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No audio after several hours


Bezier89

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I only started noticing this issue around the time I upgrade from LaunchBox 8.3 to 8.5. Of course, it could be due to some other driver or Windows update that happened around the same time. If it's helpful, I can downgrade LaunchBox and report my results.

 

Description:

Using BigBox, I often simply leave it on the platform select view. Recently, it's been the case that if I do this, and leave my computer alone for several hours, when I come back, there is no audio! There is no audio when navigating within BigBox, and even more strangely, there is no audio when I launch a game (have only tried with RetroArch, will try again with other emulators next time it happens). However, exiting BigBox and restarting it fixes the problem! Audio is back, both within BigBox and within the games I launch.

 

Computer:

  • Windows 10
  • 8GB RAM
  • Nvidia GeForce 860m
  • Latest Windows updates and Nvidia drivers (398.82) as of August 25
  • LaunchBox 8.5 (but using BigBox almost exclusively)
  • Hooked up to a TV via HDMI, with another HDMI cable to send TV's ARC to a sound bar

 

When it happens, I've tried restarting the TV. I've tried unplugging and plugging back in the ARC HDMI cable. Even still, there is no audio. Only exiting BigBox gives me audio back (and audio works fine if start BigBox back up again, at least for a while). I've put my computer in "High Performance" mode - do not turn off screen, do not sleep, and pretty every much "power saving" feature I could find disabled - and still the issue reproduces (I will note that I usually turn the TV itself off, but computer remains on). The issue does not reproduce consistently, e.g. if I leave BigBox on overnight there's about a 50% chance of it happening. I noticed one sound setting in Windows labeled "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" that is checked. Could unchecking that help? Has anyone seen anything like this before, or have any other ideas? Any help is appreciated!

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Some updates:

  • Unchecking "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" did not help
  • Running *any* app (also tried a couple different emulators, plus a Chrome window) while BigBox has no audio results in that app not having audio.
  • Exiting BigBox does not "fix" apps that were already launched while BigBox was open, but any apps opened after BigBox has closed will restore audio.
  • It still doesn't happen consistently, but in some cases it happens in as little as thirty minutes.
  • The speakers still have audio if I switch to e.g. my Roku while in this state, just the computer that has no audio.

I'm going to try downgrading to LaunchBox 8.3 and see if that helps. Might get out an optical audio cable and see if that fairs any better, although then I can't control the speaker's volume with the TV remote.

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One last update:

  • Downgrading to LaunchBox 8.3 didn't help
  • Downgrading to Nvidia drivers from early May (397.64) didn't help
  • A program called Sound Keeper didn't help. I imagine if I simply kept my TV on this would do the trick, but I'd rather not have to keep my TV on.

What does seem to have fixed the issue is using the optical audio out from my TV instead of ARC. Interestingly, the computer is still sending the audio just the same (via HDMI cable to TV), it's just the connection between the TV and the soundbar that I changed from HDMI to optical. I'm going to chalk it up to an unfortunate hardware or driver bug (even though both my TV and soundbar are rather new), as I don't think LaunchBox in particular is the culprit.

Edited by Bezier89
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Spoke too soon, that didn't actually resolve it (yay intermittent issues). Mostly just documenting this in the unlikely event anyone googles this and has the same issue, but these two options appear to actually resolve it for me:

  1. Use the optical out *from the computer*. This means switching the default audio device, in my case to "Realtek Digital Output(Optical)". This worked but means I would need to switch the audio source on the soundbar every time I switched to or from the computer, which would be rather annoying.
  2. From device manager, uninstall "NVIDIA High Definition Audio". Then click "Scan for hardware changes", and Windows should automatically replace it with a "High Definition Audio Device" driver. This is what I ended up going with.

Basically, don't use Nvidia High Definition Audio - at least 1.3.37.4 down through 1.3.36.6. I've already wasted way too much time on this so didn't test anything older than that.

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