Client loses sound randomly

[XenoCranel]

Sadly I already gave over 1000 euros a month ago for this rig. And like I said I had the same issue with my older rig as well. A 2500k with an Asus motherboard. I don't have this issue with any other game that I play.
Some minutes of search through Reddit and I can see there people who have the same issue for years yet no solution from SE's side. At least now I know that I'm not the only one having this issue.
If SE wants more technical info from me they can ask for them and I can provide. I'm not a programmer nor I have access to game's code to tell what's wrong. Only the developer team knows this and only them can provide a solution.

Try to reinstall the nvidia graphics driver if you have nvidia HD audio installed. Use DDU.

And yes, you can copy/paste the HUD files in your My Documents.

[drebbe]

Sadly I already gave over 1000 euros a month ago for this rig. And like I said I had the same issue with my older rig as well. A 2500k with an Asus motherboard. I don't have this issue with any other game that I play.
Some minutes of search through Reddit and I can see there people who have the same issue for years yet no solution from SE's side. At least now I know that I'm not the only one having this issue.
If SE wants more technical info from me they can ask for them and I can provide. I'm not a programmer nor I have access to game's code to tell what's wrong. Only the developer team knows this and only them can provide a solution.

Did you happen to reuse the same case, headset/speakers, and are using the front audio jacks?

[Riardon]

My audio setup is 2.1 desktop speakers which I use most of time. They are set as default output device in playback devices.
I also have a headset which is new. I use it mostly during the night. When I plug the headset I set it as the default playback device in playback devices menu.
Most of the time I'm with the 2.1 speakers which are my primary audio output device.
I have open XIV and Firefox. Only these 2 nothing else. Suddenly XIV loses sound and goes mute. If I restart it then sound is back. Firefox keeps playing audio from videos. Music still goes on. So it's not like sound dies system wide. It's only XIV that does this.
Some other times it's only XIV that runs. And while in game in a dungeon sound stops. Just like that.
The whole thing is kinda random so I don't know what causes this.
Sometimes it happens when I alt+tab between browser and the game and sometimes while in game.
Same issue I had with my older PC since 2.0 launched. It's an old issue. I just took it on the forums now because it happens more frequently than before but it's still the same issue as I described.

[Ariellendera]

Hello Riardon,

I would like to suggest doing a clean re-boot. Launch FFXIV without anything else including web browsers in the background. If you could please keep track of the following things:

-Does not having firefox open make any difference?
-Where in the game are you located when the sound goes out?
-Are you actively using controls when the sound goes out or are you idle?

Hope to be of assistance

[drebbe]

My audio setup is 2.1 desktop speakers which I use most of time. They are set as default output device in playback devices.
I also have a headset which is new. I use it mostly during the night. When I plug the headset I set it as the default playback device in playback devices menu.
Most of the time I'm with the 2.1 speakers which are my primary audio output device.
I have open XIV and Firefox. Only these 2 nothing else. Suddenly XIV loses sound and goes mute. If I restart it then sound is back. Firefox keeps playing audio from videos. Music still goes on. So it's not like sound dies system wide. It's only XIV that does this.
Some other times it's only XIV that runs. And while in game in a dungeon sound stops. Just like that.
The whole thing is kinda random so I don't know what causes this.
Sometimes it happens when I alt+tab between browser and the game and sometimes while in game.
Same issue I had with my older PC since 2.0 launched. It's an old issue. I just took it on the forums now because it happens more frequently than before but it's still the same issue as I described.

The reason I asked if you re-used most of your stuff is because if your analog connections are finicky it can cause windows to see a disconnect / reconnect and reset your default audio device. This would cause FFXIV to experience this issue but most other applications should recover (I've seen other applications fail if it happens enough times though). If you have an LCD with speakers and its hooked up through HDMI you should try disabling everything else (onboard audio through bios, everything else through device manager) and see if you still have the issue. If it stops happening you can narrow it down to either your hardware (including the sound card) or the sound card driver.

[Riardon]

Hello Riardon,

I would like to suggest doing a clean re-boot. Launch FFXIV without anything else including web browsers in the background. If you could please keep track of the following things:

-Does not having firefox open make any difference?
-Where in the game are you located when the sound goes out?
-Are you actively using controls when the sound goes out or are you idle?

Hope to be of assistance

It just happened again today. Firefox opened and browsing Twitter. A video was playing with sound on the Video player. The game was minimized. Returned to game sound was gone.
-I will test this more because I need time.
-I was in the The Lochs area when it happened.
-The game was minimized and switched to with ALT+TAB

Is it possible that the game thinks I'm changing sound device and stops the sound? I know this game does't support switching of sound devices on the fly without restarts and it goes back when you change the output device while it's open.
Maybe it's somewhat more sensible that it should and this is why it happens only on XIV but not on my Video players or Music players or the other games I play.
Will check some things more and report back again.

[Ariellendera]

It just happened again today. Firefox opened and browsing Twitter. A video was playing with sound on the Video player. The game was minimized. Returned to game sound was gone.
-I will test this more because I need time.
-I was in the The Lochs area when it happened.
-The game was minimized and switched to with ALT+TAB

Is it possible that the game thinks I'm changing sound device and stops the sound? I know this game does't support switching of sound devices on the fly without restarts and it goes back when you change the output device while it's open.
Maybe it's somewhat more sensible that it should and this is why it happens only on XIV but not on my Video players or Music players or the other games I play.
Will check some things more and report back again.

Thank you, keep us updated!

[hynaku]

lost sound today but it was from hdmi cable got unplugged and when gets plugged back in have no sound till you exit out and login again.

[Riardon]

Thank you, keep us updated!

I did some further testing all these days and here are my observations:

I reinstalled Windows 10 on my system again (performed a clean install with format).
Installed all latest system drivers. Did all my Windows updates.
Installed the FFXIV again.
The issue is still happening.
What I noticed though is that it happens with Firefox browser and not with Edge or Chrome (at least all this week that I did my testings).
It doesn't matter if I use my 2.1 rear IO panel system speakers or the front panel IO Headset it still happens.
Sound driver version doesn't matter. I tested 4 different audio drivers versions it's still happening.
Browsing through Firefox and ALT+TAB back to game causes my client to lose sound at some moment. This happens within an hour of usage. It can happen from 10 minutes to 1 hour.
With Chrome and Edge I didn't run on this issue this week. Or maybe it's very rare with those browsers. Other programs which play sound are unaffected. Be it another game, sound players, media players or sound coming from webpages on browsers.
I also asked Gigabyte for this and they told me it's a game issue and that only the game developer can solve this.
Some posts ago you asked me what I changed on my system and this happens more frequently now and I just remembered that I was using Firefox as my main browser the last 2 months.
I think that the game's sound engine is too sensible on sound changes and it crashes easily. I believe that Firefox or some webpages do something with sound that XIV doesn't like so the sound crashes/stops.
Plugging or unplugging audio jacks while the game is running can cause a game crash. That's another old issue but I think it's also related to the game's problematic sound engine.
After all I did the issue is persistent. I can reproduce it within an hour or so. (Note: I alt+tab a lot between my browsers and the game).
I think there is nothing more I can do. It's on devs hand to deal with this issue.

[drebbe]

I did some further testing all these days and here are my observations:

I reinstalled Windows 10 on my system again (performed a clean install with format).
Installed all latest system drivers. Did all my Windows updates.
Installed the FFXIV again.
The issue is still happening.
What I noticed though is that it happens with Firefox browser and not with Edge or Chrome (at least all this week that I did my testings).
It doesn't matter if I use my 2.1 rear IO panel system speakers or the front panel IO Headset it still happens.
Sound driver version doesn't matter. I tested 4 different audio drivers versions it's still happening.
Browsing through Firefox and ALT+TAB back to game causes my client to lose sound at some moment. This happens within an hour of usage. It can happen from 10 minutes to 1 hour.
With Chrome and Edge I didn't run on this issue this week. Or maybe it's very rare with those browsers. Other programs which play sound are unaffected. Be it another game, sound players, media players or sound coming from webpages on browsers.
I also asked Gigabyte for this and they told me it's a game issue and that only the game developer can solve this.
Some posts ago you asked me what I changed on my system and this happens more frequently now and I just remembered that I was using Firefox as my main browser the last 2 months.
I think that the game's sound engine is too sensible on sound changes and it crashes easily. I believe that Firefox or some webpages do something with sound that XIV doesn't like so the sound crashes/stops.
Plugging or unplugging audio jacks while the game is running can cause a game crash. That's another old issue but I think it's also related to the game's problematic sound engine.
After all I did the issue is persistent. I can reproduce it within an hour or so. (Note: I alt+tab a lot between my browsers and the game).
I think there is nothing more I can do. It's on devs hand to deal with this issue.

I'd try these things:
-Disable hardware acceleration in Flash.
-Disable flash player in Firefox (Chrome uses its own Flash version)
-Try an old version of Firefox.
-Try to sandbox FFXIV with a virtual audio cable driver.
-Run DPC Latency Checker and see if there are high spikes when you alt+tab. A long pause could possibly cause the driver to reset.