Cockpit sounds disappear

[skysurfer 76]

Greetings. 

I am trying to narrow down the cause of this issue.
I have Steelseries wireless headphones and I never had issues till I started making changes to my audio settings. I had all my sounds routed via headphones and headphones was shown as primary sound device in PC, P3D4 and vPilot settings. I was tired of loud windy noise (not sure if it is engines or external noise) so I had hard time to hear and understand air controllers. I decided to have ATC and NGX/777 cockpit sounds via the headphones and engines and everything else via speakers. It works normal for about an hour or two in flight then cockpit sounds disappear. However headphones still works (I think). If I check headphones config in Windows (10) I still can hear test sounds in my headphones. So something is off here. I do not have this issue in other airplane, just PMDG 737/777. 

Thanks for looking.

Here is my settings:

 

[BrianThePilot 22]

1 hour ago, skysurfer said:

Greetings. 

I am trying to narrow down the cause of this issue.
I have Steelseries wireless headphones and I never had issues till I started making changes to my audio settings. I had all my sounds routed via headphones and headphones was shown as primary sound device in PC, P3D4 and vPilot settings. I was tired of loud windy noise (not sure if it is engines or external noise) so I had hard time to hear and understand air controllers. I decided to have ATC and NGX/777 cockpit sounds via the headphones and engines and everything else via speakers. It works normal for about an hour or two in flight then cockpit sounds disappear. However headphones still works (I think). If I check headphones config in Windows (10) I still can hear test sounds in my headphones. So something is off here. I do not have this issue in other airplane, just PMDG 737/777. 

Thanks for looking.

Here is my settings:

 

I actually have recently switched from FSX to P3D and have had this exact problem in both sims. I have no idea why. But what fixes it for me is to mute the sim, then unmute, (mute by pressing "q"). And that seems to do it. I would like to figure out how to permanently get it to stop because usually I can only hear the packs and no engine sounds when it does that. I also get it on the ground but when parked at the gate, I hear engines and im completely shut down. But pressing q and unmuting it helps me.

 

Hope this helps!

[skysurfer 76]

Thanks. I will try that. 

[Captain Kevin 586]

Do you have one sound card or two. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but when I was having my computer built, I had asked if I needed a second sound card, and I was told you would only really need it if you were trying to do basically what you're trying to do, have ATC on your headset and the rest on your speakers.

[skysurfer 76]

2 hours ago, Captain Kevin said:

Do you have one sound card or two. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but when I was having my computer built, I had asked if I needed a second sound card, and I was told you would only really need it if you were trying to do basically what you're trying to do, have ATC on your headset and the rest on your speakers.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Your very first image shows that your monitor is your default device. Is this correct? Do you have external speakers, or does your monitor have built-in speakers?

What are you doing at the time the sounds stop? I noticed, as well, that your headphones are wireless. You may want to have a look into any power management options for the device itself, in addition to the USB stick it's likely using. It may be that some sort of power management is kicking in to save battery power and it only "wakes up" again when you start using Windows sound functions. This may not necessarily wake the sim back up to sound being processed (on top of the generic sim bug that has plagued the sim since its FSX/ESP days, which requires hitting Q twice to "reset" the system).

[skysurfer 76]

Hi Kyle.

I have 3 monitors and all of them have speakers, so yes, I set one of the monitor as default devise to have engine and external sounds via one of those speakers. Headsets are indeed wireless and I select headphones in NGX CDU and in vPilot too. Good point on power management. I wonder if headset goes to sleep mode and it causes the problem. Now I need to figure out what do where to find and what to do with power management.🤔 May be i need t try wired headset instead. 

The strange thing is that it just started happening when I tried to separate sounds. When I had all sounds in my headset I had no issues for years. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by skysurfer

[scandinavian13 5,192]

8 minutes ago, skysurfer said:

When I had all sounds in my headset I had no issues for years. 

Probably has something to do with the primary communications device thing versus the default sound device.

I have a similar setup, but I only put ATC into my headset. Trying to split stuff up like you have seems somewhat illogical. If I'm in the real plane, all of the ambient noise comes through what would be the speakers on your setup. ATC and crew comms in the headset.

[Peter Webber 339]

I posted this possible solution in another topic on the Avsim forums and it may be applicable to your situation. I had a similar issue with ATC applications reducing in volume and it turned out to be a Windows 10 setting. It happens where Windows assumes the apps are "telephony" and reduces the volume automatically. Try this: Right click on the speaker icon in the system tray. Select "Sounds" and then the "Communications" tab and change "When Windows detects communications activity" from "Reduce volume" to "Do nothing". It may help the situation. Worth a try!

[skysurfer 76]

OK. Thanks for help. I will try all these suggestions. 

[wedgantilles 76]

4 hours ago, Peter Webber said:

I posted this possible solution in another topic on the Avsim forums and it may be applicable to your situation. I had a similar issue with ATC applications reducing in volume and it turned out to be a Windows 10 setting. It happens where Windows assumes the apps are "telephony" and reduces the volume automatically. Try this: Right click on the speaker icon in the system tray. Select "Sounds" and then the "Communications" tab and change "When Windows detects communications activity" from "Reduce volume" to "Do nothing". It may help the situation. Worth a try!

Wow that's great I was looking into that issue and actually had found all sort of stuff but never that one. Gonna give it a shot ! Thanks!

[skysurfer 76]

7 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

I have a similar setup, but I only put ATC into my headset. Trying to split stuff up like you have seems somewhat illogical.

I agree, and I tried to have ATC into my headset only but if I do that I do not hear NGX cockpit sounds at all, that engine or external windy sound is so loud so it covers NGX cockpit sound, I tried to change volume setting and I still did not make cockpit sounds clear enough.May be I need good external speakers.