No sound - "This device is being used by another application..."

Question

From time to time i keep losing audio, sometimes pulling connectors out from motherboard sockets and back in does help, sometimes even system's restart does not until it's been done twice. Disabling audio device in audio manager doesn't help at all. Switching to another audio device does, sometimes both devices are affected.

Information about my system: PC (not laptop), Windows 8.1 x64, every update's been installed, MB: GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-UD3P Currently using Windows audio drivers, previously Realtek, no differences. The same problem is with USB audio devices, including headset and microphones, every usb port, but non another devices like for flash or exhdd'.

Software like Chrome, Skype, Steam are most of the time on, but seems none of them is behind this. I have tested all of my applications that could cause this problem, like Splash Pro, foobar2000, vlc, damn even Gimp, VMware, Rosetta stone, Notepad, and whatsoever, but the problems seems to pop up from nowhere with no good reason. I have scanned my system with Malwarebytes, Dr. Web, Kaspersky, nothing has been found. Did try Windows 7 (my previous system, everything's fine).

I can't figure it.

Answer 1

I can't believe you went to all the trouble of removing and replacing motherboard connectors!

To simplify things for others looking for the best solution, the easiest way is to:

Right click Taskbar > Select Task Manager > Services Tab > Right click Audiosrv > Restart.

Or if you want to stop it happening to you again then:

Control Panel > Sound > Playback Tab > Click on Sound Device > Properties > Advanced Tab > Exclusive Mode > Untick "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" > OK

Answer 2

Found a temporary fix: Open up Windows search and search for "services.msc", find "Windows audio service" in the list, in the right pane, and restart it. This would return audio, so that you could avoid PC restart or other time-consuming tries.

I haven't found the cause, though.

Answer 3

Go to Device Manager, disable the audio device and enable it back again. That works like a charm for me, an instant fix, more like a workaround.

Answer 4

I had the same problem. The solution for me was to roll back the audio driver. Probably installing a new driver will have the same effect. To roll back the driver:

• go to control panel->sound
• right click the device you're trying to play from
• click properties
• (the next step will differ per device)
• under the general tab, click properties
• go to the driver tab and click roll back driver

Answer 5

In Windows 7, I uninstalled all of the drivers then restarted the computer. As someone indicated in one of their answers, the computer will re-install the drivers when it restarts. All sound was back after that.

Answer 6

Ha ha, touché. Old topic, forgot about this one. Just so you know, unchecking "Allow application to take exclusive control... bla bla" doesn't prevent it from happening again. And i still haven't found a cause. What i do i know tho, that this is happening only with Windows 8.1, not even once with Windows 7 or Linux. And i am not the only one with this problem.

Oh, and to simplify things more, you can just make a shortcut on desktop that restarts audio service.

Answer 7

Open device manager --> Sound,Video and Game Controller --> Realtek High Def. Audio --> Right Click --> Disable --> Enable

It worked for me (in Window 10)