Audio stopped working on Amazon Prime videos in Safari but not in Chrome. Any guess why?

[ozziegn]

I'm running Sonoma 14.3 on my M2 Pro Mini and I used to be able to watch Amazon Prime videos in Safari but that stopped about a month ago with the audio not working. I can watch and hear them just fine in Chrome. Anyone take a guess as to why?

 

[fisherking]

have you rebooted? and you could try updating the OS...

(amazon videos play fine here in safari)

 

[DaveEcc]

I've had similar issues, but with the video playback stopping in Safari, and working in Chrome at very specific points in a few movies. When the next macOS released, things started working in Safari again.

I think Amazon/Prime Video uses an early-beta of macOS for testing and they encode their video in the most space-saving codec they can. They apparently don't care that the codec they're using is not yet available for general consumption. Be sure to click the report feedback button and complain about their broken encodings, though I doubt they'll care unless there's a sudden mass exodus from Prime Video.

 

[ozziegn]

have you rebooted? and you could try updating the OS...

(amazon videos play fine here in safari)

I did the software update and now everything works fine. I'm always skittish about doing software updates because I day trade on my Mac and sometimes the software doesn't agree with new OS updates. But my day trading software also works after the update to 14.5 - Thanks for the help.

 

[ipaqrat]

I did the software update and now everything works fine. I'm always skittish about doing software updates because I day trade on my Mac and sometimes the software doesn't agree with new OS updates. But my day trading software also works after the update to 14.5 - Thanks for the help.

Consider setting up a couple Mac OS Virtual Machines. Set them up same as your regular environment (I think you can even image of your own drive). Then you can apply system and app updates early and test your critical apps. You could dedicate a VM to Beta releases.

I use vmWare Fusion, which is user friendly, and now FREE for personal use. You don't need killer VMs, just enough RAM and Drive space to complete a test. I use an external SSD to store lab rat VMDKs (Virtual Machine Disk files) and resources.

I have a VM specifically for running social media sites and apps. I'll spend the time I need there, then revert the image back to baseline state.

All that said, be advised that any VM kept on ice only for testing WILL diverge from your normal environment, particularly in cases of file and setting corruptions. But at least a VM can be a sanity check when you need data points.

 

[bogdanw]

...

 

[BrianBaughn]

Sometimes you can update Safari without updating macOS. You have to look at the bottom of the Software Update page to find it.

 

[ozziegn]

*Update*

Yesterday I did the mentioned software update and everything was working fine again. I was able to watch and hear audio on both YouTube movies and on Amazon Prime. I woke up this morning and now it's back to before. I can only hear audio from both YouTube and Amazon Prime movie.

What the heck is going on? This only happens on Safari, not Chrome. So damn annoying.........

*Another update*

I restarted my Mini again and now everything is fine. I noticed the video portions of Prime and YouTube movies only stop working when I do screen shots in Safari. So....... Doing screen shots in Safari is triggering this mess.

What to do.........