No Sound on game start until repair, OB 53756 and 54046

Since OB 53756 I consistently don't have sound after booting my PC unless I run a repair.

 

I am running SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless Headphones, they are the default device in Windows.

When I start the game, there is no menu music, loading a mission gives no ingame sounds whatsoever. Alt+tabbing into other programs gives working sound, SRS works as well.

 

When I subsequently close the game, run a repair and start DCS the problems stop - I am greeted with menu music and ingame sounds in a mission.

 

Attached are a DCS log after a start of the game WITHOUT sound and a log WITH sound, after starting a game having ran a repair before.

dcs_without_sound.log

dcs_with_sound_after_repair.log

Additionally, even after a repair, ambient sounds strangely fade: I just hopped into the cockpit of an Fw190, and once in the cockpit I hear ambient sounds (wind etc) and hear the "click" sounds when I press circuit breakers, but the sounds get lighter and lighter until they fade to nothing.

 

When I cycle through the F2 view (its an instant mission), I get engine sounds of other planes, and switching back to my own I get "click" and ambient sounds again, which fade after a few seconds.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Shimmergloom667

Here is a Video of the phenomenon. I have no sound mods installed.

 

 

As soon as ANY other sound loads, the ambients shortly work - like when I push the primer pump, I can hear the sound for it, and then I can also hear ambients and the circuit breaker buttons, which subsequently fade to nothing again.

 

Also the sound for the inertial flywheel doesn't sound correctly, but once I start the engine I can hear it. Additionally: as soon as the engine is running, I can hear button clicks perfectly well. As long as SOME sound is playing, all these small ambients seem to play as well.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Shimmergloom667

The same happens in other modules as well: here I am in an F-18, without ambient sounds, without switches clicking.

 

As soon as I start the engine fire test, and thereby starting some sound file, the switches and ambient sounds work as well. The engine fire test sound stops and immediately all other sounds start fading as well:

 

Had a similar issue. I had to close the nahimic sound app of my MSI on board sound to get rid of that (only) in DCS. Don't know whether this is related to your issue though.

Had a similar issue. I had to close the nahimic sound app of my MSI on board sound to get rid of that (only) in DCS. Don't know whether this is related to your issue though.

 

Thanks for the tip - I had uninstalled the Nahimic App earlier already, since it interfered with Voice Attack. There was a Nahimic service still running, unfortunately stopping the service didn't change the behaviour.

 

Thanks for chiming in, though, much appreciated!

Had a similar issue. I had to close the nahimic sound app of my MSI on board sound to get rid of that (only) in DCS. Don't know whether this is related to your issue though.

Same thing for me. I had to uninstall every "Realtek" programs to get rid of Nahimic. Then after a reboot, Windows got the sound back with its own drivers.

 

 

Here's your error message when you get no sound at all:

2020-08-27 19:32:04.037 INFO SOUND: Opening default audio device.

2020-08-27 19:32:04.040 INFO SOUND: Driver reports 1 channels with mask 0x0

2020-08-27 19:32:04.040 INFO SOUND: Using 0 channels at 48000 Hz

2020-08-27 19:32:04.040 INFO SOUND: Channel layout:

2020-08-27 19:32:04.054 ERROR SOUND: Failed to Initialize IAudioClient: 0x80070057 (E_INVALIDARG)

2020-08-27 19:32:04.054 ERROR SOUND: Failed to start SND_Renderer.

2020-08-27 19:32:04.054 ERROR SOUND: can't start renderer

And here's what happens when you have sound ingame:

2020-08-27 19:34:22.009 INFO SOUND: Opening default audio device.

2020-08-27 19:34:22.013 INFO SOUND: Driver reports 1 channels with mask 0x2

2020-08-27 19:34:22.013 INFO SOUND: Using 1 channels at 48000 Hz

2020-08-27 19:34:22.013 INFO SOUND: Channel layout: FrontRight

And this is what I get (no sound issue) and what you should get:

2020-08-27 18:55:43.681 INFO SOUND: Opening default audio device.

2020-08-27 18:55:43.688 INFO SOUND: Driver reports 2 channels with mask 0x3

2020-08-27 18:55:43.688 INFO SOUND: Using 2 channels at 48000 Hz

2020-08-27 18:55:43.688 INFO SOUND: Channel layout: Headphones/Stereo

It seems that even when you get sound, you only have one speaker working (Front Right). Edited August 28, 2020 by Flappie

Huh, so that sounds like a driver issue... that would also explain why a friend said, that the Hornet video for him was left ear only (which is strange considering the log days "front right").

 

I am still getting both ears, but then the SteelSeries headset is a virtual 5.1 or 7.1 thingy, so that would explain that. OK, will try reinstalling drivers when I come home from work, thanks already!

Thanks a lot, c0ff! I will reinstall my stuff later tonight and keep you updated on my findings! :)

So, my sound driver indeed was the culprit: one of the SteelSeries Engine updates must have either damaged or updated the sound driver, but I thought it was DCS since it seemed to have been working elsewhere and a repair somehow seemed to kinda fix things. Full uninstall and reinstall (so far) fixed my problem for good.

 

Thanks to all for your valuable input!! :)

And thank you for your feedback. :)