Factorio Forums

Not sure if I can call this a bug or a feature request, but here goes:

On mac systems its possible to change the sound output device in the system control panel. It doesn't have nearly the versatility of say, Pulse Audio, but it permits changes between things such as bluetooth headset, normal speakers/headphones output, or display-port and HDMI.

Most programs, games especially, when the change is made post-launch, simply have their sound stop working. A few detect the change and reinitialize their sound. I humbly request that you folks look into how that's done and implement it, mostly because my mac laptop is underspec, and takes forever to load Factorio if I need to do that.

Moved from Frequently Suggested / Link Collections to Ideas and Suggestions.

Thanks daniel.

An update: the sound switched normally when changing to speakers, but not speakers to bluetooth. So it's half working.
Or something.

Hm. Can you make a not so unspecific bug report out of this?

I dunno if this was changed at all, but I just had success in changing from speakers to bluetooth headphones, under version 0.12.33

I'll continue to monitor, perhaps test a few more times.

2nd try. Works fine. Did someone fix it or is my leg getting pulled?

So you have tried that only once and made a suggestion instead of bug report.

nah i broke it again. where's the bug report spot?

And it was more of a feature request than a bug so... here it went.

Moved to bugs, because if it is not correctly working it is a bug.

Merged from second Bug Report --daniel34

Hello. I think this is a simple design/library issue. I find it's common with many games and apps, while some have taken steps to make it work.

The issue I'm having is when using bluetooth headphones under MacOSX 10.10.5. (Kinivo BTH220 $29 on amazon.)
My mac is a MacBook Pro late 2010 model. (Yes, with only 256MB vram. The game is marginally playable)


My first post about this was related to turning on the headset, connecting it, and having the system default output device autoswitch to the headset. If the game had already been opened and started loading, it would refuse to switch to the new sound output. Output would just be dead. Reproducible 100% That was under 12.29 and appears to have been resolved. Pairing after game launch now works.

But it's still not perfect. If I walk away from the computer and forget the headphones on, go out of range, or the headphones go to sleep, the problem comes back: no sound, only solution is to save and restart game. (Takes forever on this dinosaur) This does not seem to be reproducible all the time, and I'll continue to monitor the situation.

Thanks for all the great work!

An update. I left the game running for a time while I was AFK, and also spent some time watching a movie in another app, using the same bluetooth headphones. (Don't be jealous. My wired headphone jack has blown electronics. It's a necessity, not a luxury)

Upon returning to the game (screensaver did lock the screen during this period) I find that there's no sound at all. Turning off the headphones, changing the setting in system settings, nothing fixes it.

So my initial assessment was incorrect: It doesn't have a problem when changing under normal circumstances, rather something fails in the interim and it won't reset.