Remote Mac sound management
Dear Support,
Here is my use case: I have RDM intalled on a PC from which I access an headless M1 Mac Mini with standard ARD protocol and FreeVNC connection.
Everything works perfectly except that I cannot get the sound playing from the Mac to the PC.
I checked setup on the Mac itself and selected the "Ray" something virtual sound player but nothing plays on the PC.
I searched everywhere in the available session parameters and on the internet but did not find anything.
What do I do wrong?
Thanks for your support.
LC
All Comments (5)
Hi,
The Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) protocol does not support sound redirection. I believe Apple only recently added support for sound redirection in the newer high-performance ARD protocol introduced with macOS Sonoma, but this is a completely different protocol that we haven't reverse engineered. Can you get sound redirection working with the official Screen Sharing app?
Best regards,
Marc-André Moreau
Hello
I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but you didn't do anything wrong. This won't work currently.
Apple Screen Sharing (AKA Apple Remote Desktop) is a heavily customized version of the RFB (VNC) protocol. Traditionally it did not support audio redirection (that's not a part of VNC) but Apple added that feature in macOS 14 Sonoma as part of screen sharing 4.0 and the high performance screen sharing feature.
The key part to know, however, is that Apple's bespoke changes to VNC are closed (both the code and the actual protocol changes). We have an implementation of version 3.8 on our side, but it's built by reverse engineering and this is an extremely hard and time consuming process. We don't have an implementation of high performance screen sharing currently, so audio is not supported on our side.
It is on our wishlist to implement this but, like I said, it's extremely technically challenging so I'm not sure we will get that any time soon. I don't have any workaround either, other than to try a different method for screen sharing but I'm not sure there are many options for Mac that support audio. Splashtop might be one (no affiliation on our side); I'm not sure how cleanly it integrates into RDM on the client however.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for this at the moment. Please don't hesitate with further questions or comments.
Thanks and kind regards,
Richard Markievicz
Hi,
The Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) protocol does not support sound redirection. I believe Apple only recently added support for sound redirection in the newer high-performance ARD protocol introduced with macOS Sonoma, but this is a completely different protocol that we haven't reverse engineered. Can you get sound redirection working with the official Screen Sharing app?
Best regards,
@Marc-André Moreau
Hi Marc-André.
Good point, I had never checked that before. It’s actually not working either…
BR,
LC
Hello
I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but you didn't do anything wrong. This won't work currently.
Apple Screen Sharing (AKA Apple Remote Desktop) is a heavily customized version of the RFB (VNC) protocol. Traditionally it did not support audio redirection (that's not a part of VNC) but Apple added that feature in macOS 14 Sonoma as part of screen sharing 4.0 and the high performance screen sharing feature.
The key part to know, however, is that Apple's bespoke changes to VNC are closed (both the code and the actual protocol changes). We have an implementation of version 3.8 on our side, but it's built by reverse engineering and this is an extremely hard and time consuming process. We don't have an implementation of high performance screen sharing currently, so audio is not supported on our side.
It is on our wishlist to implement this but, like I said, it's extremely technically challenging so I'm not sure we will get that any time soon. I don't have any workaround either, other than to try a different method for screen sharing but I'm not sure there are many options for Mac that support audio. Splashtop might be one (no affiliation on our side); I'm not sure how cleanly it integrates into RDM on the client however.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for this at the moment. Please don't hesitate with further questions or comments.
Thanks and kind regards,
@Richard Markiewicz
Hi Richard,
Don’t be sorry, the tool is amazing as well as your support level. I am plenty satisified about both.
Actually I never checked from a Mac under Sonoma to my Mini that runs Sequoia. I only checked from an old 2014 MacBook Air and true that sound redirection is not working.
Thanks again a lot for you valuable support.
BR,
LC
Hello
Yes you need at least macOS Sonoma on each side of the connection, and both machines must be Apple Silicon (M* processor), and possibly you need to enable the high performance sharing mode. It's a client-side option but I'm not sure if you have to enable it manually or not. They also state it's best on a local, wired network connection and I've heard it doesn't play nicely with VPNs.
Our concern is - like Marc wrote - this is probably a totally different protocol. We expect that the initial negotiation is probably still VNC-based, but under the hood it seems likely to use something completely different and Apple proprietary. Because it requires Apple Silicon on both machines and several UDP ports to be open. I imagine it uses the same protocol they developed for the Apple Vision Pro to access the display of a Mac.
Thanks and kind regards,
Richard Markievicz