No audio in Resolve 17

Hey guys,
I've been using Resolve 17 since it was officially released not too long ago. It's been pretty buggy (crashing doing certain things, save that for another time) but today I opened a file that I've previously saved as a template for all of my videos. I added footage and immediately noticed in the "Cut" screen that I had no sound at all.

EDIT: I should note that I've been using my template video since the upgrade to 17 and it's always worked flawlessly sound-wise.

I went into the "Edit" screen and same thing - no sound. I just did one small clip and exported it as a .mov and that exported file does have sound. I also closed and restarted the program and it's still doing the same thing. Going to try restarting the PC and see if that helps now.

I guess the obvious question to ask is whether or not you've accidentally got the audio monitor volume set too low or on "mute". On the cut page it's the speaker icon above the audio meter, which is just right of the viewer. On the edit page it's at the right end of the timeline toolbar. There's also a "Dim" icon on the Edit page that reduces the monitor volume.

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Hi Will

Like Sean says, isolating which bit needs fixing is a good idea.

Can I check if
a. the meters move?
b. you can hear clips in your source viewer (from the media store/media pool)? Or open previous projects and check for volume?
c. your Volume is green (not DIM) and set high?
d. go to preferences > system > speaker setup. This can be set to automatic or manually configured. Note your configuration (check if this was the same as the last working configuration) - and toggle it twice (like Auto to manula, back to Auto) to reset potential bugbears.

If you cant monitor audio output even after these steps, please check if there were hardware changes - new USB peripherals or driver updates - after the last time you remember getting audio from Resolve.

Regards
Shrinivas

Just fired up Resolve to try again and got a notice to upgrade to 17.1 so I did that. Opened the problem file and same issue.

a. The meters in the "Media", "Cut" and "Edit" tabs all move when playing or scrubbing
b. Can't hear source audio in the "Media" screen and I opened a previous project and started a new fresh one and no audio in the program but audio is fine when file is exported
c. Audio levels are set to 0.0 and volume is all the way up and green, DIM is not on
d. Speakers are set to my speakers plugged into the audio jack

If I go into the audio panel for the selected clip Volume, Pan and Pitch are all set to 0 and equalizer is off. I never mess with these settings so I don't see what would have changed honestly.

I opened up the previous project which worked fine and I have no audio from that either. I have no audio from the imported video or the imported sound clips. However if I export the project the exported file has proper sound so it's something internal to Resolve.

I started a new file and imported some clips to see if it was an issue with the template I had saved. No audio at all. In the "Cut" screen the volume is on and the meter is moving. The meter is also moving in the "Media" screen.

PC volume is up, speakers are turned on an turned up. If I open the video clip by itself with VLC the audio works just fine.

I have had a similar thing happen a few times over the years, I think coinciding with audio driver updates.

I found I could get audio working again by changing Preferences->Video and Audio I/O->Speaker setup from auto to Manual, saving, exiting Resolve, coming back into Resolve and reverting it back to Automatic.

I have had a similar thing happen a few times over the years, I think coinciding with audio driver updates.

I found I could get audio working again by changing Preferences->Video and Audio I/O->Speaker setup from auto to Manual, saving, exiting Resolve, coming back into Resolve and reverting it back to Automatic.

Ok so I uninstalled my RealTek audio drivers and restarted the PC and let Windows find the drivers automatically. I then restarted again and opened Resolve. Still no audio but this time none of the meters were moving. I went in and set the audio out to manual and selected my speakers, hit save and boom I have sound again.

I'm wondering if Windows updated the audio driver in the background and screwed something up

I'm wondering if Windows updated the audio driver in the background and screwed something up

Sometimes it can be things that are really innocuous. I plugged a Zoom H1 into a USB port to use as a microphone and my sound disappeared. Turns out that the H1 has a tinny little speaker in it and by plugging it in it became the default speaker in Windows. So I had to go into Windows Sound Settings (right-click the speaker icon in the system tray) to fix it.

I'm wondering if Windows updated the audio driver in the background and screwed something up

Sometimes it can be things that are really innocuous. I plugged a Zoom H1 into a USB port to use as a microphone and my sound disappeared. Turns out that the H1 has a tinny little speaker in it and by plugging it in it became the default speaker in Windows. So I had to go into Windows Sound Settings (right-click the speaker icon in the system tray) to fix it.

It's always something stupid huh? LOL

I also have the same problem with 17. I updated to 17.3.1 build 5. Still the same issue. This is Windows 11. However, its working on the iMac. I tried all troubleshooting I saw in the previous threads. Issue persists. No wave form showing even after I turn off and On. I use a bluetooth speaker for audio out. I tried disconnecting the bluetooth device and tried the system speakers/headphone, still no luck. However the video clip I play using other applications, it works.

I have same issue with no audio in Resolve 17.3 , My system is a Ryzen 2700X on a MSI X470 motherboard with 16GB ram and a Radeon RX 580 w/4GB , the C: drive is a WD512 GB SSD and there are 4 other Sata drives 2 of which are SSD. Its a Windows 10 OS. I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything and only got the sound to work once when I reinstalled an old version of Quicktime Pro. But the next time I booted up and loaded Resolve the audio was gone again. The audio works fine outside of resolve and I did uninstall Quicktime and reinstall but it did not work this time. Would really like to use this program but have to have sound. Also found that when I tryed to export a clip it would get stuck at the render stage with nothing happening, could see in the task manager that nothing was happening and the only way to get out of it was to quit the program.

Got Audio working now! Had to use an external audio interface and not use the motherboard audio at all. I had an old inexpensive USB M-Audio FastTrack interface I was able to plug speakers in and make default audio device and now it seems everything works including rendering and exporting. So guess it was a hardware incompatablity with the motherboard sound which on this system MSI ProCarbon X470 is Realtek ALC1220A
Maybe this will help someone else with this issue.

If it helps anyone, these are my settings using the computer's in built Realtek audio which works without problems.

Audio I-O.jpg

Fairlight Routing.jpg

A.jpg

On one occasion I lost audio on a new project, but found that audio on previous projects was OK. Eventually I tracked the issue down to a proxy linking problem, and resolved the issue by selecting all clips in media page, bringing up the context menu with a right click and selecting "Unlink Proxy Media". Then, after reselecting all clips, choosing "Link Proxy Media..." in the right-click context menu and then by reselecting the folder containing fully operational proxy files normal audio service was immediately restored.

It appears that a previous "Link Proxy Media..." operation on non-functional truncated proxy files had left project configuration in an untenable state, that looked fine video-wise but had left the timelines with no audio tracks. The root cause? At one point the creation of new proxies had filled the allocated media, obliging the freeing up of sufficient space before proceeding to recreate the two aberrant proxy files. Resolve 17.4.2 was evidently unable to recover gracefully from a prior failed attempt to link to these two truncated non-viable proxy files, despite having presented a pop-up message duly notifying the failure to do so.

Summary:
I get no sound when Resolve is used with my USB amplifier for headphones (optimized for voice only). The sound is back if I use normal desktop speakers instead.

Details:
Looks like my professional USB amplifier used for my business headphones is not compatible with Davinci Resolve since I get no sound through it.

If, instead, in the Preferences (Video and Audio I/O section), I specify another 'Output device' under 'Audio I/O' such as 'Speakers (Realtek USB Audio)' which feeds sound to my external analog speakers connected via an audio jack, then the sound is back and OK.

I think I read 1.5 year or 2 years ago that the reason for that is that the USB amplifier and attached headphones cannot reproduce the full audio quality that Davinci Resolve produces (my USB amplifier is not CD quality 16-bit 44.1kHz for example).