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Posted By: DrDan Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 12:54 PM
Anyone else seeing this? My MOTU Audio Express has been going nuts on me in the past days. Thought I had fixed it, but this morning no joy at all. Reinstalling the old drivers and thinks are looking differenct in the Sounds Control Panel. There are simply not enough hours in the day to troubleshoot computers mad

Anyone else?

EDIT
OK, 30 minutes of my time I will never get back. Full driver uninstall - reboot (don't forget to do that) than full driver reinstall. All is good now! Except now I need to go get a cup of coffee... crazy
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 02:25 PM
Yes, lots of Windows patching during the past month. I'll be reinstalling my Focusrite drivers soon as I'm doing my once-every-2-years PC reimage. I like to clean the bloat-ware and wasted disk space by simply wiping my drives and starting over. Of course, pertinent files are backed up to my external USB drive. Yes, I'm a computer geek and I actually like to do this, don't judge.... smile
Steve, have you gone to solid state drives yet? I did a job for a guy last month and out a SSD in as his boot drive and OMG! From power button to ready is like 5 seconds. I am behind the times on my reading and research because I retired and don't work in the IT field anymore, but back when I worked SSDs were limited to 50,000 write cycles. Apparently that has been improved upon.I might actually do it now. Like you, my storage is on other drives. I would do my music computer first and install only Windows and PG on the primary drive. As it is, all my songs are on a 10,000 rpm 2tb internal drive. And that is on a Dell with an i7 and 64gb of RAM. I just can't forget how fast that PC I loaded was up and running on power up. In the RV my PCs won't run 24/7 like they do at home. All of that will be running on the solar power and I can't waste the amps. Your drone footage makes me REALLY want to have one for sightseeing footage, but then I remember my RC car and how I couldn't control it. I am pretty sure my drone would end up in the Gulf of Mexico or at the bottom of the Grand Canyon somewhere.
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 02:50 PM
Steve
I suspect I was once like you. grin

I have been the computer geek in the family since the early days of the PC. I too liked to do this putzin. If I bought something new and it worked out of the box, I was disappointed that I didn't have to spend hours tweaking and fixing. But that was then and this is now. All that time spent and nothing to show for it. It is just "time consuming". crazy

Having said that, I sit here on my new Dell XPS i7 which will soon be my new Music DAW replacing my similar model which is ~10 years old. For the past week I have been going back on forth with Dell with a video problem - installed new drivers and two new bios updates - no joy. Finally last night I got them to agree that they will send a replacement. I just didn't want to troubleshoot a brand new $1000 machine. But then this morning my geek side took over and I swapped out the HDMI cable and I think it is fixed! This HDMI cable worked fine on other devices but apparently didn't like the dell video card.

So this morning I fixed the video in my new dell and the audio in my old dell. So why do I feel like it was all a waste of my time? crazy
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 03:02 PM
Originally Posted By: eddie1261
Steve, have you gone to solid state drives yet?

Your drone footage makes me REALLY want to have one for sightseeing footage, but then I remember my RC car and how I couldn't control it. I am pretty sure my drone would end up in the Gulf of Mexico or at the bottom of the Grand Canyon somewhere.



Hey Eddie, check my signature.... Yup, SSD for my C:\ drive and OS. I use my D:\ HDD for data storage. I also have a smaller E:\ SSD for recording/mixing projects.

Nice on the drone comment. I rarely fly mine. For the most part I program the courses it flies. Less chance for idiot crashing on my part. smile
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 03:16 PM
Originally Posted By: MusicStudent
I suspect I was once like you. grin

All that time spent and nothing to show for it. It is just "time consuming". crazy

So this morning I fixed the video in my new dell and the audio in my old dell. So why do I feel like it was all a waste of my time? crazy



What you have to show for it is the knowledge, that you can do it! smile

And as far as time consuming, yup! I'm on vacation from the office for the remainder of the year so this is the perfect time waster. Hehe

I use this guy's Windows 10 tweaks when I start a new install. Been following him since Win 8.1:

TweakHound - Computer stuff...
Suddenly, I'm experiencing distortion in audio. I haven't changed anything. Could this be a result of a Windows 10 update? How do I check?

Donny
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 04:40 PM
Hey Donny,

The last two updates are related to the issue. Check here:

Windows Settings - (Windows key + "I")-->Update & Security-->Update History

2017-11 Update for Windows 10 Version 1703 for x64-based Systems (KB4049011)
2017-11 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1703 for x64-based Systems (KB4048954)

Those updates were applied on my machines toward the end of November. You may want to see if the install date on those was about the same time as your issue started.

You might need to reinstall your audio drivers at that point.
Originally Posted By: sslechta
Hey Donny,

The last two updates are related to the issue. Check here:

Windows Settings - (Windows key + "I")-->Update & Security-->Update History

2017-11 Update for Windows 10 Version 1703 for x64-based Systems (KB4049011)
2017-11 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1703 for x64-based Systems (KB4048954)

Those updates were applied on my machines toward the end of November. You may want to see if the install date on those was about the same time as your issue started.

You might need to reinstall your audio drivers at that point.


Thanks, Steve.

I discovered that Adobe Flash Player was corrupted so I updated it. The distortion is gone but I find that I need much more volume to bring the music up to a comfortable level. I had been listening at 10-15% and now need 40-50%.
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 07:06 PM
There's usually more than one place on your PC to adjust volume. The Windows volume control and the audio interface volume control. One of those may have changed.
Steve,

That is set at 50% Is there a deeper control that's eluding me?

Donny
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/10/17 09:45 PM
Windows volume control is the little speaker icon in the lower right near the clock. If you're listening to music in Media Monkey, for example, it also has a volume control.
I was aware of that one. I'm at 50% now. Thanks, Steve.

Donny
Posted By: jford Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/11/17 01:20 PM
Quote:
All is good now! Except now I need to go get a cup of coffee...


Your mistake was not starting with the coffee. smile
That's self-help FAQ #1.

Good one, John.
Posted By: Teunis Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/15/17 11:09 PM
I use external sound cards on my machines. What I have found is you need them plugged in when doing updates even more importantly when upgrading say from 1703 to 1709. Similarly with printers. I have found drivers can go belly up when devices aren't available when doing updates.

For what it is worth

Tony
That’s a very good tip. Thanks, Tony.
Posted By: jford Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/27/17 11:39 AM
Well, it didn't break my Audio Drivers, but just this morning, I got a Windows 10 Creators update that took about an hour to apply. I noticed after it finished that I now have a Windows.old folder coming in at about 42GB (which I can remove once I double check everything works).

Something to watch out for if you are running low on disk space before applying an major update.
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/27/17 01:39 PM
That's interesting John. I said almost the same thing in the Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic) forum a couple of weeks ago:

Possible scam - windows update notification

Nice to know M$ is consistent with their destruction of our systems. smile

The Disk Cleanup with Clean System Files checked did the trick on removing the Windows.Old directory as well. It looks like it had made backups of Program Files and Program Files (x86) in that folder causing a lot of that space usage.

I had no issues with my system since removing that folder.
Posted By: jford Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/27/17 01:48 PM
Yep, I've removed Windows.old before (using Disk Cleanup); was just surprised at how big the folder was, though. Luckily my hard drive had sufficient space.
Originally Posted By: jford
Your mistake was not starting with the coffee. smile


And when you want coffee, order it from Black Rifle Coffee. It's a 100% veteran owned company, and if you happen to like it strong, I just sent a bag of their strongest blend to a coffee hound friend in Oklahoma. I mentioned to her that I sent the blend that they suggested when I asked "What do you have that has so much caffeine it's a legal alternative to methamphetamine?" And that's what she got!

(She likes strong coffee. grin)
I'm having audio problems anyway, especially after updating to the latest build. I see that my last windows update successfully installed on 11/26/17.
Posted By: Teunis Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/27/17 11:38 PM
At the risk of repeating myself. I had some issues after the last update. At the advice of some others I uninstalled and reinstalled the audio driver and all came good.

Tony
Windows 10 update caused my video card drivers to default to Microsoft Basic Display driver so I was not able to use the full resolutions for my monitors.

Reinstalling the drivers did not help until I tried reinstalling them using compatibility mode for windows 7.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware-winpc/amd-radeon-switchable-graphics-no-driver-update/417aefe8-9cb4-43a5-8a52-3c608ae12e98?auth=1
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 12:35 PM
It is back (see BIAB Error Message on Startup below).

No evidence of Win 10 updates in [past week]
BIAB is silent
Youtube sound is gone.
But Reaper is still working.


I hate to point fingers, but this all started with BIAB 2018. Just a coincidence? crazy


Attached picture Capture.JPG
HI

I do see this from time to time on my W7 build.
Normally it is right, something has not released the driver of the Audio device.
Many drivers like Asio for all and other Asio drivers only allow one instance.
So if you say try to run BIAB with RB still open or any other software that uses that driver, it will fail.
Not all applications exit cleanly and release the driver.
Some times the only way out is to reboot the computer that clears it down.
I have not yet worked out which bit of audio software is causing this but it could be anything Audio that you have done today since boot, even things like Windows media player ,
Mind you I could have used quite a bit see my list in my Signature
You can try to narrow it down by rembering what you done before today since boot.
Have fun
Mike
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 02:32 PM
Unfortunately, re-boot does not clear the "hold" on the device. Nor does a power cycle of the MOTU Audio Express.

Nor does RTFS in BIAB which tries to reset to WAS, but can't because of the Hold.

Interesting that REAPER does not have any problem. So whatever is holding it, does not impact Reaper, but Reaper does not clear the hold when it exits. Maybe a clue there?

BIAB, YouTube and all other system audio remains silent.

All looks good in the Win10 Sounds Setup page. But the "test" throws and error when I press it.

Whatever is doing this, it is new as of the past several weeks.

------------------
I deleted my Drivers, Rebooted, Reinstalled the Drivers.... and all is back to normal.
Hi
Hmmm
In that case some thing is using the windows drivers at start up,the onboard sound card, Coolsoft synth likes to get hold of a windows Driver and Asio for all puts windows drivers in a wrapper
As you say only the last few weeks was it prior to Biab 2018 or only since Biab ‘s fondness of WAS.
Mike
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 05:13 PM
To check your Startup items, go into Task Manager and hit the Startup tab. If you see no tabs, hit the more details button in the lower left.

As you can see on my example I have a lot of items disabled that I do not need to run.

See if there's anything strange that's enabled and disable it.

You will be asked to reboot after.


Description: Task Manager Startup Tab.
Attached picture temp.jpg
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 06:05 PM
Originally Posted By: Mike Head
As you say only the last few weeks was it prior to Biab 2018 or only since Biab ‘s fondness of WAS.
Mike


As I said above

Quote:
I hate to point fingers, but this all started with BIAB 2018. Just a coincidence? crazy
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 06:07 PM
Originally Posted By: sslechta
See if there's anything strange that's enabled and disable it.


I did just that. Nothing too suspicious, but I did take the opportunity to google a couple entries and then disable them.

Thanks
Posted By: sslechta Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 07:17 PM
Originally Posted By: MusicStudent
I hate to point fingers, but this all started with BIAB 2018. Just a coincidence? crazy


My only concern on that one is that if BIAB was causing issues there would be a lot of folks complaining about the same thing.

Most all issues regarding BIAB or any other music software ties back to the sound card. In your case, MOTU.

I don't know of many users around here that have one of those.

- Do you have any online MOTU resources you could search through that describe similar issues and are there any resolutions you can find aside from reinstalling the drivers?

- Does power cycling the MOTU resolve issues with BIAB?

- As far as something locking the audio drivers..... When that happens to me, it's usually something like a web browser page with a video or something. Maybe you have some background audio or video process running on the Task Manager Details tab that's causing the issue. Since you've checked the Startup tab, try the Services tab and sort by running. Maybe one of those is the issue. You can open Services with the Open Services button at the bottom of that page. Then you could stop or disable any potential problem services.


Hope you can make progress. This one seems tricky.

P.S. - Maybe a screenshot of your audio driver preferences from BIAB?

P.S. II - Since you say YouTube sound is gone too, see if there's any Microsoft Edge/Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome processes running. Maybe there's a virus or a badly installed MS patch from the recent updates.
Posted By: Teunis Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 07:24 PM
Sometimes when the ASIO stops and it says to reboot the ASIO does not come back. When this occurs I go to the Devices section, turn off the sound card, it says reboot but I don't, then turn the card on again and then reboot.

Since I completely uninstalled the driver and reinstalled it I have not had issues.

Note however ASIO will only work on one instance at a time. It can lock up if you try to use it in two concurrent sessions. This has always been the case.

For what it is worth,

Tony
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 08:19 PM
Thanks guys. It was strange that power cycling either\both the computer or the MOTU did not release hold on the device.

One more mystery of life. I will let you know if\when I figure it out.
Posted By: rharv Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/29/17 08:42 PM
Maybe it does release the hold, then grabs it again on start up.

I'd look hard at Windows mixer (or other) settings that may have changed.

Just a hunch
Hi

Well I had to pay a bit of attention to my default start up practices.
Is your MOTO an external audio interface?

I use an Akai Eie pro this is external and has its own power supply and switch.
I have this set in windows as my default audio device.
It is also my default audio for BIAB running dedicated ASIO drivers.

Mostly I make sure that the Akai is on before starting windows.
If it is not, like when I take my laptop away or out with me windows falls through to the onboard Realtech HD. sound chipset.
At this time of course BIAB is still expecting the Akai so I would have to change my audio setting in BIAB.
Realband on the other hand if it does not see the Akai immediately throws a wobbly and reverts to Mime.

Starting the Akai after start up is fine as long as I start BIAB after that.

Just some more thoughts
Mike
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/30/17 11:48 AM
Yes, the MOTU Audio Express is an external device. And like you is the default for all system audio. An exception is that I set BIAB to default to MME with the MOTU. I save ASIO for my recording in REAPER.

It is a magical dance of audio configurations and setup that generally keeps the whole music system running smoothly. However, once in while things go astray.

Thanks for the input. I have my eye on thinks now.
I would also test to see if it works with BIAB with MME sound drivers. If ONLY the ASIO is failing, that's another clue. I don't know what it would tell you, but it's another clue.
Now THIS is strange. After that toxic update that appears to break stuff, my Focusrite works just fine to play Real Band files. But suddenly now nothing ELSE will play! My MP3 player functionally plays files, but there is no sound routed to the Focusrite. It isn't fatal because all I do on that computer is use Real Band, but how strange. I will play with it when there isn't football on TV.

Before anybody asks, I tried to play wav and MP3 files in Microsoft's Groove player, in Windows Media Player, and in Foobar, all of which worked before that last update/upgrade, whatever we are calling it here. Something amiss in the audio engine that I will worry about later.
Posted By: DrDan Re: Win 10 Updates - Breaking Audio Drivers - 12/31/17 04:57 PM
Quote:
Interesting that REAPER does not have any problem. But, BIAB, YouTube and ALL other system audio remains silent.


Coincidence? wink
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