For about 4 days now I’ve been without any sound in Firefox. My operating system is windows vista, my IE sound worked just fine, and the only solutions I’ve found on the net involve the Wavemapper trick, reinstalling flash, using the K-Lite Codec Tweak or using CCleaner to fix it.
None of these worked for me, and I decided to try to fix it myself.
Now, given that I still had audio in IE, I knew my flash installation was okay, and that it’s not a Codec issue. I began to think to myself, ‘What did I do in Firefox that I haven’t done to I.E.’
I had turned the sound down before to mute flash game music, allowing me to hear my own. However, I had since turned the sound back up. I took a shot in the dark and renamed firefox.exe to firefoxFix.exe and that got me my sound back. What had happened is that despite my turning the sound back up, vista refused to correct the volume for firefox.exe. I then opened the registry, deleted the key holding firefox’s volume settings, restored firefox.exe to its original name, and voila, I had my audio back.
Now to share the fix with you in simple steps.
- Click your start menu and enter: Regedit.exe in your search bar and run it.
- Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\LowRegistry\Audio\PolicyConfig\PropertyStore
- Press CTRL+F and enter firefox.exe
- In the bottom of the window, you will see the full key name containing the firefox entry. It will be similar to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\LowRegistry\Audio\PolicyConfig\PropertyStore\f8ef7687_0
Right click that key in the left pane of Regedit and delete it. - Enjoy your audio.
For those who need a little visual help, here’s a screenshot: 
Update: Some users may have multiple keys holding Firefox data. Deleting them all seems to be safe.
- Thanks to Ray for the feedback.
In response to Fletchman’s Comment (I figured this was worth responding to up here.):
Fletch, this is a rather esoteric issue, in that it only affects people with firefox on vista that like to turn the sound off to shut up things like flash ads. It’s really the fault of Microsoft, not youtube or Adobe.
As for my solution’s availability, you should have seen what I went through to find it. When I had this problem NOBODY had the solution, I had to figure out what was wrong ang fix it myself. It took me 3 days. I’ve already gone and posted links to it in a bunch of forums that I crossed on my search for an answer, and now if you were to type Sound or audio and Firefox Vista into google, this is either the first or second item (Depending on the order of words.)
Even so, this is a request to everyone this solution helps: if you wouldn’t mind, I’d very much appreciate if you could post a link to this solution in a couple of threads you came across that didn’t have it. Hopefully that will make the lives of future victims of this problem 3 hours less hair-pullingly exciting. Thanks a lot to everyone for the positive feedback!
And there ya have it. Please post any questions or comments you may have for me.
I’m here to help!
August 3, 2008 at 3:36 pm |
this fix worked great for me, but I had 4 different registry keys under KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\LowRegistry\Audio\PolicyConfig\PropertyStore that had firefox.exe in them. After I deleted all of them my audio came back.
Thanks for the fix!
August 13, 2008 at 10:38 am |
Hey,
Thanks for your post, I followed instructions but what do you do after it’s done? Is it supposed to work right way or do you reboot?
Thanks.
August 14, 2008 at 4:31 pm |
It should work right away. Be sure to check for multiple entries, like Ray had.
Bear in mind though, this is a rather esoteric solution. It only works when the problem is a result of the registry being stuck…
If your problem is due to the wavemapper registry not bieng present or codecs not being installed, this won’t help you. Try this method again, and if it doesn’t work I’d advise you to try some of the other solutions I’ve linked to.
Best of luck,
Zarin Denatrose
August 21, 2008 at 4:20 am |
Tnx man, that really helped me.When deleted string i just restarted firefox and you tube works fine now.My internet explorer worked fine,but who use it these days
.
Tnx again for your time resolving this problem that we can now fix it with few clicks.
August 21, 2008 at 12:14 pm |
A member of our flash team found the source of our problem. It had to do with mute vs. volume=0. Clearing the cookies clears the state of the cookies that mantain these values. We added some code to clear the states manually and havent had a word off the problem since.
I’ve posted a smaple on this blog as well
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/08/16/solution-to-fix-youtube-or-other-embedded-flash-video-no-sound-in-external-websites/
September 24, 2008 at 1:42 pm |
fix works awesome. cheers and a fuck’ena to ya for the fix.
September 30, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
ace! I hated having to use IE to watch vids and listen to music. Thanks Techrat.
October 2, 2008 at 8:45 am |
Finally a solution!
Tks a lot!
October 3, 2008 at 1:20 pm |
Thank u sooo much!!!
Like you’ve written above..I also tried all these things to fix it, but none of them worked!
But you’re way is like a wonder! Thanks thanks thanks!
October 4, 2008 at 9:14 am |
This works. And so relatively simple.
You are awesome.
October 5, 2008 at 10:01 am |
Thanks for taking the time to post a fix in stead of not telling anyone
!!
October 21, 2008 at 8:14 pm |
Thank you very much. Your help is much appreciated.
November 2, 2008 at 6:51 pm |
Awesome help. Thanks much!! I had to delete about 10 strings but my audio now works after restarting Firefox 3.
November 6, 2008 at 12:53 am |
You are like a god to me right now. This sound issue has been driving me crazy. Thanks so much.
November 7, 2008 at 9:27 am |
What do you do if audio doesn’t work in IE for youtube and other streaming sites? The video is fine (although a little stuttery at time), but the audio is nonexistent. It’s a brand new computer with Vista x64 and IE7 64-bit.
November 7, 2008 at 9:52 pm |
Brilliant, watch out for multiple entities and restart firefox. Worked, thank you.
November 8, 2008 at 11:59 am |
I’ve been frustrated by this for a year now. THANK YOU. the only thing I’ve tried that’s worked.
November 9, 2008 at 1:48 am |
Well, Sarah, I’d say you should just count your blessings, as Flash doesn’t HAVE a 64 bit compatible version. If you have youtube video running in IE7×64, then you’re doing quite well. If you’re running the 32-bit IE7 on 64-bit Vista (like I am) then this fix MAY work for you if it is a stuck registry issue. Instead of looking for the firefox entry, look for iexplore.exe, but make sure the path is:
“\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”
That’s your 32 bit version of IE, which is what you’re on if you’re able to use flash.
Either way though, I HIGHLY recommend switching to Firefox for the reasons listed on http://www.killbillsbrowser.com/
November 12, 2008 at 8:49 am |
I LOVE YOU! I’ve tried everything and finally this worked. You’re amazing, thank you so much.
November 26, 2008 at 6:31 pm |
Thank you thank you thank you, I finally have audio in Firefox again!
December 5, 2008 at 8:56 am |
Thanks very much mate. You’re a genius. I haven’t had sound in firefox for over a year!
December 11, 2008 at 9:59 am |
Thank you, thank you, thank you, I hated having to mess around with browsers to watch videos, you’ve saved me a load of hassle and probably my sanity!!
December 20, 2008 at 11:38 am |
You cannot believe how much I appreciate this. I had no sound spontaneously for like a week, and couldn’t for the life of me get it working again. You rock.
December 22, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
Holy mackerel — I’ve spent the past 3 hours trying to solve this issue! And this simple trick was all it took.
Unbelievable that this information is not on Adobe’s website, YouTube’s website, or on any of other forums!
Thank you so much. Hope you have some serious good karma comin’ your way
January 5, 2009 at 8:02 pm |
Oh my… works fine now… pheeeew….. ! I thought I’d have to settle with IE for the rest of my life. Thank you so much… you make my day indeed…. !!!
ps. the solution works after I deleted the files you suggested, but somehow I needed to reboot the system before it takes effect, not just close and open up firefox.
January 17, 2009 at 3:30 pm |
Sorry to disappoint you, but this solution is pointless. I’m not saying it won’t work, but in my honest opinion it can be done way simpler.
I had this problem myself for a little while and was probably just as annoyed as you were.
I ran into the solution by accident and if I’m not mistaken it is also part of Fx’ FAQ.
It’s easy: VISTA can control the volume of every program that runs separately! It can remember these settings, so that’s why it persists.
So: open the volume control, not just the basic view, click the ‘Mixer’ panel. Here you’ll see all active programs. Make sure Firefox is active and you’ll see, as I did, that Firefox has been MUTED the entire time!
I don’t know how I managed that, but hey…
The fact that your fix works is because, I suppose, this deleted the entry in which Vista remembers that firefox is supposed to be muted.
The fact that renaming the executable worksis because the entry is likely coupled to filename (can’t be too sure about this, I don’t know much about the inner workings of the registry)
January 19, 2009 at 12:42 am |
EMT, do you honestly get the impression that I’m unfamiliar with the mixer?
This problem persisted for me after un-muting and sliding the volume up. I did this several times to no avail. Vista simply wasn’t getting rid of the mute setting, though it told me it was no longer muted.
This solution assumes people have already tried to use the mixer. It simply didn’t work.
The settings for each programs volume controls are set in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\LowRegistry\Audio\PolicyConfig\PropertyStore\
under the keys named with 8 hex characters followed by “_0″
(Or they are in my case, and apparently many others.)
If you followed along with my example, or took a look at the screen provided, you’ll see that it stores the programs path and file name, which is why changing the executable name worked. The reason I bothered to mention that was just to demonstrate how I determined that it was almost certainly a registry issue that I could search for by name.
The mixer is by no means ’sneaky’ either… It’s one of the best features to come out of this travesty of an OS. After getting a taste of it, it became the key reason for me not to go back to XP, despite compatibility issues. (That was long ago… Everything works pretty well now, and better in Windows 7.)
Please give me a little credit, I wouldn’t have bothered to write the article if it were as simple as that.
January 18, 2009 at 9:59 pm |
I tried EMT’s suggestion, worked perfectly without invading the registry, that’s a sneaky little vista feature.
January 19, 2009 at 7:05 am |
Thank you so much! Works perfectly!
This seems to be a problem not only with FF though. My custom executable app using Windows MultiMedia to play sounds got silent for exactly the same reason. Looks like the sound mixer on Vista stores info about every app that has played a sound under this key in the registry. If you rename or move your app it gets a new enrty and the sounds work again … until you switch them off
January 24, 2009 at 12:53 pm |
I love you,
Thank you so much!!!!!
(virtual space hi 5)
January 24, 2009 at 9:35 pm |
thx so much. id already tried this but one and i mean ONE little thing u sed inspired me to try again. u sed some users might hav MORE THEN 1 and i was like “thats me!” so i deleted 3 firefox files and restarted and it worked perfectly. so well in fact i was inspired to write this instead of watching the video i wanted to watch
January 25, 2009 at 11:58 pm |
Thanks a lot, man! I deleted 4 instances of this key and the video is back again!
January 26, 2009 at 7:29 pm |
I have no sound from any videos from Youtube site on Win XP in either Firefox or IE6. And I dont have the Audio registry key you speak of here. Any suggestions for me?
Flash videos I have hosted on my website have sound when I play them from ff, but no sound when played from youtube. Weird huh?
January 26, 2009 at 11:54 pm |
Brilliant! Until I had this problem I was actually happy with Vista. Thanks for the fix!
January 27, 2009 at 11:15 pm |
My fix was to delete the these directories under Documents and Settings:
Application Data\Adobe\Flash Player
Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player
January 30, 2009 at 5:45 am |
Thank you so much!!!!!!
You’ve saved my world!
January 31, 2009 at 12:58 am |
thankyou sir..
i was struggling to fix this from a week ..
February 24, 2009 at 3:10 am |
You, sir, are a genius. I’ve had this problem for months and thought it was just a glitch in firefox due to me always putting my laptop to sleep rather than shutting it down.
Fixed.
By the way, I tried EMT’s solution first, but my firefox wasn’t muted, so the registry fix was the only way.
February 25, 2009 at 1:32 am |
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I did mute Firefox a few days ago, but it didn’t show again to unmute it. The registry fix was the only way to correct the problem. I wish they would do something to fix this from happening again. Thanks again!
)
February 26, 2009 at 8:24 am |
Do you have any suggestions for Windows XP as I don’t have the audio under low registry of internet explorer. I am so annoyed by this sound issue.
March 1, 2009 at 11:11 am |
Thanks for sharing and releiving us of this misery.k
March 14, 2009 at 5:35 pm |
Fix worked perfectly, just wish it was easier to find on the net.
March 14, 2009 at 7:34 pm |
Hey same thing for me that happend to Ada
The audio isnt listed under the low registry. any solutions?
March 23, 2009 at 10:26 pm |
great… it worked for me!!!!
March 28, 2009 at 1:42 am |
For me it was simply the stupid mixer problem that caused my misery. Fixed now. But if not for zarindenatrose’s blog with a more complicated solution and a reaction from somebody else suggested that fixing the mixer can also help in some cases, I would not have figured it out.
So thank you ALL!!!! Even if you got into an argument.
March 29, 2009 at 2:14 pm |
I actually LOVE YOU!!!!
March 31, 2009 at 1:46 am |
Awesome… I just cleared the cache on Firefox and it worked.
I wasn’t able to find the correct registry settings. I’m too use to Apple now
April 5, 2009 at 9:52 am |
Thank you so much. Using IE for anything sound related was killing me.
April 11, 2009 at 9:58 am |
Awesome !!!. I have been searching for this fix and it worked great.
Thanks for posting !!!
April 16, 2009 at 3:45 pm |
I’ve had the same “no sound” problem with IE. Followed the advice of zarindenatrose but searched for “iexplore.exe” – all fixed now! BLOODY BRILLIANT! MANY TNX!
April 18, 2009 at 7:49 pm |
Finally a solution that actually worked for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3
April 22, 2009 at 5:22 pm |
Yes! Thanks a lot. I had the same problem back in 2006, but no one seems to have the snswer for this. Switched to another PC recently, and this happend again!
May 2, 2009 at 1:22 am |
I am a vista user.
Followed the above procedure.
Deleted all the 5 xxxx/firefox.exexxxx files I had in the registry folder.
This worked for me right away.
Thank you very much
What did not work for me:
Re-installing firefox over and over
Looking up for firefox add-ons
May 2, 2009 at 7:48 pm |
Hey zarindenatrose, this worked perfect for me however after I performed the procedure, the sound no longer works when I play “Fallen: Empire Legions” on instantaction.com
I’ve also tried internet explorer to play it but again, no sound. Any ideas for a solution? I’ve already rummaged through google trying to find any corresponding posts to this issue, but have thus far found nothing.
Thank you for your time and the fix (I can finally watch more anime on firefox),
-Kyle
May 4, 2009 at 11:02 am |
This solution worked great! I had to continue to hit Ctrl F until it no longer found the files but it worked perfectly. Thanks for the help!
May 13, 2009 at 2:48 pm |
dude thanks so much! this was a huge pain in the ass and I went through alot of so-called fixes until I got linked to this site. It worked great, I had about 15 different ones to delete but after I got all of them firefox is back and running great. thanks again man…
May 14, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
This bug has been driving me nuts. You’re directions were easy to follow and worked without any tweaking. Thank you so much–that was a truly brilliant fix!