Mac Pro sound defaults to internal speakers after restart/shutdown.

Sounds reverts from line out to internal speakers upon shut down or restart.

I have zapped the Pram (Command-Option-PR upon restart until second chime).
I have four files in my MacintoshHD/Library/Preferences/Audio folder:
com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist~orig
com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist
com.apple.audio.SystemsSetting.plist~orig

deleted all those files. Upon restart - they were not recreated. And problem continues.

Same problem -- anyone solve this? Brand new Mac Pro with SL installed. Read all the threads. Deleted all prefs. Still reverts to internal speakers. Stranger still, when I set the sound to the external speakers, the keyboard volume keys do not work either. Strange!

My post in another forum:

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 create the file.

That worked. Thanks!

Oh well.. upon restart the keyboard stops controlling the speaker sound... only controls the internal speaker sound.. This has to be a flaw in SL.

Having the same stupid issue and have tried everything to no avail.

Brand new MacPro quad, SL.

None of my macbook pro's do this and all have snow leopard.

Do the above command line instructions, they do work.

This just happened with a fresh install, no restores or anything.


I will try as suggested and report back tomorrow.

Yes, they do work. But are you still having issues with the keyboard shortcuts (F10-F12) and not raising or lowering the volume on external speakers? I had to put the volume control in the menu bar as a shortcut... Seems to be an intermittent problem.. Sometimes it works with the keyboard..

Yeah, been fighting with this too. I delete the plists but it always comes back. I don't want to lose the keyboard functionality or screw anything up so I guess I'm going to have to wait to apple to fix this one. And on that note... please fix it. 😉

I have a feeling that this is a snow leopard issue specific to the mac pro. Anyone else with a new macpro using leopard and have this issue?

I have reported the bug to apple.. Not sure how long it takes before they even look at the issue.

just delete the audio directory and create it using the proper permissions (see prior post). my volume works from my keyboard and so does the half dozen or so machines i've done it on.

tbartoncv wrote:
just delete the audio directory and create it using the proper permissions (see prior post). my volume works from my keyboard and so does the half dozen or so machines i've done it on.

Well I must have done something wrong, because it seems to be working now. Thank you!

and it's back.. not working again. Oh well.