crazy sound problems in windows 8 across the board

[onlineclasstaker]

hey guys.. reaaallly need some help on my illogical sound problems since i take online classes where i watch videos and take notes.

My sound isn't working in any web browser I have and I downloaded internet explorer and firefox to check them but they have the same problem.

I wiped chrome clean but it didn't help. So I uninstalled and reinstalled it but that didn't help either.

I disabled the out of process flash player and that seemed to fix it for a couple of days and then it was back to no sound.

I updated my adobe flash player to no effect
I went through my computers regular updates to no effect.
I ran virus scans to no effect. They found nothing.
I have shut down and restarted a million times..

I've tried checking the sound in the control panel but it says everything is working properly. However when I try to test the sound it says it can't because the sound it being used by another application. So I clicked the box to make sure no device can have exclusive control of the sound but that doesn't help.

All this started when I was FORCED by skype to update to their newest skype app for windows 8.

The crazy thing is the sound comes and goes.. somedays windows media player works fine. This week it won't. Some days skype sounds work.. Some days 3 seconds of sound will play on facebook videos.. some days a WHOLE VIDEO'S SOUND will work!!! and then not again for the next few days... some days like today.. videos were working without sound for hours but then suddenly I get an error message and now videos won't even play the visual much less the audio. Also, sometimes chrome and other browsers do not show up in the volume mixer.. but when they do, there is no sound. I'm so fed up with trying to find help.. I've been searching forums for about 2 hours a day but with no luck.

PLEASE HELP!

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Try disabling your current speaker and re-enabling it in Windows to see if that fixed the problem. I forget the exact steps but you can access your sound devices by right-clicking the little speaker at the bottom-right and opening up a menu or two.

Or go to Control Panel > search Sound

 

[onlineclasstaker]

Try disabling your current speaker and re-enabling it in Windows to see if that fixed the problem. I forget the exact steps but you can access your sound devices by right-clicking the little speaker at the bottom-right and opening up a menu or two.

Or go to Control Panel > search Sound

ooook so i disabled it.. BUT i don't know how to RE-ENABLE it cuz as soon as i disabled it, the box said: the device you are trying to configure has been removed 0_0 lol. how do i get it back now?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

You have to enable an option "show hidden devices". Don't worry I panicked the first time and thought I could not enable it.

If I was on a PC right now I could tell you more specifically, but that option is somewhere!

 

[turkey3_scratch]

This may help http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dus7F_qGWWk

 

[onlineclasstaker]

You have to enable an option "show hidden devices". Don't worry I panicked the first time and thought I could not enable it.

If I was on a PC right now I could tell you more specifically, but that option is somewhere!

ok great so i just found how to show hidden devices but now how do i go in and enable and which device so i enable?

ok scratch that.. i clicked on the the audio icon in the bottom right and it troubleshot? itself lol and enabled the speakers. so to check if it fixed it, i went to my online classes and picked a video. no go. then i looked into the volume mixer and chrome is not even listed.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Oh, sorry that didn't work, just thought you might give that a try. Have you ever considered it could be a hardware problem? Have you tried headphones or an external speaker to see if it works as well?

Or maybe delete Skype temporarily and see if that fixes the problem, as you say that is the cause.

 

[onlineclasstaker]

This may help http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dus7F_qGWWk

Oh, sorry that didn't work, just thought you might give that a try. Have you ever considered it could be a hardware problem? Have you tried headphones or an external speaker to see if it works as well?

Or maybe delete Skype temporarily and see if that fixes the problem, as you say that is the cause.

hmm is it possible to delete the skype app from windows 8? that's when it all started. i have not tried speakers or headphones..it doesn't even list chrome on the volume mixer and windows media won't play any files today at least so i can't check that.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I would advise you at least try headphones, assuming you have a cheap earbuds sitting around. If the sound doesn't come through them then you know you have a software issue. And uninstalling Skype from windows 8 would be extremely easy, just right-click the tile and click "uninstall" for Windows 8-style apps.

Edit: no need for headphones definitely a software issue.

 

[onlineclasstaker]

I would advise you at least try headphones, assuming you have a cheap earbuds sitting around. If the sound doesn't come through them then you know you have a software issue. And uninstalling Skype from windows 8 would be extremely easy, just right-click the tile and click "uninstall" for Windows 8-style apps.

Edit: no need for headphones definitely a software issue.

I deleted all the Skypes except for the desktop version that has never given me problems.. but it didn't change anything. I still haven't tried headphones or speakers. I hope to find some to try out today. Thanks for the suggestions! Keep 'em rolling if you or anyone has any other ideas..

.................................

CRAZY newest update: So I wrote the above this morning.. now it's the afternoon and I realized that today for some reason windows media player and skype had sound so I was researching if it was possible to download the videos from my online class and watch them through my media player. While I was doing this, a separate tab opened on its own and started playing music!!! This is the first sound I've heard in a long time from a web browser. This is the url of the website that was playing music: http://lp.torchmusic.fm/?appid=108&lpid=3747. So I immediately clicked on the video and it took to me to youtube where the video and the music started playing with sound just fine. At this point I thought I was back in the game and everything was good. But then I tried my online classes and they still don't play any audio. Neither will any audio play on videos on facebook, and if I click a link on the videos from facebook and get rerouted to youtube they won't play on youtube either. Only the videos from the url I posted above will play when rerouted to youtube. WHAT does this mean????