Scripting News: MacBook sound woes

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

MacBook sound woes

Somehow I ran the battery on my MacBook down to zero on the flight home last night, no problem, I charged it up to 40 percent and then sat down to watch the end of the movie I was watching when the battery got low (I shut the case at about 15 percent).

But the sound is off and I can't figure out how to get it back on. I pull down the sound icon in the menu bar, but it's dimmed out. I pull up the control panel for sound, the slider is dimmed. I tried rebooting twice.

Any ideas what causes this and how to cure it?

Update #1: Vanni suggests looking at this technote, which causes me to run Audio Midi setup utility, which reveals that the system thinks it has no audio output. He asks if I hear any sound at all. Only when I reboot, it makes the big chime sound as the system starts up.

Update #2: Ideas that didn't fix the problem -- launch and quit GarageBand, zap the PRAM, etc. Ben Tucker suggested that the computer may be confused, and he was right. I had been using headphones on the plane, and when I plugged the headphones in, the slider enabled. When I unplug the headphones, it dimmed. So at least I can finish watching the movies, but only with headphones.

Update #3: Here's the club I belong to. Not an isolated problem. Probably a bug Apple should be aware of. Apparently a toothpick properly inserted in the headphone jack will fix it. I'm reluctant to do that.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:32 PM

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Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

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Jan Mar