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Firefox 85 breaks audio in Windows 10

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by MikeZZ

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We have new HP Laptop with Realtek Audio running Windows 10 Home v20H2. It came with v2004 and HP updated trying to fix audio and missing microphone but this did not help. I have found the problem only happens when using Firefox. Viewing a video is not necessary to recreate the problem. What happens is the audio will stop playing when Firefox is open, even if only reading text on a webpage while listing to a music file with Groove Music. Whether or not a music player is running does not make a difference, even the beep sound when hitting the Number Lock key stops working. The other odd thing I did not notice right away is that the built-in Microphone device often disappears. Only used it once so far for Zoom and happened to notice it was missing from the Sound settings after the audio stopped. Restarting usually brings back the audio until Firefox is used again. Sometimes it works for 1 hr of a movie and stops. I found out that opening Groove and playing an mp3 usually gets the sound back but not the microphone. The first apps installed on the computer were Firefox, Thunderbird, Zoom and then Adobe CS 5.5 & 6 and now Retrospect Backup. The first occurrence of the sound stopping was when only FF and TB were installed but we thought it was the website. Using Edge (which we don't prefer) the audio always works fine.

HP replaced the Realtek Audio drivers which did not fix the problem but lost the equalizer function and some of the bit depth and enhancement choices in the speaker settings. I have attached screen shots of the Sound, Video and Game controller Realtek Audio properties and Audio Input and output Speaker driver properties from the device manager.

Note, I am not posting this from the problem computer because Firefox account kept rejecting my password even though the correct password was pasted in. I tried it in Internet explorer on this win7 computer and that would not work either. Not sure why I can't sign in on another computer when I am logged out of my Firefox account on this computer.

We have new HP Laptop with Realtek Audio running Windows 10 Home v20H2. It came with v2004 and HP updated trying to fix audio and missing microphone but this did not help. I have found the problem only happens when using Firefox. Viewing a video is not necessary to recreate the problem. What happens is the audio will stop playing when Firefox is open, even if only reading text on a webpage while listing to a music file with Groove Music. Whether or not a music player is running does not make a difference, even the beep sound when hitting the Number Lock key stops working. The other odd thing I did not notice right away is that the built-in Microphone device often disappears. Only used it once so far for Zoom and happened to notice it was missing from the Sound settings after the audio stopped. Restarting usually brings back the audio until Firefox is used again. Sometimes it works for 1 hr of a movie and stops. I found out that opening Groove and playing an mp3 usually gets the sound back but not the microphone. The first apps installed on the computer were Firefox, Thunderbird, Zoom and then Adobe CS 5.5 & 6 and now Retrospect Backup. The first occurrence of the sound stopping was when only FF and TB were installed but we thought it was the website. Using Edge (which we don't prefer) the audio always works fine. HP replaced the Realtek Audio drivers which did not fix the problem but lost the equalizer function and some of the bit depth and enhancement choices in the speaker settings. I have attached screen shots of the Sound, Video and Game controller Realtek Audio properties and Audio Input and output Speaker driver properties from the device manager. Note, I am not posting this from the problem computer because Firefox account kept rejecting my password even though the correct password was pasted in. I tried it in Internet explorer on this win7 computer and that would not work either. Not sure why I can't sign in on another computer when I am logged out of my Firefox account on this computer.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (4)

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How about looking here. see screenshots

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Have been using MS Edge for the last 5 days instead of Firefox and the audio has not failed to play. It seems the problem is only with Firefox. Would trying an older version like 83 work until this is resolved? Don't really like the way Edge is laid out.

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Thanks but that was definitely not the problem. When viewing the mixer when the audio stops, Firefox along with other apps all show up, the volumes all show the same and you can even see the blue signal levels jump up and down under Firefox but cannot hear any sound from the speakers at all. Even the Caps lock beep is silenced. I've found if I launch Groove Music, the Windows Media replacement, as soon as I hit play all sounds start working again. An update to Windows 10 2H20 and update to the latest Realtek drivers from Dec 2020 did not help.

The problem only happens in Firefox but it temporarily stops all sound playback from all apps. I'd really like to resolve this as I do not like the layout of Edge.