No sound after Mac OS X 10.5.6 update?

Posted December 18, 2008

After installing the latest Mac OS X 10.5.6 update my Mac refused to play any sound. It took me quite some time to find the problem: for some reason the update set the sound output to “Headphones” instead of “Internal speakers”. Once I set it back to “Internal speakers” the sound was back.

26 Responses to “No sound after Mac OS X 10.5.6 update?”

Buzzbaum says:

January 3, 2009 at 06:32

Thanks for this, I wish I had googled it earlier before calling Apple support. Their 2nd tier support told me to re-install the operating system, which I stupidly did. Still nothing. I found your trick and in 15 seconds was back in business. The only problem is that I cannot get the 10.5.6 update to run, it gets hung every time. Back to Apple support. Thanks again, good tip.

John says:

January 9, 2009 at 11:18

Thanks for the advice. It worked a treat. Cheers

Wilma says:

February 5, 2009 at 17:40

Thanks for posting this. It took me only 2 mins. between “What now!?” and finding your solution.

Perkabalo says:

March 19, 2009 at 18:11

Thanks working now! :D

Philothea says:

March 23, 2009 at 12:52

I have had my Mac os 10.5.6 running for a few months and the sound just disappeared! As a result of reading your post, I plugged in some earphones, the sound came on in them, then when I removed them, the sound was back in the internal speakers.

Go figure!!!

HTH :)

Dogh says:

April 10, 2009 at 08:54

For 2 years I lived without sound on my older Mac G5 1.8. Four
days ago I bought a brand new iMac 2.93 GHz because I wanted something with ‘sound’, and that 4 GB memory. – When I initially had the problem on my older Mac, I tried every link I could think of to resolve the problem. I asked people I knew who had Macs . . techies, etc. I consulted Apple Support . . checked the Mac forums. I really thought I had blown out the sound card or something. Then, earlier Thursday evening . . the same thing happened on my new computer, just like the old. And I luck out and find your suggestion to check the System Sound set-up. Sure enough, worked on the new one . . worked on the old one. Needless to say, I am pissed big time with Apple.

sanju says:

August 18, 2009 at 07:49

I have no sound device in my pc

Config:
Mac OSx 10.5.6
I ntel 945 GCnl mobo

Jaap Weijers says:

November 16, 2009 at 12:47

Thanks a lot for this post! Today (2009-november-16) I ran a software update and my sound disappeared… This helped!

Michele says:

November 23, 2009 at 08:44

The same happened today after updating from 10.6.1 to 10.6.2.

Thanks for your post.
M

Siggi says:

December 7, 2009 at 17:32

Thanks alot for posting this.

Laura says:

December 14, 2009 at 12:27

Thanks so much! Just had this problem after an update, got fed up with waiting on the phone to speak to apple support & found your suggestion. Hurray.

Pablo says:

December 23, 2009 at 20:54

No sound after Mac OS X update …
plugged in some earphones, red light started, worked perfect. Thanks

Dot says:

November 12, 2010 at 17:30

thanks , this is very useful , :)

Rob says:

November 12, 2010 at 19:06

Thanks for posting it solved my problem quickly…
Never showed me anything other than a headphones option ??
But after I de-activated the mute button my sound was back

Mark says:

January 23, 2011 at 03:15

Thanks. Couldn’t figure out what happened, now I have sound again.

vinod says:

February 15, 2011 at 05:58

i want to enable sound in my Imac , this sound was disabled by admin..please tell me some way to enable the sounds in my mac.

rknbass26 says:

March 12, 2011 at 20:15

Installed update to Itunes (10.2), now I’m not getting sound and it won’t let me choose internal speakers as an output source. The only choice is Built-in Audio, not built in speakers. Any suggestions? Mind you my Imac is pre-Intel.

Eli says:

March 13, 2011 at 22:59

Same here: built-in Audio …. any suggestions?

Eli says:

March 13, 2011 at 23:07

SORTED: plug in the headphones … restart your computer! it did the trick for me!

Regret says:

July 2, 2011 at 00:21

Same deal – OSX upgrade to 10.6.8. Sound didn’t work (no sound) through internal speakers, after plugging in and unplugging the headphones, sound worked. No reboot needed.

jose says:

July 4, 2011 at 02:03

great help

Kert says:

July 23, 2011 at 04:56

Thanks so much. A really easy fix. Would not have found it without your help.

Bill says:

October 13, 2011 at 00:20

Just did a Lion OS update and my sound was no longer working. Switched the choice back to “internal speakers” and everything is working fine once again. Thanks!