was less than Stellar. The guy basically told me to reinstall the OS. Not what I would expect from the so called "World Class Support". I finally decided to do the Archive and Install but I still have no audio on streaming content.

Is there some easy way to reset all of the audio settings to factory default? The Bozo on the phone didn't seem to want to lift a finger to help.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Steve

Create a new user and log in as that user. Teset the sound problem. If the problem doesn't follow the user than it is obviously a user setting. Look for audacity plist files in your ~/Library/Preferences folder

If the problem follows the user than there may be a /Library/Preferance audacity file or perhaps a login item that is running.

I had already tried using a test profile and it has the same problem. I did delete the audacity settings file from Preference folder and it made no difference. I'm not sure that Audacity was the actual cause, it's just one of the things I was doing.

I've also noticed sound on a number of games aren't working either.

I have the feeling that whatever settings that were screwed up, they were moved over from the Archive and Install of Mac OS.

Something I just noticed was that Quicktime isn't playing sound either...I tried playing the Macworld 2006 Keynote from Apples Website and the video is playing without sound.

sbatson said:

Something I just noticed was that Quicktime isn't playing sound either...I tried playing the Macworld 2006 Keynote from Apples Website and the video is playing without sound.

Click to expand...

Another test I just did was connecting a USB headset to the system, with that configured, I can hear the sound if I select it. Is it possible that there is a hardware issue? Seems unlikely since I can play sound through all the various output devices. Or, is there still some type of driver or configuration file that is likely screwed up and migrated over from the Archive and Build.

Any other suggestions on troubleshooting will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Steve

try reinstalling QT 7.0.4 full version, not an upgrade

Ok, I've tried everyone's suggestions so far and nothing is working. At this point, I do not think this is tied to any one application. I think one of the following is the problem, but I'll be darned if I know how to isolate or fix it.

1) Possible Hardware issue (though I don't see how speakers, input and output devices and ports would all work but only certain types of apps or functions would not.

2) Configuration Issue - I think this is more likely and doing the archive and Mac OS Install might have carried over what was screwed up from before.

Everything else is still working fine, so it seems that there should be some way to restore all the audio back to default to get things working.

Does anyone know of any decent diagnostic software that can do a complete test of the audio components?

I'm going to call apple again and be a little more instant on support and make them earn the fee I paid for extended Applecare support.

Hi All, I resolved my problem while on hold with Applecare support!!!

I was searching the support site and happened on the following article that exactly describes my problem. Why 2 of Apple's support people did not find this is totally beyond me!

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300832

While this second guy was much nicer, more professional and really giving it the college try, I'd expect that their support staff would have better search tools and capabilities than a user sitting on the phone surfing their site! I didn't do anything special, basically just searched their support articles for "no sound" and the first article on the list was my problem exactly!.

Basically in my tinkering with Audacity the other day, I think I advertantly changed the sample rate for the audio output higher than it's supposed to be. The article explains the issue and how to set the audio output to what it should be.

Anyway, hopefully this info will help anyone else that stumbles on this problem should they find this thread

Steve