No sounds from Cortana

Antonyvw · 10 Apr 2015

Hi folk. For my first post I thought Id pose a question relating to my lack of sound from Cortana. I am not sure why but I get no sound when I am setting it up. during setup you are asked what Cortana is to call you. After putting in my name there is then a button to click to find out if it is pronounced correctly. But all I get is silence. I'm getting sound ok from games etc so its obviously something Ive overlooked. Anyone able to help out please? (I'm using build 10049).
If I go to system -> Cortana & search -> customise Cortana & search settings it does not do anything. No new window opens or extra details - nothing.

DavidG · 12 Jul 2016

Your post is very old but I just had the same problem. In my case two different audio systems were plugged in.
1) External speakers plugged into the green jack on my computers rear.
2) My display has built in audio speakers connected by HDMI.

A Google search revealed that Cortana will not make any sounds when two different audio systems are plugged in.

Right Click on the sound icon in the right side of your taskbar and go to Playback devices.
Right Click on one device and select DISABLE to Disable the Digital output that you’re not using then Restart your computer.

I am only posting this solution because no other solution was posted.
I hope my post might help others in the future.

Another solution was offered but I did not need to use it. (see below)

Reset Cortana

Maybe resetting Cortana to its default settings can solve the problem. Here’s what you need to do to completely reset Cortana in Windows 10 - Open Cortana and go to Settings. The first button allows you to disable Cortana, so just disable Cortana with that button. It says: “Turning off Cortana clears what Cortana knows on this device, but won’t delete anything from the Notebook. After Cortana is off, you can decide what you’d like to do with anything still stored in the cloud”.
Restart your computer and enable Cortana again

This will make Cortana completely forget about all your settings, so it would act like you just installed Windows, so maybe the solution for sound problem with Cortana lays in this method. Of course, if you’re in the region which is not supported by Cortana, you’ll have to change your regional and language settings, in order to make it active.