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10.6.2 and audio out... Changed to internal speakers

mauikekai said:
Here is a good solution found on apple discussion forum!

I finally found the root cause of my problems for this. The problem for me is with file permissions on the 2 Audio plist files. For some reason during the 10.5.6 upgrade they are not set properly. Looking at the all the answers on the forum that seemed worked for one reason or another confirm they are related to file permissions.

I also have a permanent, reasonably easy fix for it. To fix the permission problem, you need to change the ownership of the files as described below.

========================
Launch Terminal from Utilities folder. This automatically logs you in as yourself.

To change file ownership, your need to switch login as root. Follow the commands in bold. I left the detailed listing so you can see what to expect. You can copy and paste the bold text into Terminal as they are to save retyping.

Note the ownership change from "jdoe" to "_coreaudiod"

unix$ sudo -i
password: type your normal user password here

unix# cd /Library/Preferences/Audio
unix# ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 jdoe admin 3149 11 Nov 22:17 com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 jdoe admin 1363 11 Nov 13:06 com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist

unix# chown _coreaudiod com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist

unix# chown _coreaudiod com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist

unix# ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 _coreaudiod admin 3149 11 Nov 22:17 com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 _coreaudiod admin 1363 11 Nov 13:06 com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist

unix# exit

quit Terminal
=============================================
all the commands without the surrounding text for easy copy & paste

sudo -i
cd /Library/Preferences/Audio
ls -l
chown _coreaudiod com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
chown _coreaudiod com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist
ls -l
exit
=============================================

change your Sound Output setting
see if the timestamp changes on: com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist
the other plist will change after restart
restart your Mac and see if it works

good luck!

If this fails for some reason, I have another way of changing the setting that works but is not preferred. You can edit the plist directly to change the Sound Output but it is harder to do and does not sync with System Preference changes.

Try it!
Click to expand...

This works if the files exist. I had no current files because I deleted them trying to fix. I used this after creating the Audio directory:

chown -R _coreaudiod:admin /Library/Preferences/Audio

The files will be created when you set the speaker/volume and any file in the Audio directory will get the correct permissions too.

Thanks for the info. Where did the _coreaudiod user come from?
 
mauikekai said:
Try it!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

But in principle, wouldn't deleting the files (and therefore regenerating the files through a new sound selection) should work also 100%?

If the root cause is file permissions issues, and more specifically file ownership, wouldn't recreating the files from scratch fix the problem?
 
mac666er said:
Thanks for the info!

But in principle, wouldn't deleting the files (and therefore regenerating the files through a new sound selection) should work also 100%?

If the root cause is file permissions issues, and more specifically file ownership, wouldn't recreating the files from scratch fix the problem?
Click to expand...

It would if the /Library/Preferences/Audio directory has the correct permissions. Mine did not thanks to Dev Seed Builds.
 
lemonade-maker said:
It would if the /Library/Preferences/Audio directory has the correct permissions. Mine did not thanks to Dev Seed Builds.
Click to expand...

I tried all of the above and nothing has worked yet...this is getting really annoying to the point where I want to just revert back to 10.6.1!

I do not have that audio plist file mentioned above on my late 2008 Mac Pro.

Any other ideas on how to fix this or should I just go to the genius bar?
 
Any other ideas on how to fix this or should I just go to the genius bar?
Click to expand...

Hmmmm
Do this, open a terminal window and type this:

Code: 
ls -la /Library/Preferences

Among the many lines of output, you SHOULD see this:

Code: 
drwxrwxr-x   4 root      _coreaudiod   136 Nov 18 18:09 Audio

If not, let us know!
 
I deleted the Audio dir and created a new one as root in the terminal. Can do it like this:

sudo mkdir /Library/Preferences/Audio

then set permissions, er owner:

sudo chown -R _coreaudiod:admin /Library/Preferences/Audio

Then change the input in the sound pref pane using an admin account. Should creat the file.
 
mac666er said:
Hmmmm
Do this, open a terminal window and type this:

Code: 
ls -la /Library/Preferences

Among the many lines of output, you SHOULD see this:

Code: 
drwxrwxr-x   4 root      _coreaudiod   136 Nov 18 18:09 Audio

If not, let us know!
Click to expand...

I do have something similar
HTML: 
drwxrwxr-x@  6 _coreaudiod  admin    204 Sep  9 19:19 Audio
 
This is happening to me as well. But until it's fixed, I can switch easily with SoundSource, a free app from Rogue Ameoba.

Pretty cool, creates a menu bar item with the different sources for inputs/outputs (and on the mac pro, thats plenty)

http://rogueamoeba.com/freebies/

Just something for the interim.
 
swallon2 said:
I do have something similar
HTML: 
drwxrwxr-x@  6 _coreaudiod  admin    204 Sep  9 19:19 Audio
Click to expand...


Try the lemonade-maker steps, just be sure to delete the directory and follow his terminal steps, exactly as he put them down. The @ in your output means that you have been using the Finder (the graphical interface) to make changes as the directory has hidden some parts of the files. At the very list you probably changed the permissions through the finder or changed the files themselves in the finder.

Get rid of that directory and follow his steps to the letter.
 
Odd, on my Mac Pro it did switch speaker outputs, but once I set it back to where I had it the issue didn't crop up again.
 
mac666er said:
I found a fix from the Apple Support forums. I had to do two steps:

1. Deleted the files on: /Library/Preferences/Audio
2. Zapped the parameter RAM (PRAM)

After this, my MacPro reverted to original settings and no longer exhibits that behavior.

Worth giving it a try!
Click to expand...

It worked for me! thanks! everytime i would restart it would revert to the internal speaker. but now it uses my 24" Cinema Display
 
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