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Snow Leopard Digital Audio Output on Mac Mini

H

Hberg

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 19, 2009
102
13
Overland Park, KS
Okay. I have the latest and greatest Mac Mini. 2.26 with 4 g of ram. I update to Snow Leopard, and now it will not recognize that it has Digital Audio Output via a mini to a Toslink connection. Heck. I am running it through a Classe' Processor with B&W 804s Speakers and it previously worked with the previous Leopard.

What gives?
 
Is the problem with AC3 passthru or do you get no sound at all? Did you do an upgrade or clean install?

I haven't upgraded mine yet, but it sounds alarming..
 
Yeah,

I've ordered the SL upgrade (via eBay, no tax), which will ship to me beginning on Monday. So, after noticing your post, I checked the Apple Forum, specifically in the Snow Leopard OS section, and there doesn't seem to be a typical symptom like you're having.

Maybe you've lost the connection at the cable. Are you using one of those little 3.5 mm adapters before the Optical cable? If so, maybe check there.

Please let us all hear how it goes.

Peace to you,
C. Livingstone
 
Further explanation

In System Preferences it says that Digital Audio Output is not available, and that is the only option. If I turn off the Digital Audio Output, I will get sound.
 
Gee,

Does the Hardware Profiler in the Apple Menu (About This Mac/More Info) reveal any clues about the SPDIF Audio ouptut?

I'd check your audio system to see if other components get any sound out of it, also.

Please let us all hear how it goes, and what finally resolves your issue.

Peace to you,
C. Livingstone
 
Hberg said:
In System Preferences it says that Digital Audio Output is not available, and that is the only option. If I turn off the Digital Audio Output, I will get sound.
Click to expand...

So it is backwards? I have the latest mini and a similar setup so this would worry me.
 
Yeah,

I'm about to upgrade to Snow Leopard in a matter of days, so I'm a little concerned, too.

But, the Apple Forum shows no trouble with Sound output for Snow Leopard upgraders that I can tell.

It may be something particular to our thread starter. But, it does sound like Snow Leopard has a new option for Digital as a checkbox in the System Preferences for Sound. (Or, maybe I've just never seen it in Leopard, since I took a Klipsch GMX-D unit to the living room, and have been using a 2.1 Klipsch unit on the 2009 Mini.)

Or, I did notice someone give advise to a Mini user who was having trouble with their Sound output, not as a result of upgrading to Snow Leopard, saying that inserting the cable or adapter a few times may help cause the internal switch to finally make the connection will help, at times.

So, with all of the cables I have hanging off my Mini, it's not uncommon for me to loose certain cable connections (miniDisplayport and Power, especially) when I disturb the unit. And, again, if there's one of those little 3.5mm adapters to Toslink, it may have become a faulty connection.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone
 
I don't see any problem with my Mac Mini, digital audio out, and Snow Leopard. If I go to the sound preferences pane, it shows that my sound effects are defaulting to digital audio out. In addition, when digital audio out is active you shouldn't be able to control the volume, as mine is grayed out. This suggests that the computer is routing the audio through digital out where it will be processed by a downstream device -- an AVR in my case.
 
Hberg said:
Okay. I have the latest and greatest Mac Mini. 2.26 with 4 g of ram. I update to Snow Leopard, and now it will not recognize that it has Digital Audio Output via a mini to a Toslink connection. Heck. I am running it through a Classe' Processor with B&W 804s Speakers and it previously worked with the previous Leopard.

What gives?
Click to expand...

The problem has been resolved after turning off the machine overnight, even though I rebooted several times. At least now I can enjoy my music, and that is of the utmost importance to me.

Now there is just a problem with Elgato and EyeTV, and not all audio programs or devices. It is my understanding that Elgato will be researching the problem and looking in to resolving the issue.
 
chrisliv said:
Yeah,

I'm about to upgrade to Snow Leopard in a matter of days, so I'm a little concerned, too.

But, the Apple Forum shows no trouble with Sound output for Snow Leopard upgraders that I can tell.

It may be something particular to our thread starter. But, it does sound like Snow Leopard has a new option for Digital as a checkbox in the System Preferences for Sound. (Or, maybe I've just never seen it in Leopard, since I took a Klipsch GMX-D unit to the living room, and have been using a 2.1 Klipsch unit on the 2009 Mini.)

Or, I did notice someone give advise to a Mini user who was having trouble with their Sound output, not as a result of upgrading to Snow Leopard, saying that inserting the cable or adapter a few times may help cause the internal switch to finally make the connection will help, at times.

So, with all of the cables I have hanging off my Mini, it's not uncommon for me to loose certain cable connections (miniDisplayport and Power, especially) when I disturb the unit. And, again, if there's one of those little 3.5mm adapters to Toslink, it may have become a faulty connection.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone
Click to expand...

You may be correct that it was unique to my situation; however, all connections were checked several times, and all the options under Sound in System Preferences were checked as well. I even checked each audio program, and they all showed that Digital Audio Output was unavailable.

Given that I am an audiophile and computer/network geek the only thing I can figure is that it was an Elgato/EyeTV issue that effected the whole system initially. After shutting off the Mac Mini (2.26 ghz 4 G Ram) over night, it seemed to resolve the situation for everything other than the Elgato Device and EyeTV.

For those with an Elgato device it is my understanding that they will be looking in to the situation on Monday.
 
Well,

Thanks, Hberg. That is helpful to know, because the Elgato products are liked by Mac users, and I also have one coming from Other World Computing in a matter of days.

Maybe I'll hold off on installing Snow Leopard till we know more from Elgato.

Or, maybe the key is to install Eye TV AFTER upgrading to SL. As, I think I heard of some menubar icons/software being usable or having caused no problem if they were removed first, and then reinstalled AFTER upgrading to Snow Leopard.

If Eye TV was the culprit of your issue, I'm guessing that more symptoms that you had will soon be heard from Elgato product users on the Apple Forum for Snow Leopard.

Thanks again, Hberg. And it's nice that your issue is somewhat resolved.

So, are you going to go back to 10.5 (Leopard), in order to use the Elgato product? Or, will you not use the TV tuner as you wait for further info/solutions from Elgato?

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone
 
OK,

The Elgato/EyeTV Forum reveals quite a bit. I'll post a clip below.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone

---------------------------------------

http://forums.elgato.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=5944


Snow Leopard Compatibility Details
by Mike Evangelist » August 26th, 2009, 6:40 pm

Elgato’s applications are generally compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. We are in the process of retesting each application with the final version of Snow Leopard. Software updates that address the known issues will be released in the next few weeks.

Here is an overview of the compatibility status for each product.

EyeTV
EyeTV 3.1 and higher are compatible with Snow Leopard, with minor problems.
Digital audio output does not work
EyeTV Sharing does not work, the EyeConnect component crashes at start.
EyeTV 3.1.3b1 resolves these issues. To update EyeTV, click here: eyetv://checkforupdates?build=5275

Versions 3.0 through 3.0.4 are not compatible with Snow Leopard, please update to the latest EyeTV version (3.1.2) before upgrading to Snow Leopard.
 
chrisliv said:
Well,

Thanks, Hberg. That is helpful to know, because the Elgato products are liked by Mac users, and I also have one coming from Other World Computing in a matter of days.

Maybe I'll hold off on installing Snow Leopard till we know more from Elgato.

Or, maybe the key is to install Eye TV AFTER upgrading to SL. As, I think I heard of some menubar icons/software being usable or having caused no problem if they were removed first, and then reinstalled AFTER upgrading to Snow Leopard.

If Eye TV was the culprit of your issue, I'm guessing that more symptoms that you had will soon be heard from Elgato product users on the Apple Forum for Snow Leopard.

Thanks again, Hberg. And it's nice that your issue is somewhat resolved.

So, are you going to go back to 10.5 (Leopard), in order to use the Elgato product? Or, will you not use the TV tuner as you wait for further info/solutions from Elgato?

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone
Click to expand...

Actually, I will just wait for Elgato to resolve the issue and continue to use Snow Leopard for all of my other media applications - mainly iTunes. Elgato will work, but it is just in Stereo. It just won't output via Digital Audio, so I am not able to enjoy the surround sound that may be broadcasted at the time.

I have not seen a resolution yet on the Elgato site, but I am sure they will post one in due time.

Since I have the Classe' SSP-800 Processor and a 7.1 Channel B&W system, I want to be able to enjoy a game or movie in surround sound. At least I am able to enjoy the Apple Lossless files I've recorded coming from iTunes.
 
This is the latest reply from Elgato ...

"We appreciate the information you sent about your audio problem in EyeTV.

This appears to be a general problem, partially caused by the new OS X update. I say "appears" because we're still studying the problem.

EyeTV 3.1.3b1 did make the problem somewhat better, but clearly didn't resolve it altogether.

Our engineers are examining this issue, and if a change in EyeTV can resolve it, then we should have that ready soon - perhaps in time for the EyeTV 3.1.3 final update.

We'll let everyone know what's going on in the next few days. If we have newer test software that we think will help, we'll distribute that via the forum and other avenues."

I will keep you all posted.
 
missing sound devices

I'm not sure if this is related but was (am?) having a similar problem of missing sound devices (digital out/in, analog out/in, headphones, internal speakers) in System Preferences under Snow Leopard.

I happen to have 3 other boot volumes (two Leopard, one clean Snow Leopard) and it worked fine on all other boot volumes except main boot volume. Naturally I assume it was a software conflict issue.

However I finally tried resetting the SMU (power down, unplug all cables, wait a few minutes) and that appears to have restored them.

However, not fully sure that was what did it. I also copied the two files (not the folder) located here from my clean 10.6 install to my problem 10.6 install (upgraded over leopard):

/Library/Preferences/Audio/

Nor am I fully sure this permanently has resolved the problem. This occurred before immediately after install and I was able to get it working again just by booting into Leopard (where it did not have the issue) and restarting in SL. However the second time it happened I was unable to get the devices to reappear after multiple restarts back and forth between systems.

Something is quirky, for sure.
 
Yeah,

I went ahead and installed Snow Leopard onto my 2009 Mini, yesterday, with no problems, even though my Elgato/EyeTV unit will arrive soon, as I have a recent clone of my hard drive with plain Leopard, so I can clone it back if somehow that is ever needed.

Programs I currently use work good with Snow Leopard. Some things seem a little snappier. Menubar items I liked on Leopard (ASM, free to upgrade; SoundSource, free) were updated and available to download, or still worked on Snow Leopard (YouControlTunes, free with reg.).

If there is much problem with the Elgato/EyeTV unit, beyond getting Digital sound out on Snow Leopard, I'll probably mention it here. But I've already downloaded the 3.1.3b1 version of EyeTV, even before the 2009 Hybrid unit has arrived, which will undoubtedly give 2 channel sound, for the moment, which is fine, since the 5.1 system is still in another room, and it looks like the Elgato staff is really hustling to get version 3.1.3 of EyeTV out very quickly.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone
 
Yup....

+2

Was concerned about installing Snow Leopard as I have an audio system using an mac mini core solo as a music server.

Turns out that these audio problems are not an issue for almost all folks except those who are running other sophisticated setups of audio equipment and things like eye tv. The later has proved problematic with audio in many set ups.

But I looked in sound under system preferences and it showed digital audio out.

Also checked the audio midi application in the utilities folder and made sure to update to two channel 24 bit.
 
Yeah,

The new Elgato Hybrid unit I just got is working great on Snow Leopard, at least with sound out to a 2-channel system. I'll probably return my 5.1 Digital system to the Mini at some point, though, and hopefully by that time Elgato will have the Digital sound fixed.

One program/driver that didn't work on SL was my DYMO label printer database. But DYMO's website that ver. 8.2 will remedy that soon. So, I booted from my external FW800 hard drive to print a label today.

So, I'm watching for the Elgato 3.1.3 update and the DYMO 8.2 update to make Snow Leopard more fully compatible with all the programs I use. And in the meanwhile, I like Snow Leopard well enough over Leopard to keep using Snow Leopard.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone
 
Has anyone gotten AC3 passthrough in M4V movies working in SL? As I understand, it's broken in SL with the current Perian version.

That's one major issue that's holding me from upgrading to SL - gotta have AC3 working correctly.
 
So, what does this mean? Do I have to completely uninstall EyeTV to get mc audio back on my mini?? I quit EyeTV and rebooted, but I still can't get anything other than stereo out to my receiver.

Thanks!
 
Same Problem

Hello! I have the same problem, I think...

Under Leopard, digital audio out worked fine on my early 2009 Mac Mini.

I upgraded to snow leopard, and I use eyetv (which I am not that fond of).

Before upgrading, I sent my receiver off to get repaired. Just got it back, and tried to run digital out to the receiver. The computer failed to detect the digital cable - it thought it was just headphones.

So I searched around, and found this thread.

For people who have had problems, have the problems since been solved? What solved them? Were your symptoms the same?

I also tried disabling eyetv (version 3.2.1), shutting down, unplugging all cables, and waiting ~15 minutes. After starting up again I still have the same problem. Digital out is not detected...

I know the receiver works and the cable too since my early 2009 macbook works just fine (it does not have eyetv installed). Hopefully it's not a hardware problem.

I'm especially bummed since I sent the receiver to get fixed because it's d/a convertor failed. It seems my system is doomed...
 
mac mini no sound FIX

Yep I had the same issue and was about to call Apple. But I opened up the mini again and saw that the ribbon cable was not connected to both the bottom and top parts. Once reconnected sound was working fine. Give it a try., once open it is a simple fix.
 
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