How to Fix YouTube Audio Problems on Windows 10
When you hear nothing from your YouTube videos – either nothing at all, or what was once loud is now too quiet – the last thing you should do is turn up the volume on your Windows PC. Sure, this might be a temporary solution, but it means everything else on your system will be incredibly loud too. And it’s a lot of up-down, up-down, up-down volume controls every time you watch YouTube videos, especially since you can avoid this practice with a little troubleshooting.
There is no one-stop solution that fixes all YouTube audio problems on your desktop, but there are a few simple tricks you can try to get audio levels back where they should be.
First open your video in another browser or incognito / private / any other in the same browser. Still having audio problems? If so, there may be a problem with the operating system. Otherwise, the issue may be solely related to your original browser. This does not solve your problem as such, but it does help narrow it down.
Now for troubleshooting. First try right clicking on the tab itself. Did you accidentally turn off the sound? If so, enable it. Voila.
Then check your extensions. Are you using any special YouTube extensions (like my favorite YouTube Enhancer ) that might be causing volume issues? If so, open the Extension Manager (by right-clicking the icon for the specified extension and choosing Manage Extensions) and try disabling it. If that solves your problem, then either the extension has bugs or the settings in it are causing you audio problems. Search or consider switching to one of the other 74,193 YouTube-related extensions.
You can even try disabling hardware acceleration in your browser, if possible, to see if that solves your audio problem. And that almost goes without saying, but make sure you update your web browser to the latest and greatest version. It might not solve your YouTube problems, but it never hurts to tinker and troubleshoot while using the very latest software you can get. Maybe there is a bug that later the update is compressed.
However, your YouTube problems may go beyond the scope of your browser. A common problem is that your browser has been accidentally disabled or otherwise disabled in Windows 10’s sound mixer, which can be accessed by right-clicking on the volume controls in the bottom right corner and choosing Open Volume Mixer .
If your browser’s volume is lower than your device’s overall volume, you’ll want to fix it. You can either drag the sliders back up, or try this technique: right-click the volume icon again, select Open Sound Settings and scroll down a bit until you can click on App Volume and Device Settings. The following screen will appear:
Scroll down until you see the reset button in the bottom left corner. Click on it to restore all your application volumes to their maximum defaults. (Remember, this is the maximum of your system’s overall volume; you’re not going to suddenly blow your ears off using a variety of apps until your system volume is turned up.)
If that doesn’t work, or you don’t even see your browser in the list of sound settings, try going back to the main Windows 10 sound settings (where you were before you hit app volume and device settings). This time, click Device Properties under Output , click the Advanced Device Properties link in the right side pane, and click the Advanced tab in the window that appears. Make sure the “Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device” check box is cleared.
You can also check any audio applications that are running on your desktop or laptop – third-party programs like Realtek Audio Console, for example – as well as the Windows 10 Sound Control Panel to make sure your system is properly configured with the right number of computer speakers. You might be having audio problems if, say, your desktop or laptop uses 7.1 sound by default, when in reality you only have two stereo speakers.
You can also try resetting your audio settings to their defaults in any audio applications your computer uses. Do this, reboot your system and see if your YouTube issues are resolved. If not, consider reinstalling (or updating) any sound drivers your system uses, which you can find on your system manufacturer’s website (or your motherboard / sound card manufacturer, depending on your setup).