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2013 Macbook Air Sound Issues

Alright so I've had my 2013, 13" i7 8GB/512GB Macbook Air for around 2 months. A while back I began encountering issues where the system's sound would just stop working. This issue applies to outputting through headphones and the built in speaker. I pinpointed the problem to occuring only when I closed the laptop while a program was outputting audio through headphones. Examples of programs this has happened with include Spotify, iTunes, and anything that uses audion in Safari (including Netflix and Youtube). After ths occurs, the only way I have found to fix the problem is a complete restart. I am interested to find other people who have, or who have fixed this problem.

On an unrelated note, I have also found a bug where sometimes when I accidently press the power button once and put it to sleep, the computer will sleep but the backlight on the keyboard will stay on. When I press the spacebar to turn it back on, the backlight on the screen will turn on, but the screen will remain black and unchanging. Again, the only thing that will fix this is a forced restart.

Any help that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 3, 2013 5:31 PM

81 replies

Feb 22, 2015 7:58 AM in response to aidan5806

I have a problem with my right speaker, it stopped working. I didn't notice this issue until today, I was watching a video and suddenly the right speaker turned on and off very quick, making a loud sound. So then I checked and realised its running the left speaker only.

I already tried things that are mentioned here: checking balance, reseting PRAM and SMC but no luck. (except contacting Apple Support) My machine is Macbook Air "13 Mid 2013 running OS X 10.10.2 (14C109).

I hope somebody can help me solve this. T_T

Jun 25, 2015 8:03 PM in response to aidan5806

So I have had this problem since I got my computer where the sound will just stop at some point usually when I switch speakers but I usually fix it by restarting my computer. I just called apple support however because the problem was becoming an issue when I would try to play music from Spotify with a bluetooth speaker. The support guy said that the sound will be automatically muted when you switch to a new sound system and this can also happen within one application. So for instance if you are playing music on Spotify and switch between speakers Spotify will also mute automatically or something and to get the sound to start again you have to restart the application you were playing music through. This is really annoying and he made it sound like it shouldn't happen if you use itunes but I remain skeptical.

Jul 9, 2015 10:30 PM in response to Community User

I really hope that OS X El Capitan will fix this issue. I've had my speakers stop working twice since I had my Air. I thought that OS X Yosemite would get rid of the problem, but that's not the case. As for a patch in the new OS X that will solve this problem, I've yet to discover that information on the Apple website.

Jul 17, 2015 1:59 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas

I tried plugging in headphones, closing my MacBook, unplugging them, then opening it up again. It worked. Sound came back!

Jan 11, 2016 2:41 PM in response to dominic23

I tried everything listed on the forum. I had no audio on internal speakers or headphones (red light not on), but got sound on usb headphones and via hdmi output. Tried PRAM and SMC resets.

Finally the guy at the repair shop suggested that I create a new account on my macbook air. When I logged into that account, the audio returned. Then I logged back in to the original account and the audio was working there as well.

This saved me having to do an expensive repair. Still can't believe it was a SW issue.

Jan 19, 2016 9:31 AM in response to ottomark

After going over all the recommendations on many different sites, I can't believe the bluetooth was the key! A SIMPLE solution! Thank you SO MUCH!

2013 Macbook Air Sound Issues