El Capitan intermittent USB multi-media

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Problem: I play any multimedia, like a video on Youtube, as soon as I stop and play again, like going to the next video or moving the play location inside the video, it fails to play gain. Reloading the page, changing browser, nothing at the app level will ever play audio.

Environment: My setup is simple: I have various audio systems connected to USB via the built-in Thunderbolt on my monitor on a 15-inch, mid 2015 MacBook Pro. Headphones, speakers... all show the same problem since upgrading to El Capitan.

Workaround: To resume I have to disconnect and reconnect the Thunderbolt cable or turn on-and-off the monitor every time the problem occurs, which is at almost every video. Disconnecting and reconnecting USB or "sudo killall VDCAssistant" does not work.

Observation: I am amazed that Apple doesn't find important to fix this issue. I'm concerned about the lost of focus on technical execution on the Mac: each new OS has few new features, most of them are features that we don't want (like the icloud, siri, facebook integrations), has serious usability issues (full screen, time machine, photos, launchpad, etc), and deep and long lasting bugs like this one (or wake from sleep).

<Edited by Host>

Hi Dave,

I have the exact same issue as you described. My setup is similar to yours with the MM-1 speakers connected via my external monitor's USB hub through a Thunderbolt cable. This issue started after upgrading to El Capitan. Searching through the forums, I discovered that USB audio hanging was a known issue for El Capitan during beta-testing. I hope Apple fixes this soon. I found a quicker workaround than rebooting. Disconnect the thunderbolt port, and the sound will start playing through your MB Pro speakers. It may require you to restart the application (i.e. Spotify) as well. Once you have sound through the PC speakers, you can reconnect your Thunderbolt cable and it will work as expected. I don't think it is an issue with recognising the MM-1, as they show up in Settings-->Sound even when they do not play.

I just upgraded to El Capitan 2 days ago. I have a Mid 2012 Macbook Pro. Running a Samsung monitor through Thunderbolt as well as an Acer monitor through a USB 2.0-VGA adapter connected through a USB hub. Also have Logitech speakers w/sub connected through headphone, Logitech wireless mouse and Mac wired keyboard. All those peripherals work EXCEPT the Acer monitor. It displays but is off color and has lines displaying vertically throughout. As noted on a different post, if I take a screen-shot from that monitor, it looks fine. Tried all the suggestions on other posts, nothing fixed the issue. Have discontinued use of the Acer till I find a fix. (SIGH-Just got that set up together less than 2 weeks ago...hoping for a quick fix, do not want to have to downgrade back to Yosemite---trifling)

Hi Dave,

I have the same issue as you described, so you are not alone. My setup is very similar to yours. I have a MM-1 speaker connected to my LG 34UM95 monitor with USB, and the my monitor and mac is connected with Thunderbolt.

I have no problems with this setup, before upgrading to El Capitan.

I noticed when the problem occurs, video on youtube won't start.

I hope we are able to find a solution to this problem.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), MM-1, LG 34UM95

Hi again,

It look like i don't have the VDCAssistant process running on my system.

When i try to run 'sudo killall VDCAssistant' it says 'No matching processes were found' :/

I have for some weeks tried to connected my speakers direct to the USB on my mac. But still have my mouse and keyboard connected to my monitor. The it works fine. But not a optimal solution.

FIXED IT!

I emailed J5 the supplier for the USB-VGA adapter I am using and they responded within minutes with a fix for the problem I was having. Now all is working beautifully. Thought someone else may be searching as I was, this helped me.

Hi. I have something similar. Cameras hat I connect to my computer when downloading are no longer detected by the applications I use to do the importing. If I put the cards in a card reader and then connect, I can see the cards on my desktop but the applications I use will not detect the card or the camera.

Strangely, the Photos app does launch when connecting a camera so I'm not convinced it's a hardware fault but something in El Capitan that is causing USB connected cameras not to be detected by third party apps.

There do seem to be a lot of USB related issues being discussed on these forums currently.

Cliff

Now i have updated OS X El Capitan to version 10.11.2, and i found a new firmware for my MM-1 speakers version 3 (http://bowersandwilkins.custhelp.com/app/home/p/29,30).

But i still got the same problems. I really hope Apple will fix this soon!

I'm having the exact same issue with my 34UM95 monitor and B&W MM-1's. I've also updated my speaker's firmware and it didn't help at all.

Have you guys tried opening a support ticket with B&W? I did when I first started running into this issue and after a few back and forth emails, they gave me the whole "We'll let our engineers know" brushoff. We might get some traction if everyone lets them know they are running into issues.

I'm having this same issue with an Audioengine d3 DAC connected through an LG 34UM95 over thunderbolt. Also on 10.11.2. Didn't have this problem with an Apple thunderbolt display on 10.11.2 with the DAC connected through that.

What is especially odd is the way the problem initially manifested: I was unable to stream any video - it seemed like amazon streaming, netflix, youtube, were all having connectivity problems - until I switched to internal audio and tried again. I also couldn't play any tracks in iTunes. If I plug the DAC into the Macbook Pro (15" late 2013 nvidia) directly, it's fine, or if I reboot and don't disconnect anything, it seems to work.

This is really frustrating, it's making me consider rolling back to 10.10.

That's exactly how it manifests itself for me too.