Control Panel Audio doesn't open ; No Audio ; USB Bootdisk plays audio

HI everyone,

I'v been sitting with a issue of no sound for 2 days now and am determined to fix it Vs reinstalling & not learning how to fix this issue. Sorry for such a long post, but the devil is in the details.

The issue is *NOT* driver / hardware based {Audio works 100% when booting off of Gandalfs W10 ISO from a USB} . The issue is some corruption within Windows , below the driver level {multiple driver reinstalls} , and possible on or below the service layer.

Also Nothing related to audio in the Control Panel opens {error= "Windows Audio Service is not enable}. Right clicking the Audio Icon in the task bar shows no devices to playback or record audio on.


Before issue started:
Creators update installed. Everything was fine for a few days afterwards. Just before the issue started my Explorer.exe suddenly stopped working, & I couldn’t manually relaunch it using Task Manager > Run New Task > Explorer.exe. I had to manually reboot and after tha,t the audio stopped working.

Iv tried the following (pretty much in order):

1. System Restore – No point’s available, besides 2 created AFTER the issue happened. Murphy’s law :P

1)New Os Profile.

2)Enabling built-in Adminster profile.

3)Uninstalling Realtek driver + nVidia drivers , using CCLeaner to remove any remanence from the Reg and then letting the OS reinstall the Realtek drivers.

4)Installing latest Realtek drivers from their site, which I see are also listed on TenForums.

5)Updating Realtek drivers using the Cab-files which I see you guys also suggested.

6)Running SFC / Scannow - No errors found (tested inside OS & from W10 USB).

7)Dism /scanhealth ; Dism /checkhealth ; Dism /restorehealth (tested inside OS & from W10 USB). All return "No corruption found".

8)Win Audio Troubleshooter detects the Audio Service is *not* running, but it (troubleshooter) runs indefinably OR says it can't start the service).

8.1)I'v tried restarting the services "WindowsAudio" & "WindowsAudioEntpointBuilder" {Both set to Automatic} under Services.msc but these fail to start.

8.2)I’v set both these services to use the “Local” Account but no luck, so I set them back to the ”NETWORK SERVICE” account.

8.3) I replaced \system32\audiosrv.dll & AudioEndPointBuilder.dll with the DLL's from the mounted Win10 .WIM \System32\ folder.

I also replaced all other \System32\ AUDIO related DLL's (ones with audio in the name :P :P ; Please let me know if you know of others worth replacing).


8.3.1) I tried running sfc /scan (inside OS) after that, but it got stuck on 75% for > 30min (Samsung 960 NVME) and showed 0% CPU & RAM use which was constant for atleast 10min.

8.3.2) I tried re-registering audiosrv.dll & AudioEndPointBuilder.dll using regsvr32 but I got error “entry-point DllRegisterServer was not found. Make sure \audiosvr.dll is a valid DLL or OCX file”.

9) ALL Files in System32\Config\Regback = 0MB . This explains why I don’t have any older registry points.

I'v got some older reg files from Dec 2017, which I'd like to expend and find+merge "the Audio section of the Control Panel" into where ever they must go, but I'v not found info on which keys to export.


10) Under Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application I have plenty of:

Information:
Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: svchost.exe_AudioEndpointBuilder
P2: 10.0.16299.15
P3: 9c786b9a
P4: audioendpointbuilder.dll
P5: 10.0.15063.0
P6: 5861e198
P7: c0000005
P8: 0000000000005f4c
P9:
P10:

Attached files:

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\AppCrash_svchost.exe_Audi_2ea97b6e971449b33946d820b 969445a7f8f693_fc305b2e_39e7316a

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report ID: 34c38b9b-b9a7-440d-85fd-c65b922b2a79
Report Status: 4100
Hashed bucket:

10.1) Under Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application I have plenty of:
Error:
Faulting application name: svchost.exe_AudioEndpointBuilder, version: 10.0.16299.15, time stamp: 0x9c786b9a
Faulting module name: audioendpointbuilder.dll, version: 10.0.15063.0, time stamp: 0x5861e198
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000000000005f4c
Faulting process ID: 0x3460
Faulting application start time: 0x01d3b78f9144ebcd
Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
Faulting module path: c:\windows\system32\audioendpointbuilder.dll
Report ID: 34c38b9b-b9a7-440d-85fd-c65b922b2a79
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Both point towards SVCHOST.EXE (not replaced) & AudioEndpointBuilder (replaced) so I’m a bit at a loss.

What Im going to try so long is:

1)Replace the new AudioEndpointBuilder.dll with the AudioEndpointBuilder.dll.old I saved.
2)Make Windows think its Win 10 Home, so I can ‘upgrade’ to Windows 10 Pro.

Thanx @Dalchine for the reply.

No its not the disk, I'v checked that with SSDLife. FYI HDSentional will usually give a false reading <100% health if you use it on a SSD as a SSD has different SMART variables to a HDD.

Re "source file in store is also corrupted" - this happens on perfectly healthy disks.

Only changes were "Before issue started:
Creators update installed. Everything was fine for a few days afterwards."

Since running the things mentioned in Update2: ,the Component Store was fixed, and the hash's for the afore metnioned Dll's were corrected. The Audioservice & AudioEnpointBuilder services now run and I can stop / restart them everytime 100% but I'v still got no audio.

The Sound applet in Control Panel works, as does all right-click options in the Audio Icon on the bottom right.

When I try test Audio via the Sound Applet > Playback, I get "Failed to play test tone". So things are progressing albeight slowly.

Seems I can't do a inplace upgrade , as it only allows me to "keep files & settings" or "delete everything" VS upgrading from "home" to Pro, after I edited the registry to reflect W10 Home.

I'm going to try run "Dism /online /cleanup-image /RestoreHealth /source:wim: " with the added commands to point to the mounted 1709 WIM file, with LimitedAccess in use & see if that helps at all.


I'll probably clone my M.2 SSD to my spare SATA SSD later on, so I can then install W10Pro on my M.2 and atleast play some games with audio today & tomorrow.

I must say I'v not run into such a "baffling" issue in a long time, but I'm a firm believer that things only make X sense when you have Y info...

Thats not my thread, I was replying to someone elses call for help.

I'm sure you're familiar with the way to force W8-10 to do an inplace upgrade via changing the registry to Home ? 1st time I'm trying it on W10, but I'v had great success with it on W7-8.1.

dalchina said:

Is this the same PC you are working on in this thread?
Is My Windows 10 Corrupt - Settings Not Being Saved And Possibly More - Page 3 - Windows 10 Forums



If you make unsupported (and maybe questionable changes) then you can expect an in-place upgrade repair to fail, as it will fail in that manner if certain changes are made.

As the other thread shows you have significant problems, assuming it's the same PC, you need to resolve those.

Hi, sorry for the late reply.

In the end I cloned the above install from my M.2 drive to my other SSD & installed a fresh copy of W10 in my M.2, just so I can get my audio working.

I'v still got the clone and will be looking at it sometime in the future to try and learn how to fix the issue. Thanx for your time & input @dalchina