No audio when playing Photos app video

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Level 5

6,165 points

No audio when playing Photos app video

Hello,

I need help figuring something out.

I have some videos on my iPhone from YouTube that are saved in my Photos app. The audio for some of these videos was working fine when I first saved them to my Photos app. However, something happened that caused the audio button to turn grey and the audio to disappear from the video:

This is the “Options Bar” below the video with no sound. Notice the greyed out volume option which allows you to turn the audio on and off for the video. (When it’s blue, that is!)

You used to be able to transfer the video to the VLC app (third-party app,) which somehow brought the audio back to the video. But even this doesn’t work anymore.

Any suggestions in fixing this issue are appreciated. Thanks.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Apr 2, 2023 9:46 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

15,031 points

Aug 14, 2023 1:12 AM in response to Matti Haveri

> However, QuickTime Player can play (with a warning about compatibility) H.264/H.265 wrapped as .mp4 but if it has A-OPUS audio, it is muted

I noticed that macOS 13.5 Ventura Photos.app does not import such .mp4 with A-OPUS audio.

And if such (H.264) movie with A-OPUS audio is among other importable movies, Photos silently fails to import some of them. Not good.

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Answer 2

Aug 13, 2023 1:26 PM in response to H1290

I too had this problem AND I'm using icloud. When I go to edit the video, a white circle shows up on the lower right hand corner and it appears to indicate that the video has been completely down loaded from the cloud. THEN the music plays. I suspect the audio tracks are the last thing that is stored in the file and is the last thing to be downloaded.

If Apple is listening, it would be great to have photos just put up a message saying the file is being transported from icloud and THEN play.

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Answer 3

Aug 13, 2023 11:54 PM in response to H1290

> from YouTube

Does the movie have A-OPUS audio? You can check that with MediaInfo or Invisor. Or play the movie with IINA and check the codecs there.

Many YouTube movies have VP8/VP9 video and A-OPUS audio wrapped as .webm or .mkv which QuickTime Player does not play.

However, QuickTime Player can play (with a warning about compatibility) H.264/H.265 wrapped as .mp4 but if it has A-OPUS audio, it is muted.

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Answer 4

H1290 Author

Level 5

6,165 points

Aug 14, 2023 7:39 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thank you kindly for responding, Matti!

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this thread in My Subscriptions! 🤣

It may be worth noting that these are videos I’m referring to; they are merely 2-3 minutes long.

Although I appreciate your advice and information, I must tell you that after a few months of waiting, I deleted all such videos. So, problem solved?

Thanks again for talking the time to respond, and have a wonderful day. You too, bert_home!

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Answer 5

tgji

Level 1

4 points

Nov 27, 2023 4:06 AM in response to bert_home

This worked for me. Able to play sound after doing the “edit” thing and allowing it to download.

For me, these are old home videos digitized from VHS using QuickTime for capture and saving the file (as .mov) – so it’s not an example of “well sorry but you stepped outside the apple ecosystem for a second so we can’t help you” – this truly seems like an Apple issue, so I’m gonna send them a report.

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No audio when playing Photos app video

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