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NewPro User Author

Level 1

0 points

Intense FaceTime feedback after upgrade to 10.9

Hi Folks!

After the update to 10.9, a few days ago, I cannot make Face Time calls without terrible feedback on the other end.. I have tried turning the volume and internal microphone volume way down to zero and moving it up slowly in hope of making it go away. Then selecting the cancel ambient noise option in audio but the other person still hears a pronounced echo and feedback even with the my mic and speaker levels next to nothing..

I don't have any third party audio drivers on this system as I use my Mini for that, so everything is stock.

Before the update, FaceTime worked as advertised and I could turn the volume up to it's limits and literally walk around the house and talk to the person on the other end of the connection on a perfect audio and video connection. The laptop cancelled out well and there was no echo or feedback.

As of the update, that's all gone...

Does anyone have any ideas that might help this problem?

Thanks!

2012 15" MBP 2.2 i7 / 16Gb / 512Gb SSD

Posted on Oct 26, 2013 5:50 PM

49 replies

May 28, 2014 1:49 PM in response to Carciofo

I tried other tests and arrived at re-installing Mavericks. After re-installation the echo is still there.

I think I'll take a trip to the Liverpool Genius Bar.

Zeek78

Level 1

4 points

May 29, 2014 4:12 AM in response to malcolmchisholm

You have to delete the driv, and do a clean install of the osx, reinstallation will not work. I have tried. Just remember to have back up, and use the migration tool for recovering your files. If you restore from time machine the echo will still be there.

NewPro User Author

Level 1

0 points

May 31, 2014 9:20 PM in response to NewPro User

Others have seem to found the solution to this problem, and I'm appreciative to all who have offered observation and help with this issue.

After countless updates, and complete formats of the HD, the download of the official 10.9.3 from a App Store download and a clean format of the drive worked.. I unpacked the install onto a USB drive and installed it clean With approriate issues..

Like others have suggested, you cannot restore from a Time Machine backup as it will resore files that create the situation again..

As Zeek78 said above, you can migrate back to normal.. That did not work for me.. I had to restore manually, noting file locations, etc.. Rebuild mail accounts and applications from a HDD backup.

But..... After an hour in a FT connection tonight, there was no echo.. I could turn it all the way up and walk around the house and the other person could hear me perfectly..

I hope this problem is in the past..

My sincere thanks to everyone above for all their help with this issue.

Jun 20, 2014 8:48 PM in response to NewPro User

I have this problem on a 27" iMac late 2013 version as well, using Mavericks 10.9.3. It occurs every time using my FaceTime with an iOS device on the remote end (I have not test Mac to Mac yet). The remote end hears a strong echo of themselves and makes it unusable. Everything sounds normal to me on my side.

I know it is FaceTime because Skype in the same situation has zero echo. Using headphones or bluetooth solves the problem, as the problem seems to be the 'speakerphone' aspect of it in the default setup. It is so bad like others have said FaceTime is unusable on the iMac and I have to use another iOS device to answer or call. This is a good way to drum up usage for Skype on my Mac!

Apple, please fix!!

NewPro User Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 20, 2014 10:05 PM in response to thelightofthewicked

Hi there..

Having been through this for the past 9 months, I share your frustration.. Although this is the first that I have heard of it from an iMac.

A few questions..

- Did you, "upgrade" to Mavericks, do a "clean install" or did the machine come with Mavericks installed?

- What was the last OS X version you were running before the echo appeared and did you introduce ANY software since 10.9?

- Have you added any audio hardware, i.e.; external microphones, speakers, digital audio converters?

- Last question is, do you have a Time Machine or a backup of your iMac?

Yours is the first iMac I've heard of this problem, but I think you can get past it with some careful steps, as I sincerely doubt Apple will do anything about it.

Cheers...

Jun 21, 2014 10:59 AM in response to NewPro User

Hello, thanks for your inquiry. It would be nice to narrow down the root cause of this problem for Apple. I am surprised they are not aware of it yet, it sounds like the kind of bug that would affect everybody with a Mac (either MacBooks or iMacs). Of course if it just us unlucky few, that would be very unfortunate as it may never get fixed.

To answer your questions:

This iMac (late 2013 version) came with Mavericks pre-installed. I immediately updated whatever it started as to 10.9.2 and most recently to 10.9.3. It never had any pre-Mavericks version of Mac OS X on it.
I am not sure if this problem did not ever exist for me. I seem to think it was present in 10.9.2 but I wasn't keeping track of the problem then like I am now. It is definitely here in 10.9.3. I tend to think it's been a problem the entire time I've had this Mac.
I did not add any speakers or optical-out or anything audio-related.
Yes I have Time Machine running in the background, I set it up within a week of getting this Mac after migrating over from a PC and reformatting my external hard drive from NTFS to HFS+.

I am hoping Yosemite will fix this, but if not how do you think I should go about this.

NewPro User Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 21, 2014 5:24 PM in response to thelightofthewicked

While I cannot tell you exactly what will work for you, I doubt that you will get any attention from Apple short of lugging a 27" iMac to a local store and complaining to them..

But I can tell you what I have done that worked. You can also see what worked for others by reading the thread since I started it last year.

In a nutshell, It's my opinion that it's an audio driver that was introduced with 10.9 in the FaceTime bundle. At least that's when it came apart for me. You will find above discussion about this change.. This is just my speculation as the version numbers of the software matched to others that had the same problem.

I tried a few developer updates in hopes that the Mothership would address this issue and they did, "slightly", but it was still there. And very annoying.

The last thing I tried was clearing out as much garbage as possible. Mail, trashes, log files, etc.. to keep the restore time to a minimum. Then I backed up the entire system and tested the backup to make sure it was intact.

Once convinced that I had a intact backup, I copied that to a different backup drive just in case. From there, I went to the App Store and downloaded the latest Mavericks installer (It should be free). I didn't install it from the App Store, but just downloaded it. From there, I moved it to a 8Gb USB stick and made it bootable. Since your computer came with Mavericks installed, you have to do it a little differently. Please follow this guide and with a USB drive you should be able to achieve the same effect.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2151706/create-a-bootable-mavericks-install-driv e-for-newer-macs.html

(Follow this guide to a "T")

Then I booted from the USB drive, formatted the entire hard drive HFS+ and installed the latest Mavericks version that I just downloaded.

After completion, I set up the system MANUALLY as I wanted it and then tested the Face Time connection and it worked perfectly. After this was working correctly, I did a Migration of selective items.. I only migrated programs that I wanted back, mail items and a couple of other things.. Left everything else. If you do a Time Machine restore, somehow the bad audio drivers make their way back in.. (I mistakenly did this once, and then tried a few more times to see exactly what was doing it to no avail and got bored.)..

Ever since, it's been working great.. I can Face Time with someone and get up and walk around, and the person on the other end can hear perfectly.

Like it used to, and like it should be..

Hope this helps and good luck..

Jun 24, 2014 10:00 AM in response to NewPro User

I did what others said and I deleted first then reinstalled and no Ecco from face time 🙂 it really works if anyone having trouble

Jun 28, 2014 7:56 AM in response to NewPro User

I am not encouraged by the amount of work it took to clear up this FaceTime bug. That is a major bout of work backing up and then reinstalling just to get one crummy app to work right. Unless anyone learns of a simpler way (like overwriting files or changing settings in terminal) I probably will just suck it up and hope that OS X Yosemite clears it up.

While it is definitely inconvenient, because Skype is confirmed to work perfectly on OS X Mavericks, if I receive a FaceTime call I can always ask the other party to move over to Skype for a fully quality video quality. Skype is installed on everyone's iOS device and Android device and PC and Mac so it is the simplest solution. Of course my other solution is that I have a 2010 era 'chat' headphones that should stop the echo for the people I am talking to too when I plug it in to the USB port.

Apple developers, I pray you run into this same bug on your own time and realize by golly, this might be one of the Mac OS X bugs you might want to fix.

fz750

Level 1

0 points

Jun 30, 2014 3:04 AM in response to thelightofthewicked

I have exactly the same issue, Macbook my end, iOS the other, awful echo on the iOS side.. (If I use my iPad to call(i.e. iOS to iOS), no problem..)

I can't believe the ridiculous lengths that people are advising (format HD, re-install... Yeah, right....) to clear up something that should be easily fixed and should have been in a basic test (you know, FT between different apple devices..)

NewPro User Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 30, 2014 6:31 PM in response to fz750

Good luck with that.... I started this thread almost a year ago..

"Think Different" and think for yourself and your problem will be solved.

Sep 18, 2014 11:17 AM in response to fz750

I agree wholeheartedly! It amazes me that this problem has now been going on for years with no solution from Apple! My wife and I both have MacBook Air models. She travels a lot with work and we used to use FaceTime to communicate. Then she started getting an echo on her Macbook when we were using FaceTime. Now we use Skype all the time - no echo!! What an advert for Apple!!

Oct 4, 2014 12:54 PM in response to NewPro User

Guys, try it again. I am using same old late-2013 iMac with Mavericks 10.9.5, and FaceTime calling to an iOS device that uses 8.0 and guess what?

Echo is gone. It works as expected/desired.

Is our problem fixed by some behind the scenes tweak?

Nov 28, 2014 12:52 PM in response to thelightofthewicked

Any luck with the Yosemite and FaceTime interfacing? I sure would like to use FaceTime and make calls again.

😐

fredej

Level 1

0 points

Jan 19, 2015 2:15 PM in response to paula bolduc

People I talked to on FaceTime complained that they heard an echo of them self all the time. This was the case with both Mavericks and Yosemite.

I think it is a problem with noise cancellation not working. I was checking all the audio settings and discovered that the built in microphone was set to 96 kHz in the Audio MIDI Setup app. It seemed wrong. I can't remember setting it up like that. Anyway, I changed it to 41 kHz (default?) and the noise cancelling started to work again in FaceTime. There might still be echo in the first few seconds of a call, but after that it worked perfectly.

At least this works for now on my '09 MBP 13". Those of you with this problem, can you check your settings i Audo MIDI Setup app and report back? Would be interesting to know if this fixes your problems too or if it was just a coincided that FaceTime started to work for me after I changed that setting.

Intense FaceTime feedback after upgrade to 10.9