No Sound/Audio In YouTube. How To Easily Fix It?
For some reason, whenever I try to play a Windows Media Video file I get no sound, only video. I have no problem playing and hearing video clips in QuickTime or RealPlayer. I'm using a PowerBook G4 with OS X Tiger.
YouTube is the most popular video sharing service in the world. People can search for, upload, and watch videos, and create their own YouTube channels. In addition, they can 'like', share and comment on other YouTube videos, subscribe to other YouTube channels, and create their own playlists or stream videos live. YouTube is a free service that allows people to learn, entertain and be entertained, or even make money.
Most videos have an audio track, which is sometimes more important than the video content, but you might have encountered a problem with no audio on YouTube videos. This is a common problem that many users have experienced at some point. To solve this problem, you may need to check and adjust the audio settings (volume) of your device, uninstall or update Adobe Flash Player, update or reinstall audio device drivers, clear browsing data cache, and remove temporary files on the operating system. You might also need to update the browser or reinstall it. In this guide, we will describe a number of possible solutions for this common YouTube audio problem.
Table of Contents:
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Check Volume Settings
First, we recommend that you check the system volume settings. It is possible that your device speakers are muted or at the lowest possible volume setting, or your speakers are simply muted in the Volume Mixer. To check, right-click the speaker icon on the Taskbar (you can find it near to the date and time) and select the 'Open Volume Mixer' option from the contextual menu.
In the Volume Mixer window, you will see several sliders. Ensure that the master device is not muted (usually it is the first one the left) and check that the browser slider is not muted. In our screenshot, we are using Mozilla Firefox as an example. If you are using Google Chrome (or another web browser), ensure that the slider is not positioned at the bottom.
Run Windows Troubleshooter
Windows includes a number of troubleshooters designed to quickly diagnose and automatically resolve various computer problems. Troubleshooters cannot fix all problems, but they are a good place to start if you encounter a problem with your computer, operating system or connected devices. In this case, you need to use the audio troubleshooter. To start troubleshooting, go to Settings, type 'troubleshoot', and then select 'Troubleshoot' from the list.
Now find 'Playing Audio' under 'Get up and running' and select it. Click 'Run the troubleshooter' and follow the instructions. Windows will try to find and fix problems with playing audio. See if this fixes the problem with no sound on YouTube.
Update or Reinstall the Web Browser
It is possible that you are using an outdated web browser, which is causing problems with sound in YouTube. Having the latest browser and associated plug-ins ensures that you experience the best performance and user experience, fixed bugs and errors. Keeping you browser up-to-date also makes browsers run smoothly. Browsers are usually updated automatically, but you may need to check for updates manually. To check if you are using the latest Google Chrome browser version, open Google Chrome and click the three dots in the top-right corner, select 'Help', and then click 'About Google Chrome'.
You will see the browser version. If it is not the latest, you should see a notification suggesting that you update Chrome. If there is no notification, the browser has been already updated to the latest version.
To check for Mozilla Firefox updates, click the three stripes in the top-right corner and select the 'Help' option from the contextual menu. Then select 'About Firefox' - Mozilla Firefox will start checking for updates and indicate if you are using the latest version.
If updating the web browser does not solve the audio problem in YouTube, try to reinstall the browser. Uninstall it, download it from the browser's official website, install it and see if this returns sound to YouTube.
Reinstall Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player is free software created by Macromedia and used to view and stream audio and video, multimedia and RIA (Rich Internet Application) created on the Adobe Flash platform. Adobe Flash Player runs as a plug-in on browsers but it also works on supported mobile devices. The latest versions of Adobe Flash Players are available on Windows, Macintosh OS X, Linux and ChromeOS. It also runs on browsers such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. It is possible that there are some corruptions in the installed version of Adobe Flash Player and you need to reinstall it. Uninstall the currently-installed version of Adobe Flash Player and download the latest Adobe Flash Player manually from Adobe's website. Install it and see if this solves the problem with YouTube audio.
Clear Browsing Data
Browsing data consists of a records of web pages that you have visited in past browsing sessions, and typically includes the name of the website as well as its corresponding URL. Other private data components such as cache, cookies, saved passwords, etc., are also saved during the browsing session. This stored data can slow down the browser, diminish the browsing experience, or even cause problems such as no audio on YouTube. In this section, we show how to clear browsing data in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. To clear Google Chrome's browsing data cache, click the three dots in the top-right corner, select 'More tools', and click 'Clear browsing data...'.
In the Clear browsing data window, select the data you want to remove from the Google Chrome browsing cache and click the 'CLEAR DATA' button. Close Chrome and open it again. Go to YouTube and see if this returns the sound.
To clear Mozilla Firefox browsing data, click the three stripes in the top-right corner, and then select 'Options'.
Now select 'Privacy & Security' on the left pane and then click 'clear your recent history' under 'History'. Click 'Clear Now' under 'Cached Web Content'. Restart Mozilla Firefox, go to YouTube and see if this returns the sound.
Update Audio Drivers
A device driver is software that informs the operating system and other software how to interact with particular hardware. It is rather like a translator between software and hardware, since they often are created by different manufacturers, companies, or people. The driver facilitates smooth communication between hardware and software. In most cases, computers are unable to send and receive data correctly without drivers. If the appropriate driver is not installed, the device might not function properly and cause problems including no audio in YouTube. To update drivers, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start button and selecting the 'Device Manager' result from the contextual menu, or type 'device manager' in Search and click the 'Device Manager' result.
In Device Manager, you will see a list of devices connected to the computer. Expand the 'Sound, video and game controllers' category and right-click the audio device. Select 'Update driver' from the drop-down menu.
You will be asked if you want to search for updated driver software automatically or to browse the computer for driver software. If you select the first option, Windows will search your computer and the Internet for the latest driver software for your device. If you select the second option, you must locate and install drivers manually. Using this option requires having previously downloaded drivers on your computer or USB flash drive and it is a longer process, since you must download the latest drivers for all devices manually by visiting the device manufacturers' official websites. We recommend that you select the first option and follow the instructions.
If updating drivers does not solve the problem and there is no audio in YouTube, you might want to reinstall them. To reinstall drivers, follow the above steps, but select 'Uninstall device' rather than 'Update driver'. Ensure that you check the 'Delete the driver software for this device' checkbox if there is one. Restart the computer. Windows will automatically install the missing drivers the next time you start Windows.
You can use third-party software to update drivers automatically. In this case, we recommend the Snappy Driver Installer (SDI), a powerful free driver updater tool for Windows that can store its entire collection of drivers offline. Having offline drivers gives Snappy Driver Installer the ability to have access to fast driver updates, even if there is no active Internet connection on your computer. Snappy Driver works with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and also works with Windows XP. Drivers are downloaded through Snappy Driver Installer in 'driverpacks', which are simply collections (packs) of drivers for various hardware such as sound devices, video cards, network adapters, etc. It can also show duplicate drivers and invalid drivers. It separates the updates that require you to restart your computer so that they are easier to distinguish. You can download Snappy Driver Installer from here.
If none of the above methods solve the problem, watch a YouTube video on a different web browser. If you are using Google Chrome, try YouTube on Mozilla Firefox or Opera, and so on. If you know of other solutions to this problem, not mentioned in our guide, please share them with us by leaving a comment in the section below.