[SOLVED] The haunted speaker setup

[MarbleMemory]

So I had an issue where a game (Star Wars the Old Republic) refused to launch and just kept crashing. Spotify also refused to work, just telling me that the selected song wasn't available. And after speaking to both Spotify support and EA support they couldn't help me. So I figured that it must have been an issue on my end, and after some head-scratching, I saw some similarities between the issues on Spotify and the ones on the game. So as a last resort I tried unplugging my PreSonus 2/6 soundcard with my Rokit KRK Speakers connected and it worked. After weeks of troubleshooting MY SPEAKERS was the problem. This is by far the weirdest issue I have EVER encountered and I, therefore, turn to you with my new problem. Why won't Spotify or the game work with the soundcard plugged in? Any ideas would be helpful. I will be glued to this screen for a while trying to figure it out so please ask if you need further information.

Best regards,
MM

 

[lolnole]

One possibility is that an application was taking exclusive control (exclusive mode) over the audio device (PreSonus) thereby preventing other applications from accessing it. It could result in the problems you describe. The counter example to this would be that you were still able to play audio from other programs (e.g. YouTube).