Volume control problem in Lion

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danb1974 Author

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Volume control problem in Lion

MBP 13" mid 2010 (7.1) just installed a fresh copy of Lion. After reboot volume control does not work (audio device - which is internal speakers - has no controls), but there is sound. After inserting headphones the volume control starts working, and remains functional after removing the headphones.

Basically after each reboot I have to temporary plug headphones to get volume control working. Nothing in dmesg or system.log

I'm familiar with linux so if you tell me how to debug this I'll happily do it, not afraid at all of command line or searching through logs.

(and you'd think that having control both over hardware and software would prevent such frustrating problems)

Macbook Pro 2010, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 23, 2011 11:21 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 23, 2011 11:26 AM in response to danb1974

I would first try resetting the pram

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

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Answer 2

danb1974 Author

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Jul 23, 2011 11:28 AM in response to leroydouglas

First thing I tried, didn't help.

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Answer 3

MJNC

Level 1

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Jul 23, 2011 5:46 PM in response to danb1974

I'm having exactly the same issue. Volume keys (F10-F12) don't work until I plug in headphones. Then when I reboot the problem comes back. I've tried resetting PRAM and that didn't fix it. I also tried playing around with the "Use all F1, F2, etc." button in System Preferences -> Keyboard. Turning it on made things behave bizarrely -- F11 seemed to be taking me to Dashboard. With it off (default) it also doesn't work.

Any suggestions? These keys are two of my most used keys...

Thanks!

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Answer 4

Jul 24, 2011 1:47 PM in response to danb1974

I too am having the exact problem, resetting PRAM works sometimes, I also tried deleting plist sound files, no go. I have created a new users, no go. I have ran Apple hardware test, nothing detected. Yes plugging in the headphones works until I reboot or shutdown still irrating...I have been working on this issue all day... I just called an Apple Store and they to have heard of this and recommended a fresh install of Lion or wait for an Apple fix through Software Update 😟

Adam

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Answer 5

kracek

Level 1

14 points

Jul 25, 2011 10:51 AM in response to danb1974

Same here. Macbook Pro 8,1 Early 2011.

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Answer 6

danb1974 Author

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Jul 25, 2011 12:39 PM in response to danb1974

It looks more like a race condition or uninitialized variable in the kernel sound driver. That's not good since it may not affect too many people and may not be easy to reproduce by the developers (if it makes it onto apple's bug list)

One day it happened after every restart, for at least 5 restarts.

The other day it happened only after shutdown/poweron.

So I don't think the pram reset is more then a coincidence.

Only good think is you don't need to reboot often, sleep (standby) works just fine and the battery drain is minimal.

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Answer 7

Jul 25, 2011 1:58 PM in response to danb1974

Ok I located this command somewhere in Apple Support Communities (so no credit to me)

sudo kill -9 `ps ax|grep 'coreaudio[a-z]' |awk '{print $1}'`

then I used the pico command to create a file then made it executable then placed it into the login Items but so far it requires a admin password to execute (this does the same thing as plugging in the headphones)

Adam

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