My audio stopped working recently. There were no particular events that could have prompted this (maybe an automatic OS update).
I'm running Windows 8.1 on a Dell Inspiron.
Initial error message
At first I was getting the following error message on startup (and whenever starting a program that requires audio):
C:\Windows\system32\MMDevAPI.DLL is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.
A system restore to a few days before the sound loss got rid of this error, but did not fix the issue of no sound. No sound icon appears in the taskbar.
Audio services not running
Upon checking services.msc, I see that Windows Audio is not running. Two of its dependencies, RPC amd Multimedia Class Scheduler are running with no problem. Windows Audio Endpoint Builder is not running. All services are set to startup automatically.
Attempting to start Windows Audio gives the error message:
Windows could not start the Windows Audio service on Local Computer.
Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start.
Attempting to start Windows Audio Endpoint Builder gives the error message:
Windows could not start the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service on Local Computer.
Error 193: 0xc1
Attempted solutions
- Diagnosing the problem in BIOS: audio plays in this diagnostic, so must be a software problem
- System restart
- System restore
- Starting/restarting the services
- Checking that Plug and Play and Power services are running (both of which have been reported to affect this)
- Fixing the problem in: Device Manager > Sound, video and game controllers (listed are Conexant SmartAudio HD and Intel(R) Display Audio)
- Updating driver software
- Disabling then re-enabling
- Uninstalling, then restarting system to automatically install these
- Updating driver software then manually choosing High Definition Audio Device
- Running the Windows audio troubleshooter, it gives One or more audio service isn't running and no options
Update: DISM RestoreHealth
I ran a
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
and got:
DISM failed. No operation was performed. For more information, review the log file.
The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.og
Checking the log file, the error(s) seem to start at around this point (previous lines omitted for brevity):
2018-05-11 15:30:54, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Processing the top level command token(cleanup-image). - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::Private_ValidateCmdLine
2018-05-11 15:30:54, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Attempting to route to appropriate command handler. - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ExecuteCmdLine
2018-05-11 15:30:54, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Routing the command... - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ExecuteCmdLine
2018-05-11 15:30:54, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 CBS session options=0x48100! - CDISMPackageManager::Internal_Finalize
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=6600 Error in operation: (null) (CBS HRESULT=0x80240021) - CCbsConUIHandler::Error
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Error DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Failed finalizing changes. - CDISMPackageManager::Internal_Finalize(hr:0x80240021)
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Error DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Failed processing package changes with session option CbsSessionOptionRepairStoreCorruption - CDISMPackageManager::RestoreHealth(hr:0x80240021)
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Error DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Failed to restore the image health. - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ProcessCmdLine_CleanupImage(hr:0x80240021)
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Error DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Failed while processing command cleanup-image. - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ExecuteCmdLine(hr:0x80240021)
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Further logs for online package and feature related operations can be found at %WINDIR%\logs\CBS\cbs.log - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ExecuteCmdLine
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Error DISM DISM.EXE: DISM Package Manager processed the command line but failed. HRESULT=80240021
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Found the OSServices. Waiting to finalize it until all other providers are unloaded. - CDISMProviderStore::Final_OnDisconnect
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Found the OSServices. Waiting to finalize it until all other providers are unloaded. - CDISMProviderStore::Final_OnDisconnect
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Found the PE Provider. Waiting to finalize it until all other providers are unloaded. - CDISMProviderStore::Final_OnDisconnect
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(DISM Package Manager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Package Manager: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing CBS core. - CDISMPackageManager::Finalize
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: DISM Package Manager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(MsiManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: MsiManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(IntlManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: IntlManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(IBSManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: IBSManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(DriverManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: DriverManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(DISM Unattend Manager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: DISM Unattend Manager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(SmiManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: SmiManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(AppxManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: AppxManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(AssocManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: AssocManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(GenericManager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: GenericManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Finalizing the servicing provider(Edition Manager) - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: Edition Manager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Releasing the local reference to OSServices. - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Disconnecting Provider: OSServices - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:57, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=6348 TID=2800 Releasing the local reference to DISMLogger. Stop logging. - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM.EXE: Image session has been closed. Reboot required=no.
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM.EXE:
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM.EXE: <----- Ending Dism.exe session ----->
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM.EXE:
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=1816 TID=6472 Found the OSServices. Waiting to finalize it until all other providers are unloaded. - CDISMProviderStore::Final_OnDisconnect
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=1816 TID=6472 Disconnecting Provider: FolderManager - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider
2018-05-11 16:28:58, Info DISM DISM Provider Store: PID=1816 TID=6472 Releasing the local reference to DISMLogger. Stop logging. - CDISMProviderStore::Internal_DisconnectProvider