No Audio: Synthesizer menu item greyed out, PortAudio settings all empty/blank

• Mar 3, 2019 - 17:20

I have a clean install of Windows 10 and I cannot get Musescore audio functions to work. All other audio functions with other programs (Mixcraft, Audacity, VLC, etc) work fine. It is only Musescore that I am having a problem with.

I am running Musescore 3.04.5763.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit version 1809 Build 17763.316

The computer is a Dell Precision 7510 with 32 GB Ram.

Playback controls are greyed out. The View/Synthesizer menu item is greyed out. The PortAudio preferences are all blank and no options appear that can be selected. See screenshots attached. There are no error messages or any other indications of a problem. All other (non-audio) functions of Musescore work fine.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice. I uninstalled the 64 bit version and installed the 32 bit version. I have rebooted multiple times. I have installed Musescore 2 and it exhibits the same issues - no audio playback functionality.

I have Restarted Audio and MIDI Devices multiple times. I have Reset All Preferences to Default multiple times. I have done the Revert To Factory Settings multiple times.

All with no impact on the issue.

I have searched the forums and I've done everything I've found that people suggest.

I assume this is a driver issue, but all drivers are up to date and, as noted above, all other audio programs I have on the machine work fine.

Assuming it is a driver issue, what driver(s) should I be looking at? What devices is Musescore trying to control? Is there any third party software I need to install? Or third party software I can try to install to see if it will help address the issue.

I have used Musescore for over a year on this same hardware and it has always worked perfectly. I did a re-installation of Windows 10 to deal with a performance issue and this should be like a new machine.

I'll appreciate any ideas or help anyone can anyone can provide. Thanks in advance!

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Comments

1) Are you sure you have some soundfont file added to the Synthesizer???

2) Are you check your Windows Sound Card panel control, to see if it recognizes MuseScore as a valid option??? Is the MuseScore check box as silent???

3) Just in case... Are you using some external sound card and/or some "not standard" configuration (HDMI device)???

See: https://musescore.org/en/node/96811
In case of interference with other programs, esp. on Windows, go into your soundcard configuration from Control Panel and ensure that the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" in the Advanced tab of both Playback and Recording is unticked.
Also check for sound card driver updates.
HTH

In reply to by Shoichi

Thanks @Shoichi! This was the problem. I thought sure I had checked that already but I guess not - or somehow the checkbox got checked when I updated a driver. The issue was that the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" in the Advanced tab of the soundcard configuration window was ticked. I unticked it and now everything is working fine. Screenshots attached for anyone else having the same problem.

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