Cannot uninstall

[nasosev]

Please Confirm

• I have read the FAQ and Wiki where most common issues can be resolved
• I have searched Discussions to see if the same question has already been asked
• This is a bug and not a question about audio routing or configuration, which should be posted in Discussions

macOS Version

macOS 13 Ventura

BlackHole Build(s) Affected

• 2 channel
• 16 channel
• 64 channel
• other/custom build

Describe the bug

I cannot uninstall Blackhole from macOs 15.4.1

I've tried multiple independent methods mentioned on the site:

• First, do a clean install of BH 2 ch
• using the generic "automated uninstaller" on this page: https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole/wiki/Uninstallation . Get error "The installation failed."
• using the manual steps at the above link -- there is no blackhole driver in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL even tho blackhole appears in the Audio MIDI Setup app and other apps.
• using a specific blackhole2ch uninstaller listed here: https://existential.audio/blackhole/support/ . Installation succeeds but blackhole remains installed.

I'd really appreciate support on how to uninstall this as i believe its presence is interferring with another audio app on my system.

thank you

Reproduction Steps

etc...

Expected Behavior

blackhole is uninstalled with the provided method or uninstaller

Screenshots

[orchetect]

Have you tried rebooting?

A while ago macOS changes under the hood made the installer/uninstaller report failure but it actually just needs a reboot.

@devinroth The installer was updated to require a system restart. Maybe the uninstallers should as well?

[nasosev]

@orchetect that did the trick! Thanks :)

[cat-fairyy]

Im having the same issue. Just restarted my computer but didn't change anything. I'm on Sequoia 15.4.1
Cannot download uninstall package, cannot run uninstall on terminal as written in the guide.

[devinroth]

What errors are you getting in terminal? Devin

…

On Apr 26, 2025 at 2:00 PM -0700, cat-fairyy ***@***.***>, wrote: cat-fairyy left a comment (ExistentialAudio/BlackHole#838) Im having the same issue. Just restarted my computer but didn't change anything. I'm on Sequoia 15.4.1 Cannot download uninstall package, cannot run uninstall on terminal as written in the guide. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[carlos-motiro]

Via brew I'm getting:

brew uninstall blackhole-16ch
==> Uninstalling Cask blackhole-16ch
==> Uninstalling packages with sudo; the password may be necessary:
Password:
Could not kickstart service "com.apple.audio.coreaudiod": 1: Operation not permitted
Error: Failure while executing; `/usr/bin/sudo -E -- /bin/launchctl kickstart -kp system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod` exited with 1. Here's the output:
Could not kickstart service "com.apple.audio.coreaudiod": 1: Operation not permitted

From the pkg I also see the same error.

[cat-fairyy]

It did eventually work for me. Despite error in terminal (As posted above by carlos-matiro).
When I restarted my computer, Blackhole had finally disappeared.
It's confusing since the terminal says "error" "failure" "not permitted" and there is no message confirming it worked.

[subsatori]

I had this problem affecting affecting the BlackHole64ch.driver when running the uninstaller in macOS 14.7.6. It just didn't work, with our without reboot. The manual cd /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL && sudo rm -rf BlackHole64ch.driver && killall -9 coreaudiod in Terminal worked fine.