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eplegutt1 · May 6, 2003, 04:37 PM

The sound is dissapering on my mac under heavy load. Sometimes it just starts to scratch and become normal again, but other times it just disappear and I have to restart to have it back.
The problem has accourd in os 10.2.4-6

Even odder: When I am ripping a cd in iTunes 4 the last song on the cd won�t ripp when the sound has disappeared

I�m running a B&W with a 400 mhz G4 upgrade that is overclocked to 450 mhz, 512 MB RAM and a 200 Gb HD on a new ATA133

What is wrong??

Thanks for any help!

Peter753 · May 6, 2003, 04:49 PM

You happen to have the Soundsticks? I've had the sound go out on me. My computer never got phucked up like that though, it was just an annoyance

eplegutt1 · May 6, 2003, 04:53 PM

No, I doesn�t got the Soundsticks. The sound disappear completly, also from the minijack plug...

pat++ · May 6, 2003, 05:04 PM

Jaguar is a big joke concerning sound. On my 500Mhz iBook, I get sound cuts in iChat, and don't hear the sound played in Mail.app when I get new messages. I opened a bug about this back in the early Jaguar days (6C115) and it's still not fixed. Hopefully they will eventually consider implementing a sound sub-system which can actually play sounds in Panther...

And oh yeah... one more thing... isn't Mac OS X supposed to have very low latency sound system? huh? so why hell do I have to wait 2 seconds to hear the sound when I empty the trash?

SMacTech · May 6, 2003, 05:13 PM

Originally posted by pat++:
Jaguar is a big joke concerning sound.

Jag only wants to conserve your battery life on your iBook. It will shut down the audio to conserve battery life. Sounds will be delayed until the stuff comes alive. Check your energy saver prefs or possibly dump the plist file.

Spheric Harlot · May 6, 2003, 05:16 PM

Originally posted by pat++:
And oh yeah... one more thing... isn't Mac OS X supposed to have very low latency sound system? huh? so why hell do I have to wait 2 seconds to hear the sound when I empty the trash?

Because that is a very well-documented power-saving feature on all Apple laptops, if you'll peruse the appropriate forum to find the previous discussions of this.

Short story: the speaker/amp system in the laptops is switched off after an idle time to conserve power, and it needs a little time to come back on, depending on battery load and charge.

If it bothers you, go to versiontracker.com or macupdate.com and download KeepSoundAwake.

Install, be happy.

-s*

pat++ · May 6, 2003, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Jag only wants to conserve your battery life on your iBook. It will shut down the audio to conserve battery life. Sounds will be delayed until the stuff comes alive. Check your energy saver prefs or possibly dump the plist file.

don't see anything concerning sound in Energy Saver Prefs... + Sound cuts are definitely not related to energy saver but much more to CPU load as most people experiencing bad things have 'not so fast' hardware...

pat++ · May 6, 2003, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Because that is a very well-documented power-saving feature on all Apple laptops, if you'll peruse the appropriate forum to find the previous discussions of this.

hmmm... yeah, so they consider iMac 333 is a laptop right? I do have the same problem on the iMac....

anyway thanks for the trick, but I think Apple should definitely fix this kind of issues.

Spheric Harlot · May 6, 2003, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by pat++:
hmmm... yeah, so they consider iMac 333 is a laptop right? I do have the same problem on the iMac....

anyway thanks for the trick, but I think Apple should definitely fix this kind of issues.

My apologies; it seemed you were asking about an iBook. A sound delay and then a more or less audible *pop* are documented there and on Powerbooks.

It seems the iMac may have a different issue.

I don't think, however, that the "low latency" claim applies to UI gimmick audio - nor should it.

My pro audio stuff indeed runs at very low latencies, though there's some weirdnesses yet to be worked out.

k2director · May 7, 2003, 12:52 AM

I have sound drop out on my 1Ghz Tibook every once in a while. Since 10.2.5, it seems to happen more rarely (once every 2-3 weeks), but that may just be by chance/usage patterns/etc.

In any case, instead of restarting, try putting your Mac to sleep, and then waking up again. That always does the trick for me.

pat++ · May 7, 2003, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
My apologies; it seemed you were asking about an iBook. A sound delay and then a more or less audible *pop* are documented there and on Powerbooks.

You were right, I was talking about the iBook initially, but as I mentioned, I do experience the delay issue on the iMac too...

voodoo · May 7, 2003, 06:14 AM

Originally posted by eplegutt1:
No, I doesn�t got the Soundsticks. The sound disappear completly, also from the minijack plug...

I am noticing this too when using the minijack plug. I am using 10.2.5 at the moment. It does not happen when I am using my soundsticks.

kbata · May 7, 2003, 06:46 AM

The sound dropping out was a big problem with OS X running on Pre G3 unsupported Macs. It usually happened when the computer was under heavy load. I always thought that it was just an issue with the old Macs but it I work on it I can get my B&W to loose sound. For me it happens if I open VPC while I'm playing iTunes. If your quick and you turn off iTunes as soon as you hear it stuttering you can get it back without a reboot. Otherwise for me it's always taken a full reboot to get sound back.

Preciousss · May 7, 2003, 12:46 PM

Weird. This has happened twice now to me but for totally different reasons than what others have posted. I haven't been able to find a pattern yet, but here's the deal:

1GHz Ti, 1GB RAM, just updated to 10.2.5 and iTunes 4, (also Quicktime 2 and the rest of the iApps).

Both times I was on battery (reduced processor speed). The sound just disappeared. First time I was in the middle of watching a quicktime movie. Nothing would bring it back. In iTunes I would press play but the song time and slider bar would remain stationary. Even adjusting the volume, that little blip sound was gone. I restarted and it came back.

Second time was the weirdest. Airport on, battery power. Sound started off OK when I woke it up. Using the computer, Entourage running. I discovered the sound is gone again because as new emails arrive, the alert sound is gone. I put to sleep as someone suggested and I heard a bit of a sizzle and pop from the speakers and then I got a whole bunch of email alert sounds in a row. It's as if all the messages I received while the sound was out were in some kind of limbo/buffer place.

Interestingly enough, the sound delay/power saving feature seems to have been somewhat taken care of in 10,2,5 as someone else reported. But I would take a delay over no sound at all any day. I'm wondering if iTunes 4 has anything to do with this--just seems odd to me that pressing play, nothing happes. If the sounds are indeed trapped in limbo somewhere (as suggested by the email alert barrage), then the slider and time should at least move on the song.

What do you all think? And is anybody else having a problem similar to this?

Thanks

pat++ · May 7, 2003, 01:26 PM

Originally posted by Preciousss:

What do you all think? And is anybody else having a problem similar to this?

Thanks

I got the disappearing sound while watching a Quicktime movie too. For no reason, in the middle of the movie (short one, this was a trailer from the Apple web site), the sound disappeared. Playing the same QT movie just after that was OK (no sound problem). I don't think it's related to iTunes 4 or QT 6.2 because this happened to me before they were released. (I was probably running 10.2.4 or 10.2.5 at that time).

bradoesch · May 7, 2003, 02:08 PM

I'm glad I'm not the only one having this problem. I only have issues with the sound quitting in iTunes. I just pause and play the song and I get the sound back.

fortepianissimo · May 7, 2003, 02:34 PM

I had two times under 10.2.5 that sound just disappeared. Can't remember much detail, but the interesting thing is there was one time that I lose all the system alert sound (like deleting files, etc.), BUT my clock still chimed and my iTunes still played! Anyone has this weird problem?

Now let's see if 10.2.6 brought any improvement...

Anomalous · May 7, 2003, 03:14 PM

Originally posted by kbata:
The sound dropping out was a big problem with OS X running on Pre G3 unsupported Macs. It usually happened when the computer was under heavy load. I always thought that it was just an issue with the old Macs but it I work on it I can get my B&W to loose sound. For me it happens if I open VPC while I'm playing iTunes. If your quick and you turn off iTunes as soon as you hear it stuttering you can get it back without a reboot. Otherwise for me it's always taken a full reboot to get sound back.

I'm pretty sure this is a known issue with VPC. Anytime I open or close VPC 5, it sets the system volume to zero (mute), and I have to manually set it back. Annoying, but not a huge problem. I don't have the money to find out if VPC 6 has the same problem.

AirRon · May 10, 2003, 01:14 PM

I also just started having iTunes 4 stop playing (I think at the end of a song) and then I notice that get no sound at all (no alerts, etc.). I tried chaning sound settings back and forth etc. No good. A restart worked, but it happened again, and I instead tried going to sleep then waking (as noted above . . .thanks) and that worked. I have no idea why it just started now (4 days after installing the .2.6 update. . .)

Hmmmm

PowerMacG4,400, 10.2.6 512 MB
sound out through an Edirol UA-3

ronald

CheesePuff · May 10, 2003, 01:18 PM

Clicking tracks in iTunes 4.0 is also screwed up... when I double click a lot now on track names it will try to edit them instead of playing them. All system settings are the same.

MartiNZ · May 10, 2003, 03:27 PM

Yeah, I've got that double-click problem in iTunes as well now - never had it in 3 or 2 though. Also the loss of sound in playing music on iTunes is if anything worse with 4 - it will just cut out for say 5 seconds and then come back. I was really hoping that would be fixed.. but I guess that's not really what updates are about

.

RooneyX · May 10, 2003, 08:23 PM

Twice today I have woken up my PB17 (10.2.6) and the sound has died and the system needed rebooting. Congrats to the programmers who introduced this bug after OSX has been updated 13 times since March 2001.

qnxde · May 12, 2003, 02:07 AM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
I'm glad I'm not the only one having this problem. I only have issues with the sound quitting in iTunes. I just pause and play the song and I get the sound back.

Exact same problem here on 12" PowerBook G4 - it only seemed to start after I installed 10.2.4 as well, or was it 10.2.5.

Agasthya · May 12, 2003, 03:23 AM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
I'm glad I'm not the only one having this problem. I only have issues with the sound quitting in iTunes. I just pause and play the song and I get the sound back.

Yep, I get the same problem in my Dual 450. I just let the song keep playing and after a few seconds the audio comes back...its been happening for a while but only happens like once or twice a week. Very odd.

[edit: it also happens all the time when MP3 Alarm Clock is running its alarm. The audio will cut out after about 30 seconds of playing the mp3 and won't come back until I hit "Dismiss Alarm"]