Windows Audio Service Not Restarting

[sjduggan]

My audio service recently stopped working so I went to Administrative Tools > Services > Windows Audio to see if anything was weird. Everything looked normal but the audio service still wasn't working. I tried to restart the Windows Audio service and now its status is just Stopping and it is not changing from that. I cannot even open up Sound settings from the control panel.

 

[sjduggan]

Also tried to force stop it in a Command Prompt.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>net stop "Windows Audio"
The service is starting or stopping. Please try again later.

That's what came up when trying to stop it.

 

[Regedit32]

Hi sjduggan,

Welcome to the Forum.

It sounds like the Audiosrv is stuck in stopping, and thus not able to restart.

To resolve that do the following:

• In your search/Cortana field type command
• Right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator
• Click Yes when the User Account Control prompts you
• In the Administrator: Command Prompt console type or copy & paste the following command:

sc queryex Audiosrv

Press Enter key to execute

You'll see a few lines result. Note the PID value

Sample image

Now type or copy & paste the following command:

taskkill /f /pid 2116

Note: Replace 2116 with the PID you noted!

Press Enter key to execute

Sample image

You should now be able to restart the Service; although if it already is set to start automatically, then it ought to start as soon as you terminate it with taskkill.
​

Regards,

Regedit32

 

[sjduggan]

Hi sjduggan,

Welcome to the Forum.

It sounds like the Audiosrv is stuck in stopping, and thus not able to restart.

To resolve that do the following:

• In your search/Cortana field type command
• Right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator
• Click Yes when the User Account Control prompts you
• In the Administrator: Command Prompt console type or copy & paste the following command:

sc queryex Audiosrv

Press Enter key to execute

You'll see a few lines result. Note the PID value

Sample image

View attachment 5831

Now type or copy & paste the following command:

taskkill /f /pid 2116

Note: Replace 2116 with the PID you noted!

Press Enter key to execute

Sample image

View attachment 5832

You should now be able to restart the Service; although if it already is set to start automatically, then it ought to start as soon as you terminate it with taskkill.
​

Regards,

Regedit32

I did all that was described and the command prompt said "The process with PID 18996 has been terminated". I tried to start the service by typing: net start "Windows Audio". It responded by saying "The service is starting or stopping. Please try again later. And, when I went to the services, it still said it was stopping after refreshing the page.

 

[sjduggan]

I did all that was described and the command prompt said "The process with PID 18996 has been terminated". I tried to start the service by typing: net start "Windows Audio". It responded by saying "The service is starting or stopping. Please try again later. And, when I went to the services, it still said it was stopping after refreshing the page.

Ok so turns out I can get it stopped. It just takes a few minutes to shut down. But when I start it back up the sound icon in the right of the taskbar still shows that the Audio Service is not running.

 

[Regedit32]

Right-click on Start and select Run

In the run dialog type services.msc then click OK

Double-left-click on Audio Service to open its properties:

• Can you confirm the Startup type is set to Automatic
• Can you also confirm what the path to executable is in your case.

Sample image

It may be the case that the executable is corrupt or missing, and simply needs replacing.​

 

[sjduggan]

Right-click on Start and select Run

In the run dialog type services.msc then click OK

Double-left-click on Audio Service to open its properties:

• Can you confirm the Startup type is set to Automatic
• Can you also confirm what the path to executable is in your case.

Sample image

View attachment 5866

It may be the case that the executable is corrupt or missing, and simply needs replacing.​

It says that it is running but I am not receiving any sound nor can I open up my sound settings such as Playback/Recording Devices. I then try to restart it to fix it but it is just a constant cycle.

 

[Regedit32]

Try right-clicking on Start then selecting Device Manager.

Now expand the Sound, video and game controllers

Now right-click on your devices driver and select disable then right-click again and select enable

Note: Make sure your browsers are closed when doing this otherwise you will be forced to restart computer.

 

[sjduggan]

Try right-clicking on Start then selecting Device Manager.

Now expand the Sound, video and game controllers

Now right-click on your devices driver and select disable then right-click again and select enable

Note: Make sure your browsers are closed when doing this otherwise you will be forced to restart computer.

No luck. Not getting any sound nor can I open my Sound settings.

 

[Regedit32]

So what are you using for your audio? Headset? Speakers?

What soundcard do you have? Or is it a chipset?

 

[sjduggan]

So what are you using for your audio? Headset? Speakers?

What soundcard do you have? Or is it a chipset?

I use a Logitech G430 headset. And I believe my sound card is either Intel(R) Display Audio or Realtek High Definition Audio. I use a laptop so I am not sure which one is my sound card.

 

[TechJunkie]

This worked, but I would like to know what is causing it to crash that we have to restart the services each time. I ran Windows Update multiple times and it is stating that I have the latest update. Yet, the audio driver keeps failing every hour, which then forces me to stop the service, kill it when stopping fails, then restart it through services.

So again, why does it keep failing? FYI - I am not running this on a remote server. Which means, there is no audio card built-in. I am using the remote server via Remote Desktop Services

 

[JRBaggio86]

I have a similar issue with the Windows Audio needing a restart about every hour. I have tried all these tips without success. Could it be that the executable is corrupt?

 

[Zasbirr]

I tried to terminate using CMD, but it says ''ERROR: The process with PID 552 could not be terminated.
Reason: Access is denied.'' Please help