Episode #803
June 22, 2024
Even someone as analytical and systematic as myself can overlook the obvious. Sometimes no amount of analysis will solve a mystery.
Of course, a problem may not seem obvious in the investigation. It may hide in the minutia until its discovery makes it apparent.
An old client-friend of mine complained that the sound in Safari was very quiet and could not be made louder. I knew the speakers were operational, since I was connected remotely and she could hear my voice clearly.
I began my troubleshooting from the least invasive to the most.
- Checked system sound settings. Output was to the computer’s built in speakers and volume was set to high.
- Checked the volume control on the YouTube video to which she was listening. The volume slider was set to high. I moved it back and forth with no change to the volume.
- Checked volume in a different app. iTunes Store also played sound at a low level.
- Reset core audio (sudo killall coreaudiod in terminal). No change.
- Restarted computer. No change.
- Zapped the PRAM (Parameter Random Access Memory) (hold down option+command+P+R keys while starting up). The problem did not change.
- I did a system software upgrade. Same problem.
At this point I could think of nothing more than to try to erase the disk, reinstall the operating system and restore her data from backup. This was a drastic and invasive option. I was not sure that even this would fix the problem.
Besides, I could not do it remotely, so I emailed a colleague who lives near her to make a house call. Maybe with his hands on the computer he could check the hardware or perform additional tests. Before he could contact my client she emailed me the next morning. The sound had spontaneously restored itself to normal.
The mystery was never solved. Perhaps the Mac’s overnight maintenance functions resolved the issue.
I may never know.
What I do know is my remote session with my client led to a problem on my computer. After my troubleshooting session with my friend my YouTube videos in Safari browser started not working. They would not play. There were no play controls displayed. Normal popup dialogues were non-functional.
“Did I acquire some kind of malware from my remote connection with my friend’s computer?” I thought.
- Not likely, but I ran a malware analysis just in case. It came up clean.
- I checked other browsers. They were OK.
- I checked other apps for multimedia. They were OK.
- I upgraded Safari. Same problem.
- Even though I thought I had made no changes to my Safari settings, I checked them anyway.
- In Safari / Settings / Security / Web content / Enable JavaScript was unchecked.
- I checked the box. Safari multimedia began to work normally.
During my remote session, while playing along on my computer, I must have inadvertently unchecked the Safari JavaScript box.
JavaScript is universal code that enables much of the multimedia interactivity in internet browsers.
In my career as a computer consultant, unremembered mistakes were the most puzzling problems to solve.
That is why I always start my investigation with the least invasive tests and work my way down to most invasive, and hope that the cause of the problem raises its head.
Unremembered mistakes are also the reason that I often cannot determine what originally caused the problem.
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