I recently purchased an i Mac 24inch and I installed media composer academic version 3.0 on it so after launching the mc it gives me this error that says Exception: Failed to initialize audio hardware,

Im not using any external hardware or mixer or mojo or anything, please I need help cause I just started using mac and I have no idea..

Thank you very much

 This has come up a few times in recent weeks. Haven't seen a solution yet though.

Do you have anything else attached to the that CPU except storage?

I have a midi controler that I use with Logic, and a printer that's all. Do you think it could be the controler?

Thanks for your help

 Don't know but let's disconnect everything just as a test.

Then, go to library>audio>Midi Drivers and trash the digi drivers you find there (or just move them to the desktop)

I'm not sure if this helps or not, but we've run into the audio initialization failure a few times with our Mojo system running on our MBPro laptop.  We've found that if you have the audio muted on your computer, MC will fail to initialize.  If you turn the audio up even one notch, the program fires up.  Don't know if this will solve your problem, but it's easy to try.  Got my fingers crossed for you.

All the best...Bill

I will try this most def... thank you

I will try it thanks so much!!

Well I have tried everything and I still can't fix this problem any suggestions?

Same problem here. I am convinced that core audio has changed in the new macs/ leopard. The headphone out (internal audio) and line out are now completely separate entities. When the Avid does work, audio only comes out of the headphones, not line out. Anyone have a clue? Any work around?

I don't have that problem at all. I have audio coming out of both on my Dual 3.0. 

Hi there - I had this problem recently with Soundflower installed - I had to change the Mac's sound INPUT in System Prefs to the normal input, nothing else - and then it worked!

Well part 1 of the solution was to use Audio Midi setup to change the default settings. But the real problem

Exception: Failed to initialize audio hardware

remains. Happens ~50% of the time. Yes professionals deal with it and just relaunch. Students and faculty just want Final Cut Pro

Are you running MC without any Avid hardware connected? Using 10.5.4/ 10.5.3? Do you have a DV deck or DV Decoder connected?

Brain, try this...

Go to Library>audio and remove the Midi drivers from their folder.

Does that make any difference for you?

Yes I have DX connected and DV decks. 

Deleting those files greatly reduces the occurance of the problem from a fresh boot but doesn't eliminate it. If I relaunch the Avid, the error will still occur about 50% of the time. (Yes, not a big deal for  a professional but ....)

I believe if you have Avid hardware connected the error won't occur as often, or at all, since the Avid hardware is the default device to be initiated for audio output. Does the error occur for you if the DX Box is disconnected?

I have just iinstalled an academic version of AMC 3.0 on a MacPro.  This is a 3 GHz machine using dual quad core processors with 4 GB RAM and running Leopard 10.5.5.  I have only installed the software version of Media Composer.  There are no mojos or other proprietary Avid I/O devices on this computer.  The only audio device I have is the built in audio on this computer:

Intel High Definition Audio:

  Audio ID: 12

  Available Devices:

  Line Out:

  Connection: 1/8 inch Jack

  Headphone:

  Connection: 1/8 inch Jack

  Line In:

  Connection: 1/8 inch Jack

  Speaker:

  Connection: Internal

  S/P-DIF Out:

  Connection: Optical

  S/P-DIF In:

  Connection: Optical