virtualbox.org

Hello,

I use a Windows 7 guest on my Mac (with Yosemite) for running Flash, Java and other browser plugins. After today's update (4.3.22; updated VirtualBox as well as guest additions in the guest) I seem to have lost audio in the virtual machine. I checked the settings and everything looks okay and I also tried reinstalling the guest additions, without any improvement.

Another Windows 7 virtual machine (which doesn't have updated guest additions (4.3.20, I think)) has the same problem.

I haven't had reason to debug these kinds of problems before. What would be a good place to start?

Take a look at: Minimum information needed for assistance. Especially the zipped log file could give us some hints.

Logfile attached.

This looks a little of relevant:

00:00:00.485895 CoreAudio: Using output device: Built-in Output (UID: AppleHDAEngineOutput:1B,0,1,2:0)
00:00:00.487403 HdaCodec: can't open out fmt(freq: 44100)

I updated my Windows 7 Pro guest today and had no audio issues.

Make sure the audio isn't muted in the tray.

Same here, I updated about 20 clients and no differences in their capability to produce sound has changed.

As for the abstract from your log, I get those too.

loukingjr wrote:I updated my Windows 7 Pro guest today and had no audio issues.

Make sure the audio isn't muted in the tray.

lol! Yeah, I don't want to make that big of a fool of myself so I always check those things first even when I'm certain I haven't changed any audio settings.

Just for reference -- are you running Mac OS X Yosemite?

socratis wrote:Same here, I updated about 20 clients and no differences in their capability to produce sound has changed.

As for the abstract from your log, I get those too.

Okay, thanks -- then I know it's normal at least.

Hmm.. Perhaps a good nights sleep will yield some inspiration as to where to start looking next.

cypherpunk42 wrote: Just for reference -- are you running Mac OS X Yosemite?

Yes. Currently 10.10.3
The Audio settings for my guest are Core Audio and Intel HD Audio.

Have you installed any new audio apps or played with any audio settings on the host or guest recently?

loukingjr wrote:

cypherpunk42 wrote: Just for reference -- are you running Mac OS X Yosemite?

Yes. Currently 10.10.3
The Audio settings for my guest are Core Audio and Intel HD Audio.

Have you installed any new audio apps or played with any audio settings on the host or guest recently?

Same settings here.

No, that's what feels odd about this. I had been watching a twitch stream in the guest (audio working), I closed the machine down, did some work (coding in gvim), run clang a few times (to build code), then later I wanted to watch a stream again, so I started VirtualBox, it prompted me about the upgrade, I installed it, started up vbox, upgraded the extensions, started up the guest (no sound, but I assumed it was because the guest additions needed to be upgraded), installed the guest additions, but still no sound. Just to be sure I shut everything down, rebooted the host and tried again, but I still had no sound. I did no system changes, no installations or uninstalls, between the point that it worked and when it stopped working.

I just tried downgrading to .20, and then I get audio.

It's become clear that it's a local problem, and it looks very much like a host issue -- so I'm afraid I'm on my own on this. But thanks anyway to those of you who replied!

Try to clear the caches from within your guest. It works miracles sometimes. Look for tools that clear the persistent Flash cookies (for example BetterPrivacy for Firefox). I also had weird behavior with Flash going nuts if I unplugged and re-plugged my headphones. It would crack and stop and mute and ... name it.

socratis wrote:Try to clear the caches from within your guest. It works miracles sometimes. Look for tools that clear the persistent Flash cookies (for example BetterPrivacy for Firefox). I also had weird behavior with Flash going nuts if I unplugged and re-plugged my headphones. It would crack and stop and mute and ... name it.

The problem is unfortunately deeper than that; I get no sound from the guest at all (no system sounds, no sound from a stand-alone music player, etc). Though the applications in the guest aren't complaining; so from their perspective the audio device exists and is working.

I think there's "simply" a bizarre problem with CoreAudio on my host system which (for whatever reason) 4.3.22 manages to trigger. I'll try upgrading VirtualBox on my MacBook. I have a feeling I won't encounter the problem there (given that the problem seems to be pretty unique).

OK, final thoughts... Take a look at the "Audio MIDI Setup" in your Utilities folder (of your host). See what the frequencies it reports are. You should be in the 44100 Hz, 2ch, 16bit.

Something you could try if you haven't already is to switch the audio controller to ICH AC97 and see if the audio comes back. If not, you can always switch it back. Also check the device manager in the guest and see if there is a problem with the sound driver.

My situation was slightly different.

I have a Linux host, openSUSE 13.2, 64 bit.
My Win 7 Pro 64 bit guest audio was not functioning after
upgrading VirtualBox to 4.3.22 from 4.3.20 - no System sounds on boot, login, etc.
The guest was restarted at least 3 times after the VB upgrade, but still no audio.
I didn't even realize it was not working until I noticed this forum thread; I checked my
guest, and sure enough, no audio.

In my case the fix turned out to be simple:

- I opened the Volume Control on the task bar
- I selected, then de-selected, Mute
- I dragged the volume slider up a little, then released it - a beep occurred
- I dragged the volume slider back down to the original position, then released it - a beep occurred
- I shut down the guest
- I restarted the guest - all sounds worked as expected, including the startup, and login sounds.

I believe that after the VB update, Windows for seme reason saw the sound config as muted.

smithlar wrote:My situation was slightly different.
[...]

That did the trick! Muting/unmuting didn't seem to do anything, but fiddling with the volume control did. Strange; the volume wasn't at zero graphically, but I guess somewhere internally it was.

Peculiar, but I'm glad the solution was simple.

Thanks!