Q: external usb microphone not working with FaceTime and mac mini with os x Yosemite

I have exactly the same problem. I hope Apple will fix it with 10.10.1

Hey guys, i found running "sudo killall coreaudiod" (of course, without the quotes) in terminal worked great, until i rebooted then it would stop working again until i ran the script again. So, to get around this i made a terminal script that automatically runs everytime when you start up the mac. I made the script using a program called Lingon. If you google it, you should find it easy enough. I belive the sprict has to be place in the LaunchDeamons folder for it to work. So now its all working perfectly for me and we can make or receive calls via the mac mini.

My setup is a Mac Mini mid 2012, using a usb Creative HD 720p Webcam, and obviously running OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Also just to add, i did buy a cheap little plugin button mic of ebay, the kind that tv reporters would wear, but that didnt work at all. This was very strange as it had a 3.5mm jack and was plugged directly into the mic socket on the back of the Mac Mini. I tested the mic out on a PC and it worked fine so it wasnt that. So i went back to usung the mic built into the webcam and managed to get that sorted eventally as described above.

hope this help some of you guys out, but to be honest this is a major flaw and apple need to get this sorted.

Any beta testers for 10.10.1 on this thread? I was wondering if it addresses this issue. I've heard Apple is asking testers to focus on wifi speed and other issues. I hope this problem is addressed.

This did work for me (I have a Logitech camera with a built-in mic) but, as others have said, rebooting the system seems to lose the setting (I found that out the hard way because the system crashed almost immediately after I made the change).

However, something I noticed is when I do this fix my voice comes out extremely buzzy and inaudible on the other side (I've been testing this functionality by making calls to my phone from my Google account).

I remember having to perform a fix in the Audio MIDI Setup to make myself stop sounding like a chipmunk (and the other party as well) in FaceTime. Is there a similar setting for Handoff calls?

I have a late-2012 Mac Mini and a Macally webcam. The mic in the webcam works fine for Google Voice but when I attempt to use my Mac to make or receive calls using FaceTime Relay with my iPhone 5, FaceTime recognizes that the mic is there but is not receiving any input from it.

Running this terminal command...

sudo killall coreaudiod

...repairs the problem until the Mac is restarted.

same here,in the beginning was working fine and suddenly stopped

Any update on this since the new developer seed is out?

I've not seen anyone else complaining about this with a Thunderbolt display, but I have one and I'm finding exactly the same issue.

FaceTime video calls work fine and when my MacBook is connected to the display calls will correctly use it's microphone. When I make a continuity/audio call it doesn't matter which microphone I select in the FaceTime audio settings, the call uses the MacBook mic. If the MacBook is clamshell mode with it's lid closed this sounds awful - muffled and quiet.

I'm assuming that the display audio on the TB is being treated by Yosemite in the same way as an external mic and therefore I get the same problem. I've had this since the release of Yosemite and only just found this thread.

I can confirm that the 'sudo killall coreaudiod' command fixes it for the TB display too, but again only until a reboot.

Hope others find this useful.

If you have Boom installed quit the application the remove from starup items in login options/items  then reboot that fixed the issue for me. Im using a logictech c270 with builtin mic. also went into utilities audio midi setup and changed usb audio format 16000 hz to 32000hz and seems to be clear as a bell.

I was hoping the 10.10.1 update that came out today would fix this; it did not (at least for me).

For now I'm reliant on the "killall coreaudiod" hack to get this to work on my Mac Pro. But being the forgetful sort, I don't want to have to remember this every reboot. So I put together a quick Automator action to, well, automate it at login time. So far it works great for me.

1. Fire up Automator > New Document > Application

2. Find "Run Applescript" in the nav and drag that to the right pane.

3. Remove the (* Your script goes here *) line and replace it with this:

do shell script "sudo killall coreaudiod" with administrator privileges

4. File > Save the automator document somewhere.

5. File > Export, export as "audiofix.app".

6. Put this in ~/Applications, and add it to your login Startup Items. Yes it will of course prompt you for your Admin password at login time, but that's exactly what you want.

Eventually Apple will fix this. When they finally do, just nuke the startup item and the application.

This is interesting.  On my 2008 Mac Pro with firewire 300 iSight camera, the kill coreaudiod hack now works, whereas 10.0 it did not.

This is still a bug, Apple still needs to fix it, in the meantime I am going to work on your startup solution.  Thanks for the help with that.

I am having the same results, previously the 'Sudo Killall Coreaudio' command had no effect but now it does allow me to use my apogee MIC during a FaceTime conversation. I guess that's progress. Still, I wonder what other kind of mischief killing the core audio functionality creates. Obviously this remains a bug. Get 'er fixed Apple!

eclise1 wrote:

I wonder what other kind of mischief killing the core audio functionality creates.

It shouldn't cause any problems. The process immediately restarts after it's killed.

The strange thing is that in the begging it was working properly and suddenly stopped. Τhe same problem continue to exist with 10.10.1

Thanks for that information. At the risk of overstating my understanding of the OS, this "fix" suggest's to me there is a process conflict that is subject to startup loading order. Forcing core audio to effectively load last is the ticket appearntly. I feel more comfortable installing the 'Sudo killall coreaudio'  script now. Thanks .