Sound Preference Panel Died

After updating to the latest iteration of High Sierra (10.13.6) on my MacPro (cheesegrater) this afternoon, I cannot load my Sound Preference panel nor get any sound to display.

Activity Monitor reports:
com.apple.preference.sound.remoteservice (Not Responding)

FWIW, I have a speaker connected to the optical digital port, plus I have an Apple LED Cinema display connected. Both worked fine before this morning.

Where do I begin to troubleshoot this?

I tried a Safe Boot, but same behavior, also logged in as another Admin user, same result. I also deleted com.apple.systempreferences.plist

Help!

-Seth Anderson

What if you disconnect the optical audio, does that make a difference? I guess the connection to the LED Cinema Display’s speakers is via the mini DisplayPort cable so you can’t disconnect those without also disconnecting the monitor.

If you run System Information, what does the Audio section display? My 2016 MacBook Pro has a Devices section and an Intel High Definition Audio section, the text can be copied and pasted from the application:

Devices:

Built-in Microphone:

Default Input Device: Yes
Input Channels: 2
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Current SampleRate: 44100
Transport: Built-in

Built-in Output:

Default Output Device: Yes
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Output Channels: 2
Current SampleRate: 44100
Transport: Built-in

DisplayPort:

Default System Output Device: Yes
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Output Channels: 2
Current SampleRate: 48000
Transport: DisplayPort

Intel High Definition Audio:

Audio ID: 57

Speaker:

Connection: Internal

Headphone:

Connection: Combination Output

External Microphone / iPhone Headset:

Connection: Combination Output

Internal Microphone:

Connection: Internal

HDMI / DisplayPort Output:

Connection: Display

I did not think to look here, it would have been useful. Thank you for the suggestion.

I solved my own problem by removing a couple of audio related .kext files I no longer needed (Boom2Device, for instance), and by upgrading Audio Hijack. I’m guessing there was some conflict that shut down all audio.

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And digging around a little more after the fact, this would have helped

https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2017/09/29/fixing-an-important-high-sierra-incompatibility/