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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?

I have been using mavericks for some time now, and i like the upgrade. It's a fantastic improvement to an operating system.


However i've noticed that when i go onto facetime, it dulls EVERY OTHER SOUND.


Like when i want to watch a video on youtube, it doesn't play it on full volume

Or listen to something on itunes, and control the volume myself. It lowers that too.


It lowers everything except the facetime conversation


Is there a setting or ANYTHING to turn that off?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 30, 2013 8:56 PM

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Posted on Nov 11, 2013 7:37 PM

Thanks, but that doesn't fix the issue.


The problem isn't the system sound, it's the fact that facetime reduces everything but itself while in a call. Even when the volume is as high as it can go, and I get the person on facetime to not talk, all system sound is very quiet.


We need a way to prevent facetime from reducing system sound.

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Question marked as Best reply

Nov 11, 2013 7:37 PM in response to LEcoolJ283

Thanks, but that doesn't fix the issue.


The problem isn't the system sound, it's the fact that facetime reduces everything but itself while in a call. Even when the volume is as high as it can go, and I get the person on facetime to not talk, all system sound is very quiet.


We need a way to prevent facetime from reducing system sound.

Jan 15, 2016 1:20 AM in response to JaysITunes645

I took comex's solution and plugged it into an applescript application set to run in the background (no dock icon, menubar or anything). I'm no serious hacker, but it does the job.
This is the code I put together from examples I found around the web:

repeat

tell application "System Events" to set theCount to the count of (processes whose name is "Facetime")

if theCount = 0 then


do shell script "sleep 1"


else



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

repeat


do shell script "sleep 1"

tell application "System Events" to set theCount to the count of (processes whose name is "Facetime")

if theCount = 0 then

exit repeat

end if

end repeat


end if

end repeat

end

If some expert can approve this code I'd be really happy.
So far it has had less than 5 calls for testing, both outgoing and incoming.

My main worry is it polls for Facetime processes every second, I figured that's the least it takes to answer an incoming call: the command needs to run every time facetime is opened but doesn't work mid call, so you have to catch that moment when it's still ringing...
Activity monitor says it uses 0.2% CPU, isn't that too much for something this basic?

You can download the app and drop it into your login items then do a logout/login or start it manually, and it should just work. (The download button is at the top of the page).

If you don't trust me, since I'm just any guy on the internet, you can parse the app yourself from my code using applescript editor's export function, to have it running in the background, once you get your .app executable: right click it, show package contents, open the info.plist file, and add two lines with

<key>LSBackgroundOnly</key>

<true/>

just under the first <dict> tag (should be around line 4), Save and you're done.


Hope this helps someone, I've always learned a lot from this forum, happy to give back 🙂


-Seb

Apr 3, 2015 5:40 AM in response to JaysITunes645

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!

Feb 19, 2017 7:36 AM in response to JaysITunes645

Keeping the aforementioned terminal code somewhere (I know i personally am not going to remember it) or looking it up every time is very tedious, so I found kind of a silly workaround that at least I can remember how to do.


Download Soundflowerbed (I do audio work w/ outputs from my computer so I already happened to have it). From the video menu of FaceTime route the output audio through a Soundflowerbed channel, and then route the same channel to your built-in output. FaceTime will only lower the volume of other things routed through the Soundflowerbed channel.


This is the same idea as the bluetooth headphones idea listed earlier in the thread. This works a bit better for me because I don't have bluetooth headphones, and Soundflowerbed is free.

Nov 11, 2013 7:41 PM in response to LEcoolJ283

Output Volume is a very easy setting to find. Output volume is simple the volume your current mac is at (changeable by the volume hotkeys in the F bar) Editing the output volume does not edit the system sound - all it will do is amplify and raise the volume of the person you are on facetime with and keep the SYSTEM sound lower than the actual facetime call.


Thank you for the suggestions though.

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?

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