[Solved] Audio not working in Windows guest

[SimonR]

I've been unable to get sound input working on my windows 10 guest for some time now. I don't honestly know at what point the problem arose, as I rarely use this guest anyway, and even more rarely need sound input. Unfortunately, now I really need the sound to work as a new client uses a microsoft-only web-conference tool.

The symptoms (I should note that my host's sound works just fine) are one of several situations. In most configurations, when windows boots, there's a little red X over the loudspeaker icon in the tool-tray thingy. If I click on this, it launches some kind of diagnostic tool which ponders for a while, then says something on the lines of "I've installed a new driver, reboot" but when I reboot, the whole thing is the same. For some configurations of VB, I can get sound output, but still no input.

I've upgraded VirtualBox to the lastest version (as of today -- 5.1.22), and have upgraded several times over the life of this problem. Each time I have installed the corresponding guest additions. I have tried Intel, Soundblaster and HC-er,whatever hardware emulation, and also OSS, ALSA, and Pulse.

I can get *output* but only output using Pulse and the Intel hardware emulation. If I select ALSA and ... I forget which, but one of the hadware emulations, I get evil sound that's about half-speed, but also no input. With OSS, the boot process for the VM gets a VB message saying that no sound could be opened, and while windows thinks it's making sounds (volume controls show, that kind of thing) there's no output.

In the VM settings, audio shows as enabled, but of course there's no separation between input and output. When configured in Pulse/Intel mode, in the pulse volume control tool, it shows the VirtualBox / Windows 10 in the recording devices tab, and shows a moving VU meter (which is almost insulting, really! ) See the attached image.

Screenshot from 2017-07-14 17-35-21.png (24.33 KiB) Viewed 52562 times

Any suggestions? This seems really odd, and is certainly frustrating now that it actually matters to me!

TIA
Simon

[socratis]

Try the test builds: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds
There is work actively done after 5.1.22 specifically on the audio front. And next time don't forget a zipped VBox.log for the VM in question.

[SimonR]

Oh, OK. Log attatched.

If I install one of these test builds, will it replace my existing installation, or can I literally test it, alongside what I already have?

I also suppose I need to make a backup of my virtual machine; is it sufficient if I make a duplicate of the entire directory structure that contains it?

Thanks for your input!

[socratis]

5.1.24 just came out. Try that...

[SimonR]

OK, I'll give it a go. Fingers crossed (though I admit I've tried a couple of latest-versions so far without luck).

[SimonR]

Well, a picture's worth a thousand words, they say:

Screenshot from 2017-07-18 20-02-16.png (57.11 KiB) Viewed 52517 times

but:

Screenshot from 2017-07-18 20-01-52.png (41.99 KiB) Viewed 52517 times

and yet:

Screenshot from 2017-07-18 20-08-07.png (24.44 KiB) Viewed 52517 times

So, as it shows, output is just fine, and Pulse sees virtualbox and thinks it's giving it access to the input, but Windows refuses to believe there's any input device (and I did remember to download, install, and execute the latest version of the guest additions CD to go with the upgraded VB.)

I admit to being more than a little puzzled that one would think I have a pretty standard configuration (LTS supported version of Linux, and Windows 10). Surely it must be a config problem, but what's left to configure?

Hoping someone can offer something.

[SimonR]

OK, so, I was tinkering with trying to install a driver for the AC97 Realtek device (which I never was successful doing).

However, after uninstalling the device driver (inside windows) for the intel device, rebooting, and then letting it re-discover the device....

You guessed it, it now seems to work.

Funny thing is, I was pretty sure I'd done that before. I definitely tried all three hardware settings (intel, AC97, and Soundblaster) and those reconfigurations didn't change anything until I told windows itself to remove the driver. Gotta love windows--oh, no, I don't that's why I relegate it to a VM on the occasions that I have no choice but to run it.

Well, meanwhile, many thanks for the help and suggestions.

[socratis]

However, after uninstalling the device driver (inside windows) for the intel device, rebooting, and then letting it re-discover the device....

(smacks forehead) Of course! This is Windows 10, I completely forgot about that one. You need to remove/add the device to make it recognize the changes. Glad you resolved it, I'll mark this as [Solved].