Okay, this has really, really been bugging me for a while now. A couple of weeks ago, I suddenly lost all sound on Adobe Flash Player. YouTube videos play fine, but I just can't hear a thing. Same with other video sites (eg. Metacafe, Veoh, etc.). I've tested this on multiple browsers — Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome, Firefox 3.5 — and it's the same thing on each: no sound. Here's the funny thing: my computer does have sound. I can play videos and mp3s just fine on other players. I even downloaded a video from YouTube and played it on Mplayer and it worked fine. The problem is only with Flash.

I'm running Windows XP and Adobe Flash Player version 10.0.22.87. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Flash, still no go. I tried rolling back to a previous version 10 (I couldn't find version 9) but it still doesn't work. It's been a couple of weeks now and I still have no sound, and it's getting very frustrating. >_<

Help?

I do not think I have ever used Adobe Flash Player, ever. I had this issue act up on me over the weekend when I was gaming and using Vent though, come to find out it was something as simple (still unknown how), I ended up hot/shortcut key muting Vent. Are you sure you have checked everything you can think of?

What's Vent? Is it a Flash alternative? Google's not any help since "vent" is such a generic term. If it's Flash alternative and it works well enough, I'd probably give it a try — I'm that desperate.

I did check everything I could think of — sound card drivers, sound settings, even checked on other browsers just to make sure it wasn't a browser issue. Unfortunately, I couldn't roll back to a previous restore point since System Restore has been inactivated on my PC (which I'm now starting to regret). I read somewhere on the Internet that corrupted Flash files on your PC could cause this, so I even downloaded CCleaner to clean things up. Still nothing. >_<

Honestly, this is getting very frustrating. I used to go on YouTube all the time, and now I can't because there's no sound! Grrr!

-PS- Oh, I just remembered that some of the other people experiencing the same issue have Realtek audio cards. I use one as well: Realtek AC97. Do you suppose that has something to do with it? I already updated the drivers, though...

There are not many alternatives to Adobe Flash Player, so trying to find an alternative and getting that to work will be a nightmare.

I would check the setup on your soundcard.

I've had issues similar to this-and ended up using a stand alone player too. When I re-installed the operating system then installed it again, all was fine again.

Maybe try uninstalling it and trying again.

Ah, I feel really, really stupid right now! I've done everything from registry fixes, uninstalling and reinstalling a billion times, and even reverting back to Flash 9, all to no avail. I even checked my sound card and drivers. I finally managed to get it fixed just a few minutes ago, and when I saw what was wrong, well... face, meet palm.

So anyway, what I did to fix things was very simple: I went to Control Panel > Sound and Audio Devices. In the audio tab, I noticed that the default device under Sound playback was not my sound card. I don't know how or why it changed, and I could have sworn I had already checked that setting. Anyway, I changed it to my sound card and saved the settings and voila! Flash now has sound. Two weeks of frustration and that was all it took to fix it. >_<

I still don't know why it only affected Adobe Flash, though, since all files played in Mplayer worked fine. I guess it's a mystery...

That really is very strange. I could understand if nothing would work with the default changed, but why only affect the one single program? Odd indeed, but glad you have it fixed.

Yeah, it's really strange. I'm sure I checked the sound settings — it would have been the first thing I checked — and every thing seemed OK on that end. I don't suppose anything could have changed the sound settings without my knowledge? I don't really touch most of the things in the Control Panel, and I'm certain I've never touched the sound settings in months, not even to change the volume. As long as it's fixed now, though, then I'm happy.

Thanks to everybody for your help and suggestions! Even though I still don't know why this happened in the first place, it's great to have other people to bounce ideas off of.