No Sound

Had sound yesterday. Last thing I did was watch a youtube video someone sent me a link to. Sound was working at that time. Plugged in my headphones after it started playing in order not to disturb the wife's TV watching.

Today - no sound, from any app - I do have sound through the headphones, just not the internal speakers. No sound in Leopard, my Tiger backup, nor when booting into XP. I do get the startup chime.

Will not allow me to adjust the volume from the slider for volume in the menu bar. And have the following images - one is the image when using the keyboard shortcuts - the other in System Preferences, where you'll see functions are greyed out.

Ran the hardware test - no problem there, but it does not test the sound.

Also tried resetting pram.

Any ideas?

Fixed - after I actually looked at the headphone outlet, noticed the red light of the optical out was on. Used a toothpick (didn't have any bobby pins around) to very gently tickle the tab for the optical connection in the outlet. Red light off - all is working again.

Hi
I've had exactly the same problem as you and didn't know what to do. I've tried tickling the optical outlet but it only flickers off and then comes back on. Any ideas why this isn't working?
thanks

Just had this same problem happen to me after using my Ultimate Ears earphone. I was able to use a coffee straw to get my sound back; yeah!

This is a dirty-contacts issue and is actually a known problem for these style connectors. You can spray some contact cleaner on a 1/8" stereo plug and exercise the jack by sliding it in/out to transfer some of the cleaner. It's not advised to spray the cleaner into the port - or at least if you do - don't spray so much that it would run out onto the plastic of the case. It evaporates quickly...