No Playback Devices in the Speaker Icon Menu

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I am a new user and just downloaded Audacity 2.1.3 and on the device toolbar, the drop down menu next to the speaker icon there are no playback devices listed. It’s blank. I have USB powered speakers and they are connected and working fine.

In an attempt to fix the problem I went into the control panel, hardware and sound, then manage audio devices and checked to see if anything was there. Sure enough Realtek High Definition Audio was installed and speakers and headphones were listed. Someone suggested disabling the speakers and then enabling them again to see if that would help Audacity to recognize a playback device. Bad idea! The speakers disappeared from the menu and I cant figure out why. And, they are still not showing in Audacity.

Can anybody give me a cure for this?

Windows 7

2

Very weird… This almost has to be a driver problem… But, it’s odd that the Realtek soundcard and the USB speakers would both have problems.

What other audio/video applications are you running? Are you using Skype, or anything “unusual”?

I was also thinking that some other application might be hogging your device in WASAPI Exclusive Mode, but again I wouldn’t expect both devices to be “taken over”. (And, I don’t actually know something being used in Exclusive Mode will prevent it from showing-up at all.)

3

The speakers are actually working fine. It’s just that they no longer show up on the device list with the headphones like they did before I clicked disable and apply. The key problem is they don’t show up in the playback device menu in the Audacity toolbar.