Question Windows 10 - Apps don't play any sound (but Windows does)

[AdrillDits]

Hey there, honestly this is a tough one and I can't figure out what's wrong (without having to completely reinstall everything).

So basically I can't get sound from any app EXCEPT discord (apps like Firefox, games, etc). But everything was before I updated Windows.

Yes, I do have sound coming from Windows (like when I move the volume slider).
No, I didnt mute my apps in the mixer.
Yes, I tried to uninstall and reinstall my sound card drivers.
Windows is up to date (Win 10 Pro).

This happend yesterday, after I updated Windows. However, uninstalling those updates didn't fix the problem.

Thanks for reading! Any ideas? :/

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

what device have you chosen as your default playback audio device in Control Panel > Sound?

this should control where sound is being relayed to by default from all apps and connected devices.

 

[AdrillDits]

Yes, I already verified that. My sound card is still selected as the default output device, so everything should be fine.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

My sound card is still selected as the default output

often you will see the actual output device vs the sound processor as an option that needs to be selected;
certain speaker set(USB, bluetooth, etc), headphones,..

 

[AdrillDits]

I already selected my headphones as the default output, I dont think the problem is here, because it was already configured this way before, and it was fine.
And as I said I do have sound from Discord and from Windows, but nothing else. So I don't know :/

 

[AdrillDits]

So, I solved the issue by reinstalling Windows 10.

Using Microsoft's media creation tool, you can chose to reinstall Windows on your computer while keeping all your data AND all your apps, so you don't lose anything.

I don't know what happened. Something in my windows install had clearly gone wrong, because even the multimedia player was broken.

I did run a few chkdsk commands, various DISM commands, and various sfc commands, and none of them found any errors. And yes, I checked a thousand times my audio configurations, it was all good (and random apps could play sound, others couldn't).

Thats a mystery, but oh well, its all good now. Good luck if you (reading this) are having trouble too!

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

probably corrupt media codecs or something similar that reinstalling repaired.