Audio disappeared on new MacBook Pro 2017

[DonnaMarilyn]

My laptop is about 3 weeks old. Tonight I was watching an instructional video on YouTube when suddenly the sound disappeared. I've been unable to retrieve it.

In addition, when I tried to restart or shut down the machine, nothing happened. I had to shut it down by pressing the power button.

Has anyone experienced anything similar with their new MB Pro 13"?

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks!

Donna

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Now that you've shut down and restarted the Mac, is everything running normally (other than audio)?

Do you have headphones or some other external audio/video device connected to your Mac?

Are you able to go into System Preferences > Sound > Output > Select a device for sound output? If so, what is selected, if anything?

When asking for help, it's useful to give as much info as possible. "I've been unable to retrieve it" doesn't tell us what steps you've tried to "retrieve it." Knowing what you've tried (and the results) makes it much easier to diagnose/suggest next steps.

What if someone had the same problem with a two year old iMac 27", rather than a 13" MBP? In other words, most problems of this sort are NOT specific to a particular model, so don't limit your horizons by seeking model-specific answers. It would, however, be useful to know what version of macOS you're running.

Finally, it's a brand-new Mac, so you have free phone and chat support from AppleCare. Take advantage of it.

 

[DonnaMarilyn]

Thank you for responding, ApfelKuchen.

The version is MacOS Sierra/10.12.6

Steps that I took:

1. Going to the Apple Systems Preferences> Sound> Output. I checked that ‘Internal speakers/Built-in’ was active, and pushed the volume arrow to the right.

2. Shutting down (via the power button) and restarting the laptop. There was still no sound.

I'll have the machine checked out tomorrow by the folks where I bought the laptop.

Donna

UPDATE: Well, whaddya know! I restarted (it worked this time when I clicked on Restart) the machine again, and checked out YouTube. The audio is back!

I have no idea what that earlier glitch was.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Thank you for responding, ApfelKuchen.

The version is MacOS Sierra/10.12.6

Steps that I took:

1. Going to the Apple Systems Preferences> Sound> Output. I checked that ‘Internal speakers/Built-in’ was active, and pushed the volume arrow to the right.

2. Shutting down (via the power button) and restarting the laptop. There was still no sound.

I'll have the machine checked out tomorrow by the folks where I bought the laptop.

Donna

UPDATE: Well, whaddya know! I restarted (it worked this time when I clicked on Restart) the machine again, and checked out YouTube. The audio is back!

I have no idea what that earlier glitch was.

Thank you for responding, ApfelKuchen.

The version is MacOS Sierra/10.12.6

Steps that I took:

1. Going to the Apple Systems Preferences> Sound> Output. I checked that ‘Internal speakers/Built-in’ was active, and pushed the volume arrow to the right.

2. Shutting down (via the power button) and restarting the laptop. There was still no sound.

I'll have the machine checked out tomorrow by the folks where I bought the laptop.

Donna

UPDATE: Well, whaddya know! I restarted (it worked this time when I clicked on Restart) the machine again, and checked out YouTube. The audio is back!

I have no idea what that earlier glitch was.

Thanks for the info, and I’m glad things are back to normal.

I have some thoughts for you, but since the issue “fixed itself” (more likely, was resolved by restarting the system), it’s not so easy to come up with a solid explanation.

What I think is likely is that your Mac was low on system resources (CPU and/or RAM, or even Flash storage). Once a system is low on resources, a variety of problems can develop concurrently - they may not seem logically connected to each other, but may all be related to the shortage of/competition for resources.

The fact that you could not easily shut down/restart the Mac suggests your system was VERY low on resources. The graphical user interface may have stopped operating, meaning you had to use the power button to shut down/restart.

The situation may have been due to temporary/hard-to-reproduce conditions. It may also have been due to a situation that will repeat itself in the future, such as demanding more of your computer than the system can reasonably handle, or using a poorly-designed/outdated piece of software.

My suggestion is to not worry about it for now. If it does come back, we can suggest ways to monitor the operation of your system and isolate the cause(s).