Yeti Blue Mic Not Recognized on M1 Mac

Since you have a Mac notebook with an Apple Silicon chip, that means that you have the "feature" where you must approve the connection of new USB or Thunderbolt accessories. I'm guessing that you have already done so.

Just in case: If your Mac asks you to allow an accessory to connect - Apple Support

Thanks to all for the info and to the Author for raising this issue. I too will add some data points and keep this thread active.

tl;dr

I haven't read every single post in depth, but I found what appears to be a workaround on the same exact Macbook Pro model.

Try some combination of the following 👏💻

• Try to plug the mic into a different USB-C port on the laptop (the left side ports work for me, but the right one did not)
• If on a laptop, plug it into a power source. Ensure that the battery level is above like 50% (arbitrary % value, just make sure it's at least above critical battery levels).
• If you're using a USB-C hub converter (i.e. multiple USB-A ports, ethernet, etc), try with a USB-C converter that only takes a single connection.
• Try to plug the mic into the USB-C adapter using a different USB cable

Disclaimer 🙈

I'm not sure if what I've observed is fully consistent with the Author's observations. The fact that they observe the same behavior in response to the presence of a file does seem like a software problem. So there ultimately could be multiple issues at play. My workaround is also not what I'd call "exhaustively tested", tho I'm fairly confident in the rationale, and it works even after a reboot. I go into detail down below for those that are curious.

My observations 💻 👀

I also see Yeti Blue Mic weirdness on my M1 Macbook Pro on Sonoma--an outdated version though: 14.2.1.

My Macbook Pro is running on battery.

I'm using an IXCC USB-C adapter. I trust it because I've used it with this laptop for other high-powered devices.

At first, the Mic showed up in Mac's Sound Input and even recorded in Audacity, but it kept disconnecting/reconnecting when I would move the Mic USB wire around.

Then the Mic started to show up in Sonoma's Audio Input Device list and detect audio, but it wasn't visible in Audacity.

At another point in time with a different USB cable, Sonoma straight up crashed. This happened with the cable in the right side USB-C port, which is next to the HDMI port on this Macbook Pro.

I tried on my Windows 10 desktop, and I discovered that the Yeti mic's USB cable was faulty.

With yet another USB cable, the mic works perfectly fine on Windows (direct USB connection, no USB-C adapter).

Using this same cable on Mac, it showed up in the Audio Input Device list once again, but not in Audacity.

I then switched the USB-C adapter to a different USB port on the Macbook. THIS WORKED. As in, I could record in Audacity and hear the recording in glorious clarity. I don't know if it will last, but it works for now. Nothing changed except that I switched from the right side USB-C adapter to the left side USB-C adapter closest to me.

My guess as to why this works?

USB-C port power delivery. This is simply an intuitive guess based on my experience in local multiplayer video game development* and DJ mixing with multiple USB MIDI controllers connected to this same laptop.

The Yeti Blue Mic I have is quite hefty, has lots of lights, so it would seem to need a good amount of power.

Anyway, after it started working, it hit me. I noticed that the M1 Macbook pro USB-C ports on the left side are right next to the charging port. Without looking at the Macbook's schematics, I'd guess that the battery has got to be close to the charging port, right? Given this, I'd say that the USB-C ports on the left (charging) side get more power than the one on the right.

I think the brief connection I saw was when the right side USB-C port was delivering enough power to function. The disconnection would happen when the USB-C power delivery fell below a functional connection threshold for the Mic.

--

*In that setup, we had up to 4 XBox 360 gamepads connected to a single USB hub. We would run the game on a laptop. After a while (maybe around an hour), the controllers started to disconnect. The gamepad power lights turned off. At the time, I was kind of freaking out and didn't know what was wrong.

After some more experience, I feel like it was something to do with power. That experience was something like: I didn't notice the issue after I plugged the laptop into a power source.

Contact the microphone vendor for support.

Logitech is the vendor of record for Yeti products and either they can help you or cannot. Unless some magician contributor who owns a current Blue Yeti in this community has a permanent fix — your topic will remain unsolved — unless you replace that Yeti with another microphone product that has actual vendor support on Sonoma or later.

Randomly removing Apple files has not shown to be the answer either, and Apple has no responsibility for Logitech products.

I was having exactly this problem with my approx 10 year old Blue Yeti. MacBook Pro 14" 2021, Apple M1 Pro, macOS Sonoma 14.5. I followed the instructions in and they worked.

However - Zoom seems to keep recreating /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/ZoomAudioDevice.driver, so I have to keep deleting it and restarting to get my microphone back.

Some posts have suggested that the problem might be that older Blue Yetis are somehow incompatible, so I treated myself to a new Blue Yeti X. Today, I plugged it in, and it showed up as a USB device in System Report, but not in Sound settings. I went through the instructions again, restarted, and my Blue Yeti X showed up.

So - brand new mic, new cable, and I'm still having this issue. Everything worked fine until a couple of months ago, so it seems to be something in macOS that's changed.

[Edited by Moderator]

I am having the same issue with my Yeti Nano! I have deleted blue voice and all related software but the issue remains. I have a MacBook Pro 14in, M3 Pro. Only thing that works for me is deleting `/Library/Preferences/Audio/com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist` and `/Library/Preferences/Audio/com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist`. Trying to get a support ticket with Logitech as well.