Unable to hear sound alerts and media sources suddenly

[InjuredBear]

About a week ago I stopped hearing my Alerts for new followers, subs, etc. and all of my media sources, though they were still getting picked up in stream and my chat can hear it fine. I went into advanced audio properties and turned everything to monitor off, then back to monitor and output and it worked again up until yesterday. Now doing that method no longer works and I cannot hear it at all, though my chat still can.

Anyone else just suddenly lose hearing their sounds and unable to get them back?

 

[AaronD]

Are you using "Default" for any of your audio sources? That's a common cause of things suddenly not working. Always choose a specific device *in OBS*; never use Default.

Default defers the choice of device to the operating system, which has its own automatic logic to change that selection. Usually that's when a device appears or disappears, and so the list rearranges to put a different one "on top", and that's the one that OBS's "Default" uses. Appearing or disappearing could be anything from you plugging one in or unplugging it, or something with audio functions "going to sleep" or "waking up". All of that is indistinguishable, and you may not necessarily know when it happens. But the OS's list of audio devices rearranges, and now OBS's "Default" is looking at a different one than what you expect.

Default is useful to show that a fresh installation works at all, as it's the most likely to connect to the device that you're using at that moment. But for anything at all beyond that, it's a ticking time bomb. Always choose a specific device *in OBS*; never use Default.

 

[Harold]

Windows updates also sometimes invalidate audio device ids, requiring users to reconfigure all their audio devices including audio monitoring settings.