Appcrash caused by fmodex.dll, nothing is working

[Moontouched-Mog]

Recently Dark Souls has been failing to launch from Steam. Every time I try to launch the game, it crashes at startup and says that fmodex.dll is responsible. Doing a clean install of the game and installing the latest version of Games For Windows Live has not fixed this issue. Updating all system drivers has not fixed this issue. Windows Update has not fixed this issue. The new beta version of Dark Souls without Games For Windows Live still has this issue. Detailed crash information is below:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: DARKSOULS.exe
Application Version: 1.0.2.0
Application Timestamp: 546fa3c5
Fault Module Name: fmodex.dll
Fault Module Version: 0.4.28.6
Fault Module Timestamp: 4ef2d7da
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00046fec
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

There's approximately nothing on Google about this particular issue, and I can't seem to fix it no matter what I do. Does anyone have any idea?

[Jay-Dee]

Same issue here. I was playing the game just fine a few months or so ago, but now it just dies at start up. I verified the game, and it replaced a file or something. The only thing that changed was that window turned black before crashing. Other than that, nothing has helped/changed anything.

[Moontouched-Mog]

I somehow managed to get it fixed by launching the game while in a Skype voice call. The only thing I can think of is that because fmod is audio middleware, being in a voice call on Skype did something to the system's audio drivers or settings that fixed the issue. Try giving that a whirl if you're still having app crashes caused by fmodex.dll, Jay-Dee.

[Jay-Dee]

nope, no help. But I gotta say, thank you very much for coming back to tell me what you did. Too often do these threads die with no closure. I'll make my own thread, cuz I've been getting a few other errors that may lead to a solution.