Asking your forbearance I hope you'll read the whole problem. It'll make you scratch your head.


So I have a pretty new Windows 7 machine, built it from scratch. Lately the following has been happening.

Windows Media will stop playing audio media, (hit the play button nothing.)

Sony Vegas won't 'play' (hit the play button nothing.)

Sony DVDA won't play track audo. (hit the play button nothing.)

Meaning, I hit the play buttons and nothing. If I reboot, everything works. I don't mean I don't have audio, I have that, it's like all the play buttons are broken. I know weird. For those who follow this board, I never have normal problems.

I'm all ears to ideas.

For all of these audio applications, does the scrubber move and does the playback time show movement? In other words, do these applications actually hang, or do they appear to be working, but you just don't hear anything? When this happens, could you confirm that you still hear sounds from other software packages? (i.e. Windows error sounds, notification sounds, etc) Also, do you have any 3rd party audio or A/V cards?

I had an instance where a 3rd party video card would "mute" my on-board audio card (to prevent feedback). Then, when the application was finishing using the 3rd party card, it wouldn't un-mute the on-board audio, causing the problem you describe.

If all audio fails, but the applications don't hang, then it's potentially a audio driver issue.

If the applications hang (no response - force quit or restart), then it's possible that multiple applications are utilizing the same drivers at the same time, causing a conflict.

I don't know for sure, but this should get you down a path of troubleshooting.

Hey Ed,

Thanks. A driver may be it. It's so weird that the scrubber doesn't move and windows media player won't play when I hit the play button. It's like they all got together and said, let's not play . :)

I'll keep working at it. Thanks again for the insight.

Looks like a software conflict between the codec used...is it a QT file? Does it happen to all file types regardless of format?

Does it happen in a specific order? E.g., does it play on Vegas till you try to open it in WM Player, etc?