boot: 0.689
device: 0.681
graphic: 0.675
network: 0.655
instruction: 0.623
vnc: 0.619
other: 0.592
semantic: 0.591
socket: 0.581
assembly: 0.571
mistranslation: 0.474
KVM: 0.375

coreaudio not working on MacOS

OS: MacOS Catalina 10.15.2

qemu-system-x86_64 -version
QEMU emulator version 4.2.50 (v4.2.0-13-g084a398bf8-dirty)
Copyright (c) 2003-2019 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

Qemu install via brew: brew install qemu

---

I use following to install Ubuntu 18.04 desktop successfully:-

IMG_CD=$HOME/Downloads/iso/ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso
IMG_FILE=$HOME/code/vm/qemu/u64d01.qcow2
MAC_ADDR=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

qemu-system-x86_64 \
-no-user-config -nodefaults \
-show-cursor \
-name u64d01 \
-M q35,accel=hvf,usb=off,vmport=off \
-cpu host -smp 4 -m 2048 \
-overcommit mem-lock=off \
-overcommit cpu-pm=off \
-rtc base=utc,clock=host \
\
-device virtio-tablet-pci \
-device virtio-vga \
\
-device virtio-blk-pci,drive=ssd1 \
-drive id=ssd1,file=$IMG_FILE,if=none,format=qcow2 \
\
-device virtio-net-pci,netdev=nic1,mac=$MAC_ADDR \
-netdev user,id=nic1,ipv4=on,ipv6=on,hostname=u64d01,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
\
-device ich9-intel-hda,id=snd,msi=on \
-device hda-output,id=snd-codec0,bus=snd.0,cad=0,audiodev=snd0 \
-audiodev coreaudio,id=snd0,out.buffer-count=10000 \
\
-cdrom $IMG_CD

Removing the last -cdrom line Ubuntu desktop boot up and everything work perfectly except the audio.

I test with wav audio driver by replacing the -audiodev line as follow, which save the client audio to a wave file, like below and it work perfectly:

-audiodev wav,id=snd0,path=$HOME/qemu.wav

I start the vm, open firefox and play a few video, then shutdown the vm. Then I can play the qemu.wav file and all the audio was recorded there.

However, I can't get audio directly with coreaudio.

First thing to check is whether you have any other audio applications installed, since there seems to be a long running issue whereby other applications can prevent QEMU from being able to output audio. See https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=8848&sid=1e5fab3a08347beb3b344be0f953221e&start=150#p60978 for a discussion on this.

Secondly does QEMU 4.1 audio work? There has been a report on list that there is an issue caused by conversion to the new backend audio APIs in 4.2 here: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2020-01/msg02142.html.


I am not using any audio enhancing software.

I start trying qemu + Ubuntu Desktop a few weeks ago and put all configurations together last week, so I never try coreaudio on 4.1.

I recently test it again, coreaudio is working on 4.1.1, 4.2 and 5rc1 on MacOS.

It is working now. Tested with 4.1.1, 4.2 and 5rc1.