Loosing sound via HDMI cabel when plugging in headphones

That is just the way the hardware works. Plugging anything

into the audio out jack disables all other audio. It is just the

way it is.

Goldhammer wrote:

thanks for your answer, but that i had figuerd out 😁

there must be a way to go around it ?

If you want to rip the Mini apart and try to hack the hardware.

There is no software solution.

Goldhammer wrote:

thanks for your answer, but that i had figuerd out 😁

there must be a way to go around it ?

I am afraid the answer is equivalent to the infamous Doctor Doctor joke…

Patient - ‘Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this.’

Doctor - ‘Then don’t do that!’

When you plug a connector in to the speaker socket on the Mac, the hardware detects that and assumes you want to send the audio out that connection. If you want use the HDMI to send audio to the TV then do not use the Mac speaker port, if you then occasionally want to use headphones instead of sending sound via the HDMI e.g. to listen to the TV via headphones while still watching the video, then plug your headphones in to the TV.

If you want to listen to the Mac but not have the TV on then the behaviour of the Mac disabling sound on the HDMI and sending it out the speaker port is exactly what you want anyway.

Another option to consider is connecting the Mac via HDMI to an AV Receiver, and then connecting the AV Receiver to the TV. The AV Receiver will give you a lot more options about routing audio and video.

Goldhammer wrote:

there must be a way to go around it ?

Yes, there is, fortunately. At least for the Mid 2010 Mac mini (that I'm using right now). I don't know if it works also with more recent Mac mini models.

Open Audio MIDI Setup.app in /Applications/Utility, click the + (plus) button in the bottom left corner of the window and choose "Create Multi-Output Device". In the new device settings tick the HDMI "Use" checkbox and you're done. Simply go to the usual System Preferences Audio panel and choose the newly created device, without the need to unplug the audio cable from the back of the Mac mini. You can also name the new audio device as you want.

NOTE:

This is only a workaround for a deliberate choice made by Apple on OS X Lion 10.7.2 and beyond:

Mac mini: About HDMI audio and headphones

Please let Apple know (here or here) how this has made things unnecessary awkward for users and needs to be fixed (these forums don't count, they are not read by Apple's employees)!

Thanks, this solved the problem for me.