flash player overriding system sounds?

[kebert_xela]

i've been having an issue with sound recently, involving the latest version of flash player. whenever it plays audio, any and all system sounds will not play. is it a sound card conflict of some sort? i doubt it, because it was working fine prior to this, but it has me dumbfounded more than anything else. my flash player version is 16.0.0.235, i'm running windows 7 64-bit, and my browser is firefox version 34. if you need any more information i'll provide it. can somebody please help me solve this?

[kebert_xela]

can i please have an answer for this? i've been having to reinstall flash every other day because of this issue and that gets annoying really, really fast. does anybody else have this same problem?

[Sereen]

Exact same problem for me, as well. I have to restart the audio service or my computer before it will even work, again.

[Jappio]

I too have been having problems with this. I've yet to find the exact cause, but when certain Flash based web application require it, it will sometimes cut out.

For example, I always run into this when I'm playing online chess. It'll be fine for a bit, but after a couple of moves in, the sound will cut out, and not just for chess, not just for the browser, but for everything on my computer. If someone is currently playing sound, like a Skype call or a video, it'll keep playing oddly enough. However if I pause, skip, or do anything to reset said player, the sound will then go out on it.

On another site that I'm looking for answers for this problem, other users have experienced this issue when they're on Tumblr. They say that after starting a video or two on the site, the sound will go off. So I don't know if this problem is just started by certain type of flash applications, or if maybe it's ones that take higher memory.

There are two ways I might have to fix it. One way is if I go into my sound settings, and I alter something, and then am able to hit "apply" it'll sometimes kick it back to normal. If though I let the problem persist (such as playing chess for a long while without going to fix it) it'll not be fixable by this method because something goes wrong with the CODEC, and I'll have to do a full computer reset to get the sound going again. Putting things like headphones in does not fix the problem either.

I'm on an HP laptop, using Windows 7 64bit. I use Firefox as my browser of choice. Sound is run by an "IDT High Definition Audio CODEC." Flash is updated, and I've tried a full uninstall and reinstall to fix the problem. I've checked my sound card's drivers to see if those needed updating, but setting them to an older version or having them fully updated both don't help fix the issue.

So yeah, multiple people are having this problem, and a solution would be wonderful.

[Guest]

Also see this thread:

Flash Player 16.0.0.235 breaks audio driver on Windows

(I obviously failed at using forum search, sorry).

I'm going to try filing this as an official bug report, because this is a major, critical bug that seemingly affects most, if not all, users on Windows. For me it happens only after quite some time of using sound in Flash in each session; that it doesn't happen immediately is probably why not more people have reported it. As far as triggers are concerned, I don't think it makes a difference which Flash applications are used. I've had it crash while using YouTube, listening to audio samples at Amazon MP3 and Allmusic, listening to programmes on the BBC iPlayer, etc. It also doesn't seem to depend on the audio interface or driver used, as by now people have reported it happening for Realtek, Asus and nVIDIA chipsets. It happens up the chain on the OS audio service level. In every case the offending version was Flash 16.0.0.235, and I never had a similar problem before that update.

That it takes a while to be triggered and it can reach an unrecoverable state, suggests that Flash fails to free some resource after its use. Still, it shouldn't be able to get the Windows Audio Service in an unresponsive state like that.

[jeromiec83223024]

If the audio service is crashing, it's because there's a bug in the audio driver for your hardware.

I believe that the hardware acceleration checkbox in the UI will disable both video and audio hardware, which should resolve this until updated drivers become available:

http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html

If not, we can potentially blacklist affected drivers, but I'll need to collect information on the specifics to be able to target them.

If you're affected by the problem, please do the following to collect an inventory of your system, then cut and paste the info into this thread (or post a link to pastebin or something, whatever is easier).

Click Start > Run

Type: dxdiag

Hit Enter

This should launch the DirectX Diagnostic Tool

Choose Save All Information and put the file somewhere you can find it (Desktop, etc)

Open it with a text editor and paste the contents here (you may need to split it into multiple posts if it's too long), or use whatever convenient alternative you find preferable.

[Jappio]

Thank you for the attempted help Jeromie, but sadly turning off hardware acceleration did not work for me.

Here is my sound device info that I got from that file for you though. If this is a problem on the end of the drivers though, hopefully it'll fix soon.

-------------

Sound Devices

-------------

            Description: Speakers and Headphones (IDT High Definition Audio CODEC)

Default Sound Playback: Yes

Default Voice Playback: Yes

            Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_111D&DEV_7605&SUBSYS_103C169B&REV_1001

        Manufacturer ID: 1

             Product ID: 100

                   Type: WDM

            Driver Name: stwrt64.sys

         Driver Version: 6.10.6341.0000 (English)

      Driver Attributes: Final Retail

            WHQL Logo'd: Yes

          Date and Size: 6/8/2011 13:58:52, 528384 bytes

            Other Files:

        Driver Provider: IDT

         HW Accel Level: Basic

              Cap Flags: 0xF1F

    Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000

Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0

Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0

              HW Memory: 0

       Voice Management: No

EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No

   I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No

Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No

[jeromiec83223024]

Is this a USB headset or sound card?

[Jappio]

Sound card.

[jeromiec83223024]

Okay.  I searched for that driver, but it led back to a generic chip vendor and they didn't really have much in terms of published support.  I was hoping to find updated drivers or something. 

Flash Player doesn't access the hardware directly.  We just send it to DirectX and Windows takes care of everything, so there's nothing special going on there that would give Flash the ability to cause problems that would affect the audio hardware system-wide.  It's most likely driver or hardware related.  I'd encourage to experiment with a different sound card from a more mainstream vendor, or a simple USB headset or something, just as a troubleshooting step to see if the issue persists. 

[Jappio]

Thanks for the try at helping, but sadly a few things I tried didn't help. I don't have a USB headset, but I did try plugging in an HDMI cord, which uses a different driver in the computer (AMD) and the same problem happened. I also tried reverting to an older state of driver as well, as this problem didn't use to exist. Sadly I guess that means if the problem isn't Flash, it is Windows or DirectX, and I'm worried that it's a matter of waiting for them to update then.

[Guest]

I find it highly unlikely that the problem isn't with Flash for a few very simple reasons:

• Nobody seems to ever have reported this particular problem before upgrading to v16.0.0.235. Ever since the upgrade, a lot of people have been experiencing this.
• Probably the most important point: it started happening on a wide variety of audio devices (and hence drivers). I personally got Flash content to crash while using an ASUS Xonar D2X, an on-board Realtek HD chipset, and an NVIDIA HDMI audio driver. I didn't change anything about these devices or their drivers; my main Xonar card hasn't even had an updated driver in three years. I have to stress again, it's the Windows Audio Service that crashes, not a particular audio driver. No audio devices or drivers seem to be immune.
• Also pretty important: this bug has affected me at least once or twice a day. Ever since downgrading to Flash 15 on one system and Flash 11 on another, I haven't had it happen a single time anymore. That's been about two weeks ago now.

If Flash doesn't access audio drivers directly and does everything via DirectX, then I agree that it shouldn't be able to cause an issue like this. However, it pretty clearly is. No doubt this means that there is an additional issue somewhere in the Windows audio stack, but something that Flash does, and apparently no other popular programs do, is triggering it.

I have just received the upgrade to Flash v16.0.0.257, and have upgraded my system again. I'll see if the audio service starts crashing again, and will report back here.

[jeromiec83223024]

Im traveling today, so apologies if this is aready provided, but if you can provide us with a set of steps that reproduce the problem consistently, we should be able to get it debugged and fixed (or research it and get a Windows bug opened) pretty easily.

I'll definitely be happy to get someone to try and reproduce it and go from there.

The output of dxdiag might also be useful as it might be chips dependent. It will help me track down comparable hardware.

Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S® 5, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

[Jappio]

Here is the consistent way I am able to trigger my sound going out.

If you need info about my sound card or more, it's up above. I'm on a 64-bit Windows 7 HP Laptop (Pavilion G6), using the latest version of Firefox (latest version on a lot of things). Of course, it sounds like a variety of machines are having this sort of problem.

First you head to chess.com. I believe you'll have to make a free account to do this, but that's of course not a difficult thing to do. Once logged in, you can hover over the "Learn" tab at the top of the screen. Then you click "Computer Workout." Next, you choose anything you'd like, or just the big "Play Random Position". This will allow you to be in a game.

In the new window, you can now move the pieces. If you're not looking to actually practice chess, just keep clicking the "Best Move" button on the right. Every move should be accompanied by a noise. Keep doing this until the sound goes out. At times, you may run out of moves in the game, but the "next Position" button should work well to getting to another scenario.

How long it can take will vary. At times, a minute of this may trigger it, at other points it may take up to about 5-10 minutes. Of course tiring to do when you're just mashing the button, but easily can happen when you are playing actual chess.

[Joesh]

Hi, i just wanted to pop in here and confirm that I am facing a similar issue, have been for over a month now. It wasn't until just recently that I made the connection that flash was causing the problem.