Valheim - Sound is gone

[Amroth]

I was playing Valheim and it was all going well. I alt-tabbed and started up Netflix on the other screen. Bam. Sound is gone. Everything works except for Valheim's sound.

- It's not muted in the volume mixer
- It's not sending sound to another device, only my headset and tv are enabled, neither of which is giving the sound.
- I updated the drivers and verified integrity of Valheim and restarted

Nothing is fixing it :/

[shenanigans]

Is it just sound effects muted? Go into Esc - Settings - Audio in-game menu and check sound levels. For me, the effects volume slider occasionally randomly reset to zero.

[ec928]

Netflix used to hijack your sound driver and give itself exclusive usage over other applications. Looks like it might still be doing that. Solution is not to use netflix with Valheim.

[Amroth]

Originally posted by ec928:

Netflix used to hijack your sound driver and give itself exclusive usage over other applications. Looks like it might still be doing that. Solution is not to use netflix with Valheim.

This is most likely it. It did happen when I started Netflix. Used to work fine last night though.

[Manwith Noname]

You can try...

1) Right click the speaker in the lower right on your task bar.
2) Select playback devices from the context menu.
3) Locate the default output device and open its properties.
4) Go to the advanced tab and untick the boxes in "Exclusive Mode"

You might experience weirdness when doing this but it's worth trying for the 2 minutes it takes.

[Amroth]

Originally posted by ec928:

Netflix used to hijack your sound driver and give itself exclusive usage over other applications. Looks like it might still be doing that. Solution is not to use netflix with Valheim.

Thank you for pointing out Netflix as the culprit. I don't know if it's related, but if anyone else faces this problem, you *might* fix it by:

-Right click on sound icon in the taskbar.
-Navigate to the playback devices.
-Select the device you use (Speakers/Headset/TV)
-Go to the properties and then the "advanced" tab
-Uncheck "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device"

I don't know If this is the fix, but I'm able to hear both Netlix and Valheim after doing this.

[RasaNova]

I've flipped back and forth between Valheim & Netfilx many times and haven't had any trouble. But I HAVE had that same problem in the past with game audio from one program or another randomly dropping out, re-starting the game usually fixes it, or in rare cases re-booting the PC.

Edit - never mind looks like you figured it out, congrats (and good to know!)