I’m having this problem too. macOS 12.6. The client seems to stutter when the sound drops. I have to completely close the game and log back in to get it back. Sometimes it’s a sudden audio drop, sometimes it’s hours.
Apple released Monterey update 12.6.1 this week. Installed it on my 2020 M1 Mini, rebooted and launched WoW - yay, sound is back! Quit WoW and put Mini to sleep.
When I next woke the Mini… yup – Wi-Fi connection is lost. Tried to turn on Wi-Fi, but got the spinning rainbow wheel. Rebooted Mini… Wi-Fi was fine afterward, but you guessed it – no sound in WoW.
BLIZZARD: SEE MY POST ABOVE. THERE IS A REPRODUCIBLE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WoW CLIENT AND THE MacOS WI-FI SOFTWARE THAT IS CAUSING THIS ISSUE.
EDIT: Just installed WoW 10.0.0 pre-patch, hoping it would fix the audio issue the way the last WoW patch did. No joy - I get to watch the Dragonflight cinematic in utter silence. Thanks, Blizzard.
I have not yet pre-purchased Dragonflight and am this close to unsubbing for the first time since beginning to play WoW in 2006. I don’t need this aggravation and I’m definitely not getting everything I should be getting for my $15/mo. Make this right, Blizzard.
I had sound in Monterey and also after upgrading to Ventura and pre-patch, but had a crash with WoW and sound was gone. I had this earlier this year (before 9.2.7), a crash seems to disable the sound and a MacOS update fixes it back then again. Workaround for me is to plugin a webcam (it has a speaker) and then I can use the Mac Studio speakers again.
USB webcam also fixes the problem for me as does attaching a bluetooth sound device. It does not seem to care weather or not it is a speaker or microphone, as long as it is an audio device.
It seems that whatever “list” is created when an external audio source is added, WoW looks at that to get it’s list of audio devices.
Hello! I tried these steps and nothing. I randomly had sound for 2 day, last week, none now again. I haven’t had sounds from he game in a long time, except for those could have days. Is there anything else we can try to fix this?
Mac Mini with M1 (2020) running 12.6.1 (Monterey)
No sound still.
Mac Studio running 12.6.1 Monterey, No sound.
Audio out device list only has 2 options, System, and No.
Voice chat out device list has everything though
SUCCESS!
Searching the Internet tonight for a solution, I came across this Reddit thread.
It seems that the problem was caused from the extra audio drivers installed as plugin by Microsoft Teams. After removing the MSTeams audio driver folder and restarted the problem disappeared .
* */Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/MSTeamsAudioDevice.driver* *
I 've seen similar reports for other games that also had sound problems and after users removed any extra audio drivers, sound started working again. Looking into this problem I saw similar reports about Zoom audio drivers as well.
By the way removing the Teams audio drivers does not prevent Teams from working normally, So I have no idea what these drivers do. They are an optional module during Teams setup.
Following the directions provided in that thread, I removed the MS Teams driver in question, rebooted my M1 and… TA-DA! My Wow audio is back! HOORAY!
NOTE: The reboot is necessary. I launched WoW immediately after deleting the driver and the sound still didn’t work. It took a reboot to set things straight.
Actually, I didn’t remove the driver completely. Instead, I created a zip archive of the original driver file and saved it in the same folder as the original file. I then deleted the original driver file. If I ever need to reinstall the driver file I can just expand the Zip archive in place. Wasn’t sure it would work, but it did.
After thinking about this a little, I remembered that MS recently released an Apple Silicon version of MS Teams – the day I installed that version of MS Teams closely corresponds with when I first lost audio in WoW. Clearly there is a conflict between the two programs.
I hope this resolves the problem for all of you who have been plagued by it. And to Redditor u/mastorak – A HUGE WORLD OF WARCRAFT THANK YOU!
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Thank you, this indeed also solved it for me as I also have teams installed. I can indeed remember at the installation being asked for the Teams audio driver, best to avoid that next time.
Cheers again!
Can confirm! After removing the Audio driver in the HAL folder and restarting, sound now works again on external speakers – huzzah! Many, many thanks for the tip, DV =)
Good call! This worked for me, also. I haven’t tried reconnecting my headset or using other external speakers yet, but for now I at least have sound coming out of the mac mini speakers, which is good enough until I get home to my gaming desktop.
This has been such a pain. Thanks for the MS Teams heads up. Problem fixed!
Worked for me too
Fix still works!
Worked for me too!
same here … help!?
Did you try above work around and remove 3rd party audio drivers @Eteson ?
Yes - I don’t use MS Teams
other apps install 3rd party drivers
screenflow, blackhole, zoom off top of head. Often without knowing about it.
Steam does too…