Browsers Have No Sound

[davewlee]

I had no changes, just turned my PC on one day and Chrome is no longer playing any sound. (Not picked up via Reaper, anyway) unless I switch to a different out put. Everything else still works fine.

[pitkley]

Chrome 79 has implemented a new Audio sandboxing feature (https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/d06ae8451869e146cec8590f56e1216ff0a2a739%5E%21/). Apparently this feature conflicts with SAR, causing the missing audio.

A fix for this is to launch Chrome with the --disable-features=AudioServiceSandbox flag (which equals the behaviour of Chrome <78). The easiest way to achieve this is to edit your existing Chrome shortcut and add the above string at the end of the target field.

[amurzeau]

I just installed Windows 10 1909 and SAR. I've tried chrome 79.0.3945.88 but I can't reproduce any audio issue. Youtube plays fine audio on SAR endpoint. (I've set SAR playback endpoint as default windows audio output)

Is this issue still here with recent chrome version ? (even when not using --disable-features=AudioServiceSandbox)

[pitkley]

I'm on 79.0.3945.88 too, although on Windows 10 1903 still. Maybe 1909 changes/fixes something in regards to this?

[amurzeau]

I don't think, I may just use a different configuration.

Actually, I've disabled driver signature checks to be able to run my modified version (https://github.com/amurzeau/SynchronousAudioRouter/releases/tag/v0.13.99.2-amurzeau). Might also have an impact maybe, but I've disabled secure boot in my BIOS.

I'm also running JACK with ASIO4ALL instead of Reaper or Ableton and configured SAR endpoint as default audio devices in mmsys.cpl.

Both firefox, chrome and any other applications I've run so far work fine with SAR endpoint (no audio glitch or any bad behavior)

--

When chrome doesn't work, what happen ? It tries to use a wrong endpoint ? Maybe something has exclusive access to the SAR audio endpoint which prevents any other application to use that endpoint ?

[amurzeau]

Also, when I installed SAR, I've enabled every user to use SAR without requiring admin mode (this is a checkbox in the installer).

[pitkley]

• I'm running the 0.13.1 release version of SAR.
• I don't have test-signing enabled.
• I have installed SAR with admin-mode.
• Secure boot is not enabled.
• I have selected the SAR-endpoint I want Chrome to output to as the default device in mmsys.cpl.
• Edge and Firefox do not emit the problem, versions previous to Chrome v79 also didn't (although I didn't roll back to test it).

As far I can tell the audio output by Chrome is just "lost", I don't see any output on any device in mmsys.cpl or any SAR endpoint I have active in Reaper; although I can't rule out that it outputs to a random hardware device I simply don't have anything connected to.

If I get around to it, I'll try and use an updated test-signed version.

[markjfisher]

I have this exact same issue, the audio disappears from the Volume Mixer completely for Chrome when I start up jackd / sar.

I was using a work around of having Chrome open playing some sound when I run qjackctl (which ultimately loads SAR), which puts chrome's output to the first sar entry, but would stop working if I closed all copies of Chrome.

I've just tried adding the --disable-features=AudioServiceSandbox fix and this completely solves my issue. So massive thanks @pitkley

Additionally, routing is working correctly for the application through SAR config.