Internal speakers not working with Mountain Lion

I did this

Put your Mac to sleep by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Sleep. Wake the computer after it has gone to sleep.

And amazingly, it worked-didn't have to restart or anything. Just put it to sleep and woke it up! Weird.

Amazing, this worked for me as well!

My speakers were working fine at work this afternoon (in fact, they kind of embarrassed me at one point) and then I got home 2hrs later and stuck red light. I tried a bunch of things here too, but only the Sleep cure worked. Crazy! Thanks, MacLiz! 🙂

I had the same problem with 10.8.2, which just started this morning, on a 2008 MBP. The sleep fix did not initially work, but after sleeping and waking a few times, then restarting, the internal speakers are working again. The only recent upgrade, last week I believe, was a recommended Safari update from the App Store. It seems unlikely that had anything to do with the problem, because I don't use Safari very often, and not at all since the update.

Is it the same as this issue https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3912113?start=0&tstart=0 ? The "fix" suggested there of resetting the SMC with the headphones plugged in worked for me.

Plugging the headphones in and out worked for me! Took like 4 times but it finally kicked in. Thanks!

Yes! Thank you. I did everything, SMC, NVRAM, PRAM, Sleep... The one thing that worked was plugging and unplugging the headphones several times. Thanks for the post.

I had the same problem but it happen when I disconected my Beats headphones.. when I contected it & disconected it again my spearkers started to work again...

Had same issue but sort of found a fix and something interesting.

My MBP is the last model of the 17"

My internal audio was sort off and on. volume up and down button work work sometimes.

After reading this i checked the little headphone port and there is a bright light inside flickering.

Must be some sort of sensor.

Anyways, I blasted the heck out of the hole with a can of duster air and boom - fixed.

Im pretty sure it's not software releated because my problem was very off and on adn didnt happen for quite a while after 10.8.2. I'm just guessing it's a sensor.

i also should note that when it was happening it must have been flickering on and off and slowing things down because my mbp was "hanging" alot until i fixed it too.

I spilled some tea on my laptop. After leaving it off for a short period I turned it back on and although I could hear sounds up until I logged into an account. Once I was logged in (on any account) my internal speakers weren't recognized (everything was greyed out)

I thought I killed them with the liquid but they worked booting and at the login screen. I reset the SMC and NVRAM and despite apple not listing anything speaker related as something those two items are responsible for, they're working now. Just wanted to add that in case anyone having a similar problem reads this.

Great tip. This fixed the problem for me.

In my case:

• normal startup chime
• no sound from internal speakers, taskbar icon grayed out
• Internal speakers disappeared from the list in System prefs -> Sound -> Output
• normal sound through headphones
• noticed the red light from inside the headphone jack, but it quickly turned off and stayed off

What did NOT work:

• multiple sleep/wake cycles
• multiple reboot cycles
• PRAM reset
• SMC reset
• plugging in and out the headphones multiple times

What did work:

remembering that someone reported fixing the problem with a toothpick, I repeated the in/out plugging of the headphones while applying a little bit of gentle wiggling inside. I noticed that the sound icon would stay black for a moment longer each time I pulled the plug, and then it just stayed on and the sound now works again.

It seems to me that this behavior has nothing to do with the OS, and that reports of the problem occurring after an update are probably a coincidence. A faulty small switch is a more likely cause.

Cheers,

Giuseppe

I'd like to confirm that this is probably the case. I also tried all the fixes, but nothing worked apart from inserting the headphones jack and wiggling it gently. Looks like the faulty switch is causing it somehow.

I am on a 2009 MacBook Pro with latest Mountain Lion 10.8.2

Thank you your steps work for me but i still dont understand why stopped working.

I tried all of the troubleshoot methods under the sun for this issue! litterally just stuck a toothpick in the headphone jack and interal speaker turned right on. Apple support, please take note and offer this advice to all apple users. 🙂

Thanks Giuseppe!

Tried all of the methods described above (SMC/PRAM/Compressed Air, Headphone jack microplug) and nothing has worked. I still only see "Digital Out" as an audio oupt option.....nothing for internal speakers. This is frustrating.

15" Macbook Pro - Early 2011