Why don't I get sound when I play YouTube videos?

October 16, 2006 5:58 PM

Why don't I get sound when I play YouTube videos? Quicktime videos work fine.

I have a PowerPC Mac desktop. Other videotypes that don't work are Google Video and Windows Media files. I see the visuals, but get no sound. It's the same in Safari and Firefox. When I try to play wmv files Windows Media Player gives me the following message: "This file may not play correctly because it was compressed by using a codec that is not supported." This even happens when I play files off windowsmedia.com.

Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't, but about the same time this began, iTunes started to crash unexpectedly every once in a while.

Any ideas what I can do to fix this?

posted by Kattullus to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Even though QuickTime seems to be working for you, I'd try these steps: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300832. I've found it to fix Flash Player (YouTube/Google Video) audio before.
posted by disarray at 6:09 PM on October 16, 2006

I lost all sound except Quicktime and iTunes the other day too.. and the solution in the link disarray provided fixed it.

However, your Windows Media Player error sounds like something else entirely. It sounds like you might be trying to play Windows Media files for Windows Media Player 10 or 11, and the WMP for OS X can not play those. The WMP for OS X is only any good for really basic Windows Media files, in fact.. and support for it has been dropped by Microsoft.
posted by wackybrit at 6:25 PM on October 16, 2006

Thanks Disarray and Wackybrit. It's working now, including wmv files.
posted by Kattullus at 7:02 PM on October 16, 2006