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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

Reply
82 replies

Aug 15, 2011 11:48 AM in response to Svende

sorry, my mistake 🙂, maybe if you have a install medium, like snow leopard (I think snow leopard installer is able to mount the lion filesystem) then you open terminal in the installer, and mount the FS (use diskutil to locate the partition), and copy the downloaded file from an usb drive 🙂



if you havent got any install medium it is an dead end...


the recovery discs have the terminal feature - i guess...

Aug 18, 2011 12:30 AM in response to bjarnehr

I have two Macbook Pro early 2010's one with an SSD and one without, only the one with the SSD has this problem.


This fixes the problem instantly but temporarily ie it comes back from time to time (Thanks bjarnehr 🙂 )


terminal:


sudo -i

"enter your password"

as root :

launchctl stop com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

Aug 18, 2011 3:29 PM in response to danb1974

Same problem here, same setup (1 with SSD and another with a 320 HD) and only the one with SSD has the problem. Installed the update, restarted once, no go, restarted again, success! Shut down for the night, and on the next morning, problem came back. No audio control... Since I always have an earphone handy, my temporary solution is to plug in and out, then it works fine. I'll wait for another update before messing with command lines.

Aug 18, 2011 5:22 PM in response to danb1974

I had the same problem and fixed it on a MacBook Pro 13" using a combination of the methods explained here:


1. I enabled the F1, F2, etc keys to function as standard function keys option.

2. I held down the fn key and the shift key to increase/decrease volume (using fn+shift let's you increase/decrease volume without the sound effects.

3. I plugged in earphones and played a song on iTunes then increased/decreased volume via keys + fn-key

4. I unplugged the earphones and set the function keys back to the previous behaviour and the sound controls worked fine ever since, even after restarts


hth

Sep 7, 2011 8:08 PM in response to danb1974

You can do as suggested above with an elevated TextEdit session. Then, copy and paste the original contents of the .plist file into a new file, save as a backup. Paste the following into the original, now empty file, and save it. You may have to reboot.

The contents come from a working Snow Leopard mini, but fixed the issue on my 2010 MBP i7. The mini is an '07 Core2Duo that I own.


Here is the contents of the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>EnableTransactions</key>

<true/>

<key>Label</key>

<string>com.apple.audio.coreaudiod</string>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>/usr/sbin/coreaudiod</string>

</array>

<key>KeepAlive</key>

<false/>

<key>MachServices</key>

<dict>

<key>com.apple.audio.coreaudiod</key>

<dict>

<key>ResetAtClose</key>

<true/>

</dict>

</dict>

<key>UserName</key>

<string>_coreaudiod</string>

<key>GroupName</key>

<string>_coreaudiod</string>

</dict>

</plist>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"><plist version="1.0"><dict> <key>EnableTransactions</key> <true/> <key>Label</key> <string>com. apple.audio.coreaudiod</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>/usr/sbin/coreaudiod</string> </array> <key>KeepAlive</key> <false/> <key>MachServices</key> <dict> <key>com.apple.audio.coreaudiod</key> <dict> <key>ResetAtClose</key> <true/> </dict> </dict> <key>UserName</key> <string>_coreaudiod</string> <key>GroupName</key> <string>_coreaudiod</string></dict></plist>



Good luck all, this issue had my brain broken.

Sep 7, 2011 8:16 PM in response to sjrozas

You can see my post above or also try creating a backup of the plist and then deleting the file altogether. Reboot and see if that helps.

.plists are just preference files and should be recreated automatically on reboot.

I did not try the delete method, and when I pasted the code from my Mac Mini's file, it worked just fine without even a need to reboot.


Keep in mind my MacBook Pro did not have Internal Speakers listed at all in System Preferences, and it just happened all of the sudden today. Lion was working fine for about a week after I did a clean install.


It is now back to normal, and it worked through a reboot so the change is persistent so far.

Good luck.

Sep 16, 2011 9:09 AM in response to bjarnehr

Automatic solution:


If you want to make it automatically (i.e. to automatically repair your vollume control on each restart),

you can make the following script in AppleScript Editor (copy and past the text into AppleScript):


do shell script "sudo -i launchctl stop com.apple.audio.coreaudiod; launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod" password "YOUR ADMIN PASSWORD" with administrator privileges


Don't forget to substitute "YOUR ADMIN PASSWORD" with your real admin password!


Save it as "audio-control.app" (File Type: Application) to Applications folder.

Then open System Preferences > Users and Groups, go to "Login" tab and add this script to the list.


It should work like a charm. Your audio control should be OK on each restart.

Volume control problem in Lion

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