No audio plays in Orion

jamescridland

Orion thinks it's playing audio, but no audio plays

In the past (on a released version of macOS), Orion has often played audio twice as slow as it should be. I kind of got used to that - a restart normally fixed it.

Now - and it might be the dev version of macOS, or might be the latest version of Orion - no audio plays at all. Not sure why.

Is there anything I can help with in terms of a report?

Version 0.99.134-beta (WebKit 622.1.9.19.2) Build date June 10, 2025 MacBook Air (macOS ???? 16.0 beta build 25A5295e)

Tahoe (26)

laiz

Hey, James. I cannot recall seeing anyone else mention an issue like this regarding Orion audio playback. Let's see if we are able to get to the bottom of your current issue. I currently do not have Tahoe installed, and the dev beta could definitely be the culprit in this case. Nevertheless:

Do you have any extensions installed on Orion?
Are you able to reproduce the issue on a fresh Orion profile (File → Profiles → New Profile...)?
Are you using the built-in MacBook speakers, headphones (wired? wireless?), speakers, something else?
Does audio playback on Safari work as expected?

jamescridland

It could be some form of interaction between Orion and SoundSource, which the audio on this Mac gets piped through. Notable that Safari, Chrome, Vivaldi etc works just fine. I'll go and fiddle.

Siemova

Web Audio does not produce sound. For example, visit https://mdn.github.io/webaudio-examples/audio-basics/ and press play on the boombox. In mobile Orion and other browsers, the sound plays. In desktop Orion, the tab and location bar display an audio indicator, but no sound plays.

No relevant extensions are installed. Disabling content blockers or enabling compatibility mode makes no difference.

The same issue affects other sites using the Web Audio API, such as https://googlechromelabs.github.io/web-audio-samples/demos/shiny-drum-machine/ and https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1198915695/.

I believe this bug was introduced in a recent update, because I previously heard audio from sites like MIT Scratch.

I suspect this is the same or similar issue to https://orionfeedback.org/d/11588-no-board-sound-on-chesscom and/or https://orionfeedback.org/d/11467-no-audio-plays-in-orion.

Sites using the Web Audio API should produce sound as expected.

0.99.135

Sequoia (15)

shynox78

Same bug audio icon appears but no sound

DBLClick

When Playing on Chess.com no board sound. Tried in compatibility mode and new profile.

Simple test to reproduce.

https://www.chess.com/settings Select Board & Pieces

Scroll down to sounds, Click Speaker (No Sound plays) with all sound effects.

Audio play, while lessons to make sound. Board sound are NULL

Version 0.99.135-rc (WebKit 622.1.15.19.2) Build date July 29, 2025 Mac 15.5 (Build 24F74)

Sequoia (15)

laiz

I was able to reproduce this issue. No sound plays on Orion when clicking the speaker. Compatibility mode made no difference. Safari works as expected.

On Version 0.99.134-beta (WebKit 622.1.9.19.2), sound on chess.com and https://mdn.github.io/webaudio-examples/audio-basics/ plays as expected.

dailyclay

I went to myNoise.net, let the generator load, then clicked "play," but nothing happened. I enabled autoplay and tried again, but still got no sound. I enabled compatibility mode and it still did not play sound. I opened YouTube to make sure sound was playing through the browser elsewhere, and it was. I also went to both Safari and Firefox with the same myNoise generator loaded and it played without trouble in both.

The problem doesn't seem to be with the site sound permissions, because I am able to autoplay sound previews, but when I try to load a generator it won't play anything at all, even though the audio icon appears in the browser tab.

I wanted to load a generator on myNoise and have the audio play.

0.99.135.0.1-beta (WebKit 622.1.15.19.2)

Sequoia (15)

Episodex

The piece movement sounds are not played on any chess site I tried. The purple "sound playing" icon shows up for a moment but no sound is played. The sites I tried:
https://lichess.org
https://chess.com
https://chesstraining.app

I tried same sites in Firefox and Safari and there are no problems with sound. This may be related to some extension I use, but I use same and more on Firefox. Also I checked "Allow autoplay multimedia" for lichess.

Brief sounds of piece movement should be played every time a piece is moved on the chessboard.

Can somebody confirm this (https://lichess.org/analysis allows not registered users to move pieces so easy to verify)?

Orion Beta 0.99.135.0.1

Sequoia (15)

wincent

Super weird, but can confirm. No sound on lichess.org or chess.com on one of my machines running Orion, both in normal and private tabs. On another machine, running same version of Orion, sound plays no problem. Sound is definitely turned on on both sites as the purple "sound playing" icon shows up, and I can hear the sound in other browsers. Other sites that play sound (eg. YouTube playing a video) play ok.

archhaze24

Bug: On some websites (e.g. songsterr.com) there is no sound after pressing play button. I've enabled auto-play for it, disabled all extensions on it, tried safe mode (shift + click) and even reset my browser, it didn't help.
This does not happen in Safari, Firefox or Chrome.

Please note that there's no sound only while playing tabs on Songsterr - YouTube widget on it works fine (to reproduce the bug press "SYNTH" instead of "ORIGINAL" at the bottom of website).

Expected result: There should be sound 🫠

Orion version: Latest (Version 0.99.135.0.1-beta (WebKit 622.1.15.19.2))

MacOS version: Sequoia (15)

archhaze24

Also: in website console there's no error messages that is related to the sound problem.

jeffhuys

Same on https://aggr.trade.

elaboratescanner04

In some websites, such as deltarune.com/dess, audio doesn't play, or if it does, it plays too soft. Doesn't happen in Safari. Enter the website and click the guitar to see the issue.

I expected the Audio to play as normal.

Version 0.99.135.0.1-beta (WebKit 622.1.15.19.2), macOS Sequoia 15.6 build 24G84

Sequoia (15)