I can't select my Airplay speakers in the Sound control panel. Airplay works fine from iTunes, but when I try to selct it in the Sound control panel, I click on the Airplay speakers and the selection bounces back up to Line out. Restarting the machine fixes the problem for a while, but that's not really a solution.
Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Are your AirPlay speakers attached to something like an Airport Express?
I suggest opening the AirPort Utility (in your Applications > Utilities folder) and making sure you have the latest firmware on your devices. (Click each device to do so.)
Yes, the speakers are attached to a brand new Airport Express, firmware 7.6.2.
Sounds good! (Pun intended.)
When you say "I can't select my Airplay speakers in the sound control panel." --
Does "sound control panel" mean what you see in System Preferences > Sound, or what you see at the bottom of iTunes when you select which speakers to use, or something else?
Sorry for not being clear: I can not select my Airplay speakers in System Preferences/Sound. I can select it using the icon in the lower right hand corner of iTunes. When I try in System Preferences/Sound, I click on the Airplay speakers and the selection goes back to what was formerly selected.
I'd like to use the Airplay speakers for everything, but I can't hear system sounds, games, etc.
Try deleting the sound preferences file as follows:
In Finder, press "Go" from the menu and hold the option key down. Choose "Library" (which is only visible when holding the option key). Go to the Preferences folder in Library.
Look for the file called "com.apple.soundpref.plist". Drag it to the trash. See if that fixes your issue. If it does, great, you can empty the trash. If it does not, you might consider restoring the file.
Hope this helps!
Deleted the file: made no difference.
Oddly enough, the sound pref file doesn't look like it was automatically recreated either.
Too bad.
If you're up to it, consider trying the same deletion on:
com.apple.systemsound.plist
Maybe that's the culprit.
Now that's weird. That file doesn't exist on my machine.
Interesting. Maybe I just have it because I played with the system sounds a bit (on the "Sound Effects" tab).
I wonder if you have other preference files that might have "sound" in their names of the form:
com.apple. [??? sound ???] .plist
If so, you might consider deleting those.
Found the file: my mistake. Didn't know that the Finder's Find feature didn't automatically include system files.
Unfortunately, it didn't help.
Looks like this may be an Apple bug: http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1412191.html
You have to restart the core audio be pasting the following line into termnal
sudo kill `ps -ax | grep 'coreaudiod' | grep 'sbin' |awk '{print $1}'`
Dynamite. This solved my issue.
Assigning a fixed IP address to the device (either via DHCP reservation or AppleTV config) will fix the issue permanently.
Can't select Airplay in Sound control panel
