Flash video and no sound on OSX
One of the newer technologies on the web are the flash video players used by Google Video and YouTube.
Every once in a while though, on Mac OS X it can happen that these Flash video players don’t have sound anymore.
It is pretty hard to figure out why, and the solution is quite random, but on macosxhints I found a comment mentioning that it could be a sampling rate problem:
- open
/Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup - check the properties for Built In Output.
- It might be set to 96KHz. Change it to 44KHz and audio in Flash will return immediately.
Now, I don’t know what software it is messing up that setting, but I am glad it can be fixed.
I am still wondering why the Flash player would care about MIDI settings. Obviously it’s no MIDI file that is being played as movie sound there.
You have no idea how happy I am that someone knew what was going on. Thank you.
I’ve tried tweeking the Built in Audio output back and forth from 44k to 98k and so on. Still no sound from Youtube, but Youtube only. Could it be something else???
Cheers!!
Okay!!! I found that if you dump the macromedia file from Home/Library/Preferance/…. you get the sound back!! Woo hoo!!! But..Is this file important? Will I ever need this file?
@Jerry: Hm. Ich can’t tell you if it’s important, but since it’s a Preference file, I think maybe a setting for the Flash player was messed up somewhere and now it uses the default settings instead. Glad it works!
THANK YOU!! I’m so grateful that I found your site and could fix the problem!
how do u get onto that Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup thingy
Thank You, I have been looking for this fix for some time now!
Aha! Thanks so much!
Yup, me too, trying all kinds of things, getting more and more confused at each step.
Your solution worked liked a charm, sound is back up. Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your fix.
great, it worked for me tooo! thank you very much!
THANK U – THANK U – THANK U
Thanks so, so much! This drove me mad the past month! I use a MacBook Pro for animation, and often connect it to an external audio interface. Somehow, the MBP gets the idea to switch its sample rate, even though the interface *and* the MBP have always been set to 44.1…. This fixes it. I am saving your tip to my notes folder on my Macs.
dude. your awesome. this happened to my powerbook like a year ago and it fixed it self for about a week once, but after that its been flash soundless for about a year. and now finally i come across the simples fix i ever could have imagined. so thank you very very very very very very much.
Genious, thanks very much!
Wow, thank you so much! Had this problem for about a week and was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why. Strange that neither Apple nor Adobe will even acknowledge this bug exists…
Trash the ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia folder!!!
Tnx Tobias…
Thanks so much, I can hear Youtube videos again! I had no idea what to do until I read this. Thanks a lot!
lucas: You’re very welcome! Always glad to help
hey i cant figure this out where is /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup
Paul: In the OSX Finder, click on Applications; inside that folder you’ll find Utilities, and inside there you finally find Audio MIDI Setup.
Another option is to enter Audio MIDI Setup into Spotlight (press Command+Space for that).
Thankyou! *single tear*
This fix doesn’t work for me.
Does anybody know any other solutions to exactly this problem???
Thanks.
This happens for me every time I open up a lot of clips all the time. It must be that either or all of Adobe Flash (definitly), Safari (definitly but is it related?) and OS X (well? not likely maybe) suck.
On my system, it’s the Audacity software that causes the change. I’ve fixed it by going to Audio Midi Setup before, but this time it’s not fixing the problem.
THANK YOU SO VERY much for this!! I called apple and they could not tell me this. I had lost sound but only on some of my games nothing else??? THIS WAS the FIX!!! I’m thinkin one of my games is the culprit but at least now I can fix the problem thanks to you!!!!
You’re welcome, Lynda. Glad I could help.
Did not work. Tried everything, also we produce flash streaming media sites as a core business and as you would expect are let down by adobes and apples complete lack of support on this issue. It is obvious adobe have not changed their ways and neither have apple. Very very poor showing by both companies.