Why do I lose my USB speakers after reconnecting with VMWare Fusion 3 running? Here's my setup:

I have a set of Altec Lansing FX5051 speakers that I run through the USB port. I also run VMWare Fusion (sometimes in Unity mode, sometimes single window, I don't think it matters) during the day for my work on a MacBook Pro.

At the end of the day, I unplug my speakers (and a few other things) and take the laptop home for the night. I leave VMWare running, since there's no performance hit.

In the morning, I go back to the office and plug the speakers back in. However, when I attempt to listen to my music or podcasts, the sound comes out of my internal speakers. If I press the ALT key while clicking on my speaker icon, the Altec Lansing speakers are not listed. I should note that the speakers are listed as a connectable USB device from within VMWare.

So far the only solution I've found has been to shut down VMWare, unplug the speakers, and then plug them back in. On a couple of occasions I've been able to use VMWare Fusion to attach the speakers to the virtual machine, then detach them, and then it will show up, but this is not consistent. I've also tried using the USB Probe and the device does show up there, just not as a valid sound output option.

Any idea why this is occurring and how to fix it?
When a USB device is hot-plugged while VMware is running, I often see a dialog from the VM instance asking if the device should be attached to the VM or to the host OS. It's quite easy to miss this dialog if you have other applications running or if the VM is in a separate workspace. And until the dialog gets its answer, the device isn't attached to either OS.

If you're not seeing this dialog, it's also possible that VMware has already been configured with a default answer for the device in question. For example, it might automatically be attaching the device to the guest OS running in your VM. Note that this is not normally what you'd want with USB speakers, as VMware already emulates a virtual audio output device for use by guest OS's that funnels audio output through the host OS.

Have a look at your VM settings under "Virtual Machine > USB &amp; Bluetooth Settings…" where you should see a dialog similar to the following:



I expect you should see an entry corresponding to your USB speakers. If so, you should be able to configure how they're handled when hot-plugged from there.