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Level 1

31 points

Sound/volume shortcuts, balance.

not really a problem, more of a confusion. It started when i noticed that there was no sound coming out of one of the speakers, i thought the sound card had broken after testing some external speakers, before wondering if it was because of some setting of the 'balance'. after mooching around system preferences, i found the balance meter, and sure enough it was all the way to the left.

this has now happened on a number of occasions, yet i never change the setting! i was wondering whether there was a shortcut (command, option, left for example) or something which can change the balance without me directly altering it in system preferences.

Phil

iBook G4 12", Mac OS X (10.4.5), 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 with 512 MB RAM

Posted on Feb 25, 2006 8:17 AM

Best reply

Dr. Smoke

Level 9

56,586 points

Posted on Feb 25, 2006 8:34 AM

Hi, Phil.

There was a bug like this under Jagaur. The problem would happen if you rapidly pressed the keyboard volume keys while the processor is heavily loaded. If was documented in "Mac OS X 10.2: Audio Balance Unexpectedly Drifts." I've not seen any reports like this under Tiger, but it's something you might want to check.

What external speakers are you using? In what audio apps do you first notice the problem?

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

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24 replies

DBJ

Level 1

30 points

May 1, 2006 11:59 AM in response to Phil Hale

I'm busy for the next couple of days, but I'll see what I can do. Post back here if I haven't called by Sunday.

mcbeth

Level 1

0 points

Jun 3, 2006 2:58 PM in response to Phil Hale

I've got this problem, too.

Phil Hale Author

Level 1

31 points

Jun 4, 2006 2:04 AM in response to mcbeth

nice to hear, shame theres nothing we can do about it 😟

say here if you have any luck in fixing it, or even better if you have applecare give them a call and let us know what was said.

otherwise, watch this space!

Phil

Aug 30, 2006 7:52 AM in response to Phil Hale

I'm feeling all your pain.

I just posted this bug report in the hopes of maybe sparking some interest from them about this.

--------------------
I've filed this under Desktop/Finder/Filesystem because I couldn't find anywhere more appropriate.

Myself and many others (as documented at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2467412) are experiencing an extremely irritating bug where the volume randomly drifts to either side, occasionally as drastically as to totally cut off one channel. As stated in the discussion it has gotten to the problem where a lot of people (myself included) are checking the volume balance regularly before playing a song. It happens many times a day. It got to the stage where I actually wrote an AppleScript that was triggered by a cron script to reset the balance every 20 minutes.

If it's any help, this same issue occured back in 10.2 ( http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25466). It seems to happen mostly when you use the machine's volume/F keys to adjust, while the machine is under heavy load, but it's hard to be sure. I've just recently clean reinstalled my OS, played a song and brought up the balance pref pane and it's off centre :/

My machine is a 1Ghz 12" DVI PowerBook and I'm running 10.4.7. Pretty pretty pretty please please Apple will you fix this bug?

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Aug 30, 2006 7:53 AM in response to Ben Wood1

btw could an admin please remove the 1 from the end of my name? I have no idea what happened there...

Phil Hale Author

Level 1

31 points

Aug 30, 2006 10:04 AM in response to Ben Wood1

i think the sheer length of time this topics been active speaks for itself, i really can't see this taking much of someones time to sort out. **** (EDIT: ***, it wont let me say ****!!??), they could even have a keynote dedicated to it lol.

cant help but be really interested in this applescript you speak of, i contemplated it but didnt know where to start :-/

any chance you could send me the script, pretty pretty please? 😀

Phil

EDIT: just re-read the thread, do you have any free applecare left? i think that might be are last hope what with apple support staff leaving the discussions

echoing Dr. Smoke's wise words,

Good Luck!

Oct 21, 2006 10:01 AM in response to Phil Hale

Late comer just wanting to add how much this problem annoys him and how much he would like apple to fix it! A lot.

Phil Hale Author

Level 1

31 points

Oct 21, 2006 11:30 AM in response to johnemarion

Welcome!

i think with the length of this thread, Apple should devote an entire forum for us poor unhappy souls!

on a serious note, i suppose apple aren't listening, so is there anyone who feels like anaylising the code or something to find a solution? i imagine this is a problem that affects all users, but its only people with lower spec machines that suffer the most. johnmarion, what's your system like?

surely somebody could write a script or something which chages the volume first, then displays the 'bezel' (?) and makes the blip sound. that way the volume will adjust ok, but the display will be out of sync.

anyone? ideas?
Phil

Oct 30, 2006 7:53 AM in response to Phil Hale

My method was kind of kludgy and relied on SEC Helper from Sony Ericsson clicker to work, but what if someone made a small app to do this automatically. You could post it on macupdate 🙂 I've just bought a new macbook now where the problem isn't occurring, so im in non-volume checking bliss right now 😀

Sound/volume shortcuts, balance.