Bluetooth speaker

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Alan168
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2021 12:06 pm
Operating System: macOS 10.15 Catalina or later

Bluetooth speaker

Post by Alan168 » Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:15 pm

My Mac book is set to play on a bluetooth speaker.
Every 2nd or 3rd time I try to use audacity over the same bluetooth speaker it tells me there is some error and to change a hz rate, change a device and something else.
I have no idea why it is not playing over the speaker. It plays out of the MacBook
I have ensured that output device is listed as my bluetooth device
In audacity preferences, I have also set it to be the output device
The MacBook Is playing out of the blue tooth device

what on earth do I do ?

thanks

billw58
Forum Staff
Posts: 5600
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:10 am
Operating System: macOS 10.15 Catalina or later

Re: Bluetooth speaker

Post by billw58 » Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:19 pm

Sorry I don't have good news. Audacity is known to not play well with bluetooth speakers (and headphones) on Mac. Some work, some don't, and some (like yours) work intermittently.
-- Bill

steve
Site Admin
Posts: 81627
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:43 am
Operating System: Linux *buntu

Re: Bluetooth speaker

Post by steve » Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:38 am

Alan168 wrote:
Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:15 pm
Every 2nd or 3rd time I try to use audacity over the same bluetooth speaker it tells me there is some error and to change a hz rate, change a device and something else.
The problem may be because the bluetooth device turns itself off when not in use, and reconnects on demand. The problem there is that when the device reconnects, it is effectively a new audio device (different device id) so Audacity does not see it and the old instance of the device no longer exists.

You may be able to "reconnect" Audacity to the bluetooth speaker by running "Transport menu > Rescan Audio Devices".
You may need to run that twice - first time to "wake up" the speakers and second time so that Audacity can see the speakers.

After running "Rescan Audio Devices", look in the Device Toolbar and check that the correct devices are selected for recording and playback. (The order of devices shown in Audacity is from the device id number, which may change if a device disconnects and reconnects).

Does your bluetooth speaker have a "power saving" function that can be turned off? If it does, then it could be worth trying with power saving off.
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