On OS Mavericks, When i Face Time it lowers the system volume. Like iTunes and the adjustment sounds for volume up, and down, and such. Is there a setting, or preference to stop it from lowering every other volume?

Good that someone other than me is complaining about this. Why can't it be like iChat... er, Messages, sorry... where I control the volume myself? It doesn't have to lower everything else that much. Extremely annoying. Better yet, why can't FaceTime just be built into iChat/Messages?!

The only reason I use it is because my friend uses Windows but has an iPhone. And using Skype would be even worse.

wake up apple , wake up apple , this is big issue, facetime shuts off other application volume while using facetime????? since Maverick came out we have this issue and apple done care even few update came already for Maverick but no one care about that issue..... thank you so much apple to care of your customer... such a shame....

I too have this problem. Has anyone found a solution? This needs to be addressed. When we facetime with someone, we should be allowed to change the sound of the facetime conversation as well as youtube, netflix, etc in the background. This is ridiculous.

yep, I'll give you a giant plus-one on this being a useless big-brother-trying-to-tell-me-how-things-should-be 'feature'. I'm a big boy... I can turn down the volume on whatever else might be playing at the time. Give me back that option please.

Assinine.

christianb

Any update on this? This problem is EXTREMELY frustrating. I own a large music studio that has Apple video chat software to teach distance students for years, but we are considering switching all our students to PC (over 10,000 students represented) because we can't play recordings for our students to hear their pieces.

First Apple Messages (formerly iChat) removed the presentation feature (so we can't play recordings through that). Then Facetime started "dimming" the sound on all other apps while a conference is in session.

Now we have to: 1) Send a recording file to students 2) Have them log off from facetime so it doesn't dim the sound 3) Have the student play the recording on their computer 4) Call us back after they've listened to it.

If this was intended to make the system MORE user-friendly, epic fail. PLEASE Apple. include an option to disable "sound dimming" during Facetime chats. We don't want to shift all our students over to PC, but we are struggling with this problem. Very anxious to see a resolution here!

This worked for me:

I have boom installed, but even with Boom on maximum I could hardly understand what the other side said.

During a FaceTime call I:

- Opened "System Preferences..." (left top in het Apple logo menu)

- Opened "Sound"

- In ¨Select a device for sound input" I have 2 options "Internal Speakers" and "BoomDevice". "BoomDevice" was selected, I clicked "Internal Speakers", but the selection would go back to "BoomDevice". However after clicking "Internal Speakers" a few times... the FaceTime sound suddenly was at normal level!

I hope this works for you too.

Ok so random thing I tried helped a little.

Backround:

I was trying to watch a movie with out headphones with FT running and it was impossible to hear anything.

Solution:

I plugged in Iphone 5s headphones, and I turned the volume up using the headphone controls, not the computer buttons.

Outcome:

I was able to hear the movie just fine.

Downside:

Had to use headphone the entire time.

Have to warn the person on facetime not to yell becasue you will blow your eardrums out.

Not a real solution, but does make it somewhat better.

Hope it helps all of you that hate this volume issue as much as I do.

Not a solution but a sign of frutstration:

I use Facetime for hours each day. It still has the best quality compared to skype or other video chat programs.

In the end I couldn't stand this "feature" anymore. Now I have bought a PC. Everything I want to do, I do on the PC and the Mac is now a better camera for me. I will keep the mac until it breaks down and will not buy a new one.

Thank you apple. Your superior system just declassified itself.

This fixed it for me. Going to system preferences / Sound and selecting internal speakers instead of Boom fixed the problem. I also quit the boom application altogether, this is what seemed to be causing the problem

😁 yea ... i will have to facetime her on ipad and anything else...

since the volum thing happens , if one of us wanna watch a movie / gaming , we will have to hang up the call ...

we used to keep facetime connected for like a week ... continuously 😮

I think i may have found a fix for this

ok so go to system preferences

then go to accessbility

then click on voice over

then click on voice over utility

from here a new window will pop up

Now, in the new window, click on the sound icon in the left menu bar

there are like three lines of options

right now the "enable audio ducking" button is check marked. uncheckmark that.

maybe this will help

update: i originally posted this w/o looking at the most recent comments, which have the same fix. sorry!

henrycc265 wrote:

😁 yea ... i will have to facetime her on ipad and anything else...

since the volum thing happens , if one of us wanna watch a movie / gaming , we will have to hang up the call ...

we used to keep facetime connected for like a week ... continuously 😮

Haha, maybe Apple did this so you couldn't leave FaceTime connected for weeks. 😀

The following Terminal code works for me, as posted by @comex in Twitter.

Each time before a FaceTime call, first launch the FaceTime app. Then open Terminal and past the following line, and press enter.

printf "p *(char*)(void(*)())AudioDeviceDuck=0xc3\nq" | lldb -n FaceTime

Then make the call.

Awesome. Finally a real solution. Never thought I'd see advice from Comex on the Apple Discussions!

david.liu.sg wrote:

The following Terminal code works for me, as posted by @comex in Twitter.

Each time before a FaceTime call, first launch the FaceTime app. Then open Terminal and past the following line, and press enter.

printf "p *(char*)(void(*)())AudioDeviceDuck=0xc3\nq" | lldb -n FaceTime

Then make the call.

Hi Jay and others in the post,

I don't know if you guys can see this post or if this problem is actually solved, since its from three years ago. But I seem to have found a (sort of) solution to this problem. It is not perfect, but it can help a little bit... at least you can FaceTime and listen to music at the same time.

The "solution" is a bluetooth headphone, and possibly the newest sierra system which added selecting output function. (I am not sure whether choosing output is new in sierra in fact. Did not notice before.)

You connect your headphone, and then you choose the output source of FaceTime as the headphone (in videos - output) then other output as speaker (volume adjust in menu bar - output) (or the other way round). Then you will find that the music playing through speaker resumes to normal volume, and FaceTime through headphone remains the same.

New iTunes also offers an option to change output.

In short, choosing different outputs between FaceTime and other volume.

This is not a smart way though, as one of the sound will have to be played through speaker. But... it is a way anyway.

I do not have other speakers or outputs to test (what I have is a beats solo 2 bluetooth and a normal wire headphone), but I am sure that this works with bluetooth but not wire headphones (because connecting it will change the output option to only headphone).

Hope APPLE CAN GIVE US A REALLY WORKING SOLUTION!