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El Capitan and missing volume control for speakers

I have just updated to OS 10.11 El Capitan. Upon successful completion of installation, my desktop speakers no longer have ANY volume control. I can not control the volume by the keyboard shortcuts on the keyboard nor by the volume control (which is now greyed out) in the menu bar. Note that I can select and use the USB speakers under the Sound portion of System Preferences, but I can not change the volume at all. Everything worked just fine BEFORE this update (which was a couple of hours ago). With the exception of the new OS, nothing else has changed on this computer.


Any thoughts on how I can correct this issue?


Mac Pro; 2 x 2.4 Quad Core; 14 GB RAM; OS 10.11 El Capitan

Speakers: Microsoft (yea, I know...) Digital Sound System 80

Posted on Sep 30, 2015 5:03 PM

Reply
92 replies

Jan 21, 2016 8:06 AM in response to kiFla

This just became an issue for me with my iMac's internal speakers. Suddenly. After weeks of not having a problem, I turned on my iMac this morning, heard the dulcet G Major chord of a successful startup, and was about to respond to an iMessage when I realized I had no sound. I tried a random selection of applications, and it appears to be systemwide.


Touching the volume buttons on my wired keyboard made the volume window popup with a circle and slash instead of the volume slider, and the icon on the menu bar is greyed out. I have always previously been able to control the volume with both keyboard and menu bar icon. System preferences gives me one output choice—Digital Out—and says, "The selected device has no output controls."


Suddenly, two hours later, for no reason I can ascertain, the system preferences output choice changed from "Digital Out" to "Internal Speakers" and I once again had volume control. Please note: At no time did I have external speakers or headphones plugged into my iMac, so I have no idea why it determined that I did.


I have no idea whether this is a piece of the puzzle, but I've seen others have this volume issue and the only constant is El Capitan. Computers have varied and audio output devices have varied. Nor do I know why Apple wouldn't give us control over external audio output devices. That must be maddening. Good luck, everyone!

Feb 5, 2016 2:00 AM in response to foundryfire

Same problem here and still exists after all these months. USB audio Microsoft Digital Sound System 80. Sometimes the name shows up, sometimes not. Never under El Capiten have the volume controls, grayed out all the time. It will give me sound though on a standard volume. Within some apps I can control the volume this way. All worked fine under previous OS systems.


Please Apple fix this,


BTW the Microsoft DSS80 still rocks! Never found a good replacement for them with Class-D performance and good subwoofer. Have 2 of them.

Feb 10, 2016 2:36 AM in response to Adrian Bengtson

First, I was wrong about the speakers on my display (connected with DisplayPort). I booted from an external drive with Yosemite and there were no volume control there. But it is true for my USB DAC, in Yosemite the volume control works. (Now, I know some people argue that the El Capitan way is the correct way – i.e. you should not be able to adjust volume for external DAC – but for me it's a regression non the less.)


Second, I've found a solution, or rather a work around. The app Volume Mixer for Mac does what I want: once again I can use the volume buttons on my keyboard to control the output volume for my USB DAC. This app is far from perfect though, I've hade some issues with it and if you read the posts in their support subreddit there are a lot of negative comments. So be aware of that.

Mar 21, 2016 5:31 PM in response to Lanny

Well, some would argue it actually is a problem since something was working in previous versions of OS X and now it is not. Even though the change is intended, it still is a problem. (And a lot of us also experienced hissing noise and other problems with USB audio, also not existing before El Capitan.)


But anyway, that does not matter in this case, what matters is that some people claimed the betas of 10.11.4 hade changed this behavior so that volume controls again was working with USB DACs. But alas, the final version of 10.11.4 (the only one I've tried) does not change anything, still cant adjust volume.

Mar 22, 2016 8:28 AM in response to Adrian Bengtson

I just wanted to clear things up a bit. I'm happy to inform that the update did work for me. I have an USB Creative X-mod external sound card and I wasn't able to change volume (see my other posts in this thread). After the update, I have a fully working device again 🙂


I guess the update didn't addressed all cases, but it looks like that at least some USB sound devices are working again.

Mar 24, 2016 12:58 PM in response to foundryfire

I get the same issue, typically happens when I close my laptop, then when I open it back up again the audio functions are disabled on laptop keyboard, usb keyboard, as well as the audio controls on my Apple earbuds. Also when I have my Lightning port connecting my external monitor.


To get headphones working when this happens, is simply to plug/unplug (or vice versa) any device (headphones or aux cable) into the headphone jack. Seems to "wake up" the audio.


To get the laptop audio working to use the internal speakers, I have to go into System Preferences and make sure the selected output is NOT my external monitor (that does not have speaker capability or output!).

Apr 28, 2016 11:41 AM in response to Dave_K76

Another "me too". Have a Fubar III amp, which shows as a "Burr_Brown Japan PCM2702" in the Sound preferences, and I get the "The selected device has no output controls" message. I just upgraded from 10.10.5 straight to 10.11.4 two days ago. Tried the PRAM and SMC resets, shutting down, removing cables, turning devices off, removing plist files, etc. No luck.

El Capitan and missing volume control for speakers

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