Tiger won't play Alert sounds

[Doctor Q]

I just upgraded my Power Mac G5 from Panther to Tiger and iChat (3.0, v388) will no longer play sounds when events (like Message Received) occur.

In iChat Preferences, I have tried all combinations of Play sound, Bounce icon, and Speak text. Bounce icon works, Speak text works, but Play sound does not.

I have tried other events; they have the same problem.

When I change sounds in the "Play sound" drop-down, I hear it play. But when the event actually occurs, I don't.

My Sound panel in System Preferences is set normally, my sound is not muted, and I can hear iTunes playing just fine.

I trashed my iChat preferences and started over. Same problem.

iChat Help didn't offer a solution. I don't see another thread about this in the forums.

Any ideas?

 

[Doctor Q]

I forgot to mention: There is no iSight on this Mac.

 

[emw]

I just received my copy of Tiger today (well, technically I'll have it when I get home) so I can't test it directly for you. The only thing I can think of, and I can't tell if this was checked from your post, is that the Sound Effects is actually turned down in your prefs, vs. being set at some level:

 

[Doctor Q]

Your suggestion led me to do more experiments in the Sound preference pane, and I realize that my alert sounds don't work at all, so this is not specific to iChat.

I have Sound Out set to "Internal speakers". In the Sound Effects section, I checked "Play feedback when volume is changed" and I can hear sound if I press the volume up/volume down keys on the keyboard. But if I select an alert sound in the "Choose an alert sound" list or change the Alert Volume slider, I hear nothing. I should be hearing the alert sound I have selected.

To see if the problem is with the built-in alert sound files, I added my own aiff to ~/Library/Sounds. The Sound preferences pane shows me the new sound choice but won't play it. Back in iChat prefs, I see the new sound there too and, as before, I can select it, hear it in that window, but not hear it when I tell it to play for a received message.

I miss my alert sounds.

 

[emw]

If you create another user (or login to another existing one) and try it with that user, do the sound effects work?

 

[Doctor Q]

I considered calling Apple, reinstalling Tiger with the Archive and Install option, or more drastic steps, but then I realized I should start smaller.

So I restarted the Mac. And the problem is gone!

Whatever it was, restarting fixed it, at least for now.

Thank you emw, and also bousozoku, for advice you gave me today.

 

[Doctor Q]

This problem happened to me again. I can restart to fix it, but I'd sure like to know what causes it.

 

[emw]

Damn, that's frustrating. Does this KB article apply?

 

[Doctor Q]

Thanks, emw, but that's a flip-side issue, when Alert sounds are OK and other sound isn't.

I did find this report in Apple's discussions, so the next time it happens to me I'll try the trick recommended there, to kill the Core Audio daemon so it will restart.

 

[emw]

Hopefully that'll be addressed in 10.4.1. Suppose you could write a script to do the coreaudio killing for you, but what a pain.

 

[me_94501]

I'm having the same issue. It just cropped up for me about an hour ago.

 

[Nermal]

Yesterday my alert sounds decided to drop to a fraction of their usual volume, but I found that the volume slider had somehow moved, and restoring it fixed the problem. I still don't know how it managed to turn itself down though - I hadn't been into the Sound pane.

I also need to figure out why I sometimes get an Australian flag in my menu bar (next to the volume icon). I can turn it off, but it comes back again a few days later

 

[Doctor Q]

I'm having the same issue. It just cropped up for me about an hour ago.

I hope the cause isn't "power of suggestion".