Internal Mic not working

Hi,

Can I check you have these settings ?

1) System Preferences > Sound > Input tab
The Mic should be the selected item
The Volume slider should be far enough to the right to get the Blue bar to about 3/4s when you talk.
If it gets all the way to the right the OS software will "cut" the audio to "Protect" the audio side of things.

2) iChat > Preferences > Audio/Video section
This should have the same Mic Selected in the Microphone Drop Down.
If System Preferences only had one item you will not get the drop down (those with Line In only such as Mac Minis)

3) In the Menu to the right of the Buddies one.
This is normally called Video but can be called Audio (it changes if you don't have a camera Plugged in on some models)
This should have the Microphone Enabled item ticked.
Selecting the Item toggles the tick and the Mic On or Off depending on current setting.

NOTE:
Input is the sound that your Buddy gets to hear
Output is the result of what your Buddy sends you.
iChat does not do Play-through so that you hear your own Input/voice.



9:55 PM Monday; April 11, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Hi,

So in System Preferences you can see the blue bar move and the corresponding Green Bar in the iChat Video Preferences also moves ?

Does the Buddy (If using iChat) show any incoming Audio Signal from you ?
They will need to go to the Connection Doctor (Video Menu) and look that the Stats tab.

Ideally this should be green and at 100%

Is it different in Audio Only chats ?

In iChat > Preferences > Alerts
Change the top drop down to Video Invitation
Is the AppleScript option now ticked ?
If it is, is there any Apple Script List and does that do anything to the Volume ?
(I have one but it increase the Master volume (output) which I normally keep low)

Any Further replies from me will be delayed by sleep and other things (about 16 hours or so - it does not mean I have forgotten you)



10:39 PM Monday; April 11, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Hi,

I am not sure we are on the same page 🙂

I am not sure if you cannot hear your Buddy or if they cannot hear you.

If this Green bar pointed to by the Orange Arrow in this pic mean you are getting nothing from System Preferences > Sound > Input tab or the Mic Is Off.


You will not hear this at your end during a chat (Or in fact visiting this Preview)

Your Buddy's incoming Audio and Video is seen in these two green bars

It is this that you will hear from iChat ( IF the Output drop down (if it shows) matches System Preferences > Sound > Output tab choice.) if your Buddy is talking. (Green bar means Audio In getting to you. It does not mean there is anything in the Audio as they may have Mute On)

If it is you that is not hearing things check the following:-
1) System Preferences > Sound > Output and iChat > Preferences > Video Section > Output Drop down has the same Output sound devices selected.

2) If you can not see the Green bar move at the Orange Arrow point (first Pic) then you need to check your settings again.

3) If 1) checks out and you are not getting a green bar in the Connection Doctor for Audio the problem is at the other end.



7:27 PM Tuesday; April 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Ok,

In that case we are talking about your end.

First of All go to the Video Menu and double Check the Microphone Enabled item is ticked.
If Speech is moving the System Preferences > Sound > Input bar but not the iChat one then this may be the cause.

Then try a Video Chat and click the Mute On and Off (Leave a few seconds in between to get that data written to the .plist) Technically when you end a chat the Mute should be ON again at the Next chat (it will not get set to Off between chats)

If those to things do not help...
With that info you probably need to delete com.apple.ichat.plist as this .plist hold the volume settings for iChat. (This is despite not being able to adjust it in iChat's own settings)

This .plist is found in your Home Folder/Library/Preferences and should be Dragged to the Trash.
iChat then needs to be restarted.

Restarting iChat will make the .plist get re-written from defaults held in the app itself.

IMPORTNT NOTE
Deleting this particular .plist deletes all the settings you may have changed in iChat's Preferences with the exception of the Accounts pane (this is read back from the Keychain)

That will be:-
Font
Any Colour you chose for the Font.
The Colour of the IM itself (Balloon colour normally)
Whether you Save Transcripts, and any Sub options in iChat 4 and 5
Anything in the general section.
Anything in the Alerts section.

These will need to be re-set.



8:16 PM Tuesday; April 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Hi,

Mine is Identified as
VCDefaultMic > AppleUSBAudioEngine:Sonix Technology Co., Ltd.:USB 2.0 Camera:52100000:3

It appears the same whether I use Property List Editor or Quick Look to study the .plist

Mine is the Mic in my USB 2.0 UVC compliant camera (at present).

Facetime and iChat both use an item called vcencoder when producing Video and Audio chats.

Does this appear to be running in the Activity Monitor when you try Video in either App ?



9:33 PM Tuesday; April 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Hi,

I was trying to ignore the Soundflower issue as it has not come up for a Long time.

There have been times in iChat's past when the version of Soundflower has not always worked with the latest update.

Is your Soundflower up-to-Date ?

Their front page only lists up to 10.5 http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/
A very quick scan of their Forums did not show me anything with iChat or Face Time in the title (not that those would be all that were about those two).
I am also not sure the Forums deal with SoundFlower.

Edit.
It looks like th latest version is here http://code.google.com/p/soundflower/downloads/list



10:02 PM Tuesday; April 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)

Ok,

Next Step.
Open the Audio MIDI setup thing in the Applications/Utilities folder
Check that the Sound Input device there is also the Internal Mic.
Next check that the sample rate is 44100

I am not sure about the Channels as it was such a long time ago this used to pop up.
I think it should be two channels even though iChat is Mono.



10:25 PM Tuesday; April 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Humm,

That seems to prove that SoundFlower did indeed get their act together which is why it is not popping up now.

It is late here and I am going to sleep on this for a while.

In the meantime would you mind doing this:-

QUit ichat if Open
Open Terminal
Paste the bold test below into Terminal and hit Enter

/Applications/iChat.app/Contents/MacOS/iChat -errorLogLevel 7

This will cause iChat to Launch and create a log of doing so in the Terminal Window.

When the Buddy List has finished loading the Buddies the Log should pause with some CommNAT details (a port listing and some test results showing either 1s or 0s)

At this point Quit iChat in the normally way.

Copy the Whole log and save it in TextEdit.

Quit Terminal

Post the log here please.
This may give some more details about what Mic iChat really thinks it is using and if it is On.

It should be about 1/3 of the way down after the Bandwidth bits (BDW) and may return a NULL device. (NULL in this cases seems to be the default item)

The Console Utility (in Applications/Utilities) should also show messages about iChat and have timed entries about where it is linking in to.
Is there anything relevant there ?



10:45 PM Tuesday; April 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"