playSoundFileNamed not working on Tahoe?

Question

Created Sep ’25

Replies 4

Boosts 2

Participants 3

I have published a number of games that use SpriteKit for everything important. Since the release of macOS Tahoe, I've had a lot of end user reports saying that sound effects have stopped working in many (but not all) of my titles.

I'm not doing anything unusual here – typical code is:

sndGameOver = [SKAction playSoundFileNamed:@"Audio/GameOver.wav" waitForCompletion:YES];

Then at the appropriate time:

[self runAction:sndGameOver];

Has anyone else encountered this? The code still works fine on previous operating systems, and appears to be fine on iOS too. Has something changed in macOS Tahoe?

I'm at a bit of a loss. There's nothing obviously different between the titles that do work and the titles that don't.

Suggestions welcomed!

Thanks

Boost

Answer 1

Noxegon OP

Sep ’25

Having dug into this some more, I now think it's nothing to do with my code.

The games with working sound effects have two-channel effects (stereo). The ones that don't have single-channel effects (mono).

It appears that the ability to play back single channel (mono) audio files has been broken in SpriteKit on Tahoe.

Hopefully this helps someone else. In the meanwhile I'll prepare a round of updates with stereo sound effects to work around the problem.

1

Answer 2

Frameworks Engineer OP

Apple

Sep ’25

Hello

Have you filled a feedback issue for this issue yet? There were no audio-related changes in SpriteKit this year, so we will need to investigate if something changed in the lower-level audio interfaces that SpriteKit uses. A feedback issue with a sample project, or at least the problematic audio file, would be helpful.

1

Answer 3

Noxegon OP

Sep ’25

Filed as FB20409458 with a test project that demonstrates the problem. Thanks.

0

Answer 4

endavid OP

1w

I got the same issue after updating to Tahoe. I haven't changed anything in the project, and it still makes a sound in iOS 26, but it doesn't work on Tahoe. The sound works if I use AVAudioPlayer.

0