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Snow Leopard: Sound volume resets after rebooting Mac

Some users are finding that after rebooting their Mac, the previously changed sound levels have reverted to the default setting.

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Joe Aimonetti
2 min read

Some users are finding that after rebooting their Mac, the previously changed sound levels have reverted to a default setting. For some users the sound level is set at a minimum, while others report that the setting defaults back to fifty percent.

Apple Support Discussions user "Mccabbe" reports:

Hi, i upgraded my computers this week end (iMac, macbook, mini) from Tiger to Snow Leopard. All went great except one little bug : the sound volume resets at each reboot, for example on the iMac it is always at minimum after each reboot. This occurs on all 3 computers.

Another ASD user echoes the issue:

This Snow Leopard sound issue sure gets around. Mine stared some time after the initial SL install. I have since done a compete erase and reinstall with no charges to my sound issue which is;
I can set my system volume level to about 10% but when I restart or startup the iMac the volume level defaults to the 50% setting. I have tried all the suggestions within this post with no fix. Applecare has no idea.

The issue seems to lie in a corruption of the audio preference files in Snow Leopard. To alleviate this problem, navigate to the preference files and move them to the Trash.

Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences > Audio

The files will be:

  1. com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
  2. com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist


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