PsychoPy 2026.1.3 audio error: "No speaker device found with index 'None'" on macOS

Builder
1

Hi everyone,

I’m new to PsychoPy so please excuse me if this is a easy problem to solve. I’m trying to build a very simple experiment on macOS.The task is straightforward: participants press the space bar, a second routine starts, and after a variable delay (200, 400, or 600 ms) a beep sound should play. However, any time I include a Sound component, the experiment crashes before it starts with the following error:

psychopy.hardware.exceptions.DeviceNotConnectedError:
No speaker device found with index 'None

Some info:

  • PsychoPy: 2026.1.3

  • macOS

  • Audio backend: PTB (Psychtoolbox)

Things I’ve already tried:

  1. Verified that the sound file exists and can be played outside PsychoPy.

  2. Tried different audio backends:

    • PTB

    • pygame

    • pysound

    pygame failed because pygame is not installed.
    pysound failed because pysoundcard is not installed.

  3. Removed and recreated the Sound component multiple times.

  4. Left the Device field as Default.

  5. Created custom speaker devices in Builder and assigned them to the Sound component.

  6. Manually edited the generated Python script to change the speaker settings.

  7. Tested a minimal experiment containing only:

    • a text component

    • a sound component

    The same error occurs.

I also try to check if the speaker is at all detectable. When I run:

from psychopy.hardware.speaker import SpeakerDevice

devices = SpeakerDevice.getAvailableDevices()
for d in devices:
    print(d)

I get:

{'deviceName': 'MacBook Air Speakers', 'index': 2.0, 'name': 'MacBook Air Speakers'}
{'deviceName': 'Microsoft Teams Audio', 'index': 3.0, 'name': 'Microsoft Teams Audio'}

So PsychoPy/PTB can detect my speakers.

Has anyone encountered this on recent PsychoPy versions? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2

Thanks for the report. We also came across this bug in internal testing and I’m working on a fix that will be available next release. The information you provided is helpful to sort this out