AUDIO SERVICE Stopped ! or "not started"(2ndary-Audacity)

Tell me if it's time to throw in the towel. The dreaded "Audio Service Is Not Running", or any variation thereof. It all began about a month ago with a RED X on the speaker icon on my Windows 7 laptop's taskbar. *** I could clear it, as many others found .... by clicking on it to open the VOLUME slider - then only having to move the slider either up or down ! The RED X would be gone, and sound worked !.

>>> Then, about a week ago, I lost sound altogether ! "NO Sound Devices Installed" was the repetitious rant (silent) from Windows 7, whenever I checked for anything at all related to sound in the Sound And Audio Device Properties panel. << Here I am not speaking of Device Manager. THERE, for some odd reason, the Conexant HD Audio - and nVidia HD Audio devices both appeared - they had never left - and always reportedly were working fine !!?????

>>>> Tried more than a dozen cures or fixes, tweaks ..... you name it. All the SERVICES related arm-twistings - in the proper order as best I could. At least a couple REGISTRY tweaks. Remove / reinstall both AUDIO devices (but NOT drivers.... as I was warned) DRIVERS "Rollback" or whatever. Downloading drivers and installing, etc., etc., etc., etc.,....I wanted to avoid a reformat / or full recovery .... but seems it's to be inevitable.

Oh......before anyone goes to this one -- "System Restore" ,<< NO. Problems on top of problems. IT would not restore to several weeks ago when things were working. "Could Not Locate .......blah, blah" -- something to do with Windows backup files or ???? However , I did try going to SAFE MODE, and doing a restore point. After a long wait, I got the very same error message as before! BUT........ when W7 finally rebooted ..... "Successful" Restore !

RED X was gone , and sound worked. Until !! that is , the next reboot. Even when the red X was gone, I STILL found no device listed in the "Recording" tab of the Sound Mixer , Audio Devices Props., or the like. ONLY....."Microphone"!!??? Which brings us to the AUDACITY sub-topic. It works fine on my XP pc. But , beginning with VISTA , and on to the W7 upgrade -- Audacity NEVER would record from the speakers!! Only the microphone. I was never able to resolve that issue, going back 1.5 yrs. now !!!! So for that long, there has been no device showing in the "Recording" tab....but "Microphone". All along I thought it was an Audacity glitch, when there's likely been something else going on , bringing us to now -- the RED X on the speaker icon thing, even though I at least have sound -- for NOW ! Rem: this is how it all began about a month ago.
Time for a full recovery operation ??

mrlewp, welcome to the forum! You've stated that this began about a month ago at the end of your post. I can only assume that you didn't backup when things were running good, or you would've tried recovering with that. When you get this issue solved, you need to backup your computer (see the Free Software Database for Macrium Reflect, an excellent backup program). That way, you'll have a good image to start over with again, should the need arise. And set a good portion of your drive for System Restore, at least 15 to 20 percent. That will give you plenty of restore points to choose from.

As to your computer, did Windows 7 come on it new? If so, you should have a recovery partition that you can start fresh with. My desktop is a HP, and F11 at the HP boot screen will take you into recovery, provided you didn't delete that partition, and Windows 7 came preinstalled on it. If Windows 7 came with it, did you create the recovery discs for this type of thing?

Also, you can find on eBay driver discs for many computers, I have one for my notebook that I bought for $5, and it makes life easy during a install, or if something happens.

You can also run chkdsk /r to check your disk for issues. Plus, it would be good to run Malwarebytes (a free download) in safe mode, to check for any potential malware. ESET also has an online scanner to check for infections. That would be the first thing that I'd do, is check for infections, plus do the disk check (chkdsk /r).

Post back and let us know if Win 7 came with your computer, if so, there's ways to help. Windows 7 comes with a backup program to back up your wanted data such as your docs, bookmarks, and so forth.

Best of Luck,
Cat

The HP Laptop came with VISTA. So, I might safely assume.. (wait) first I'll note that I had the Win7 upgrade done for me at BestBuy. So, which recovery system would be stored on the drive now? Seems to me that would have reverted to W 7? Regardless, I was handed an operating install disc, for the first time since Win95 !
It has both w7-32bit, and w7-64bit. A year ago I was advised to not rush into the 64-bit install (after! it was all done. ha.) But, I believe I have the option next time I care
to do a fresh install. Some concern about my external drives, and all the Audio/ Video
apps. I'm running.

And yes, I did System Restores on a regular basis, on top of the many that W 7 did
for me. There WERE points going back a month, but System Restore would not work
anymore. I found a service required for that, and made sure it was set on AUTO. I've yet
to try -- just occurred to me - an option to do a restore using command lines, I think. It's
simply locating and "old" file on the hard drive.......although, think I searched and didnt
find any?? (not doing the procedure, just looking in explorer window)

I had done driver updates. An update of my own now; I proceeded to "restart" and set to automatic at least 2 dozen services that had been stopped during (and before) the SAFE Mode System Restore. Amazed that I even got sound, after clicking away the RED X on
the speaker icon. I chose to restart nearly all services, to return to near default status as
possible in hopes of solving the sound issues. Due to "dependencies", I could not start certain ones, but as I continued going back and retrying..... eventually ALL started since by chance I took care of the needs of upper level items, by 2nd or 3rd tries.

I chose NOT to start Windows Audio, until I had succeeded in getting all the others up and running. After a clean reboot, the RED X is back ! But now....... NO SOUND again!
Clicking on the Red X brings up the Troubleshooting Windows tool. It sought out problems, but could not get W-Audio to start !?? The tool did give me a link to registry
data that related to the issues. I saved this data. Interesting how many times "Microphone" was listed, at times as a "recording" device, but not what you'd think would
apply to the Audacity / speaker recording problem. ( Oh, this same glitch applies to the AVS4U audio/video applications I've tried recording with also !)

ALSO, and this is nuts.....when manually trying to restart the W-Audio Service , I again get the alert about the group of services required -- are not of the same "Log ON" type!! But, they all are (RcpSs / MM Endpoint ?.../ Plug N Play / .. EXCEPT-- for "RPC Call", logged in under "Network Service" on this XP pc and sound works fine, along with Audacity.! On the W 7 pc, the option to change the Log On for (one or both) of the
RPC items isn't available- which W-Audio is dependant on. Why isnt it an issue on this
XP pc? And, what if I were to try and change W 7's W-Audio to same Log On as the "RPC...?" (whichever it was ?) Then the other 4 or so services would be under Local System and not the same as W-Audio, so how would that fly? (sorry if confusing)

Just one other thing I've noticed. Some of the services show a Hardware Profile, with
option to "enable" or "disable". Some show none, but seems not an issue. Would it be
helpful to try and attach a user Hardware Profile to the W-Audio service ? Shall I attach
the registry data? If so, could I nix some of the very long strings of numbers.......or are
there some Russell Crowe / "Beautiful Mind" types that like that stuff there. (ha....said
in jest, of course. Wish I could read it myself)

THANKS to All for any replies ,

From the way things sounds, it may be time for you to do a fresh install. I don't know for sure what's on the recovery partition, but I have a hunch that it's Vista. You can boot and hit the F11 key (that's usually HP's recovery key) during bootup. Just because you hit that key, you still have to go through a couple of steps, but at least you'll know what's in that recovery partition.

If you don't use that way to reinstall Windows 7, you'll need to decide whether you want to run 32 or 64 bit 7 on it. If your computer is that new, most likely 64 bit would be the way to go, provided your printer and other accessories will run on 64 bit 7. Backup drives will work with both versions.

Then, once you've made your decision, you need to download the correct drivers for whatever version (32 or 64 bit) you wish to run. Save them to a flash drive, CD or DVD, whatever you have. You'll need all of your hardware drivers, sound, video, multimedia audio controller, ethernet, wi-fi card, chipset, and more. These can either be found on HP's site, but as a HP owner myself, many of the OEM drivers didn't work with a clean install of 7 64 bit. So I had to hunt them down, one by one. BTW, many Vista 64 bit drivers works quite well with Win 7 64 bit. There are many driver discs sold for various computers, especially notebooks, on eBay. You just have to make sure it's for your make & model of computer.

Windows Update will provide some drivers, but keep in mind that they're not the latest, however in most cases they'll at least get you going. But if at all possible, you'll want to avoid that route for that reason.

What I'd try first is using that recovery partition to see what's there, if you've never done a clean install before. If it turns out to be Vista, you've lost nothing but some time. If it turns out to be 7, it may or not be the version that you want.

But before you do anything, you need to backup what you have, your personal data, photo albums, docs, whatever you have of importance to a flash drive, CD/DVD, or backup drive. You'll want to preserve as much of your data as you can.

One thing that I'd like to ask, is about how you maintain your computer. Do you use a tool like CCleaner (a free tool) to rid your computer of all of the junk that's probably on it? It also has a registry cleaner on it, just choose to backup at the prompt, it'll go to your documents. Do you use a defrag tool, such as Auslogics Disc Defrag, another freebie? These kind of apps help to keep your computer clean and running smooth. And once you get it back the way you want it, you need to be using these kind of tools, they really do help. And as far as an AV goes, avoid AVG, as it's not very compatible with Windows 7.

And finally, do you backup? In your specs, you have a backup drive listed, have you backed up that computer at all? If so, that's a point where you can start over, provided everything was going good at the time of the backup. You'll simply need to create a rescue disc, if you haven't already, to recover with.

Hopefully, my post has been of some help to you, at the very least to make you aware of what's needed for you to clean install (proper drivers are critical).

Cat