NVDA fails and does not recover when when all audio devices become unavailable

[cyrmax]

Steps to reproduce:

• Switch NVDA to wasapi;
• When NVDA is working normaly open sound card driver settings and change sample rate;
• Or else very fastly disconnect and connect your sound card again;
• Important: this is a third-party sound card, not realtek.

Actual behavior:

NVDA stops speaking and spams with error sounds on every key press or any speech output.

Expected behavior:

NVDA should handle those reconnects or configuration changes correctly.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

nvda-old.log

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed.

NVDA version:

NVDA alpha-29899,cb356535 (2024.1.0.29899)
Also reproduceable on any NVDA version which supports wasapi.

Windows version:

Windows 11 23H2 (AMD64) build 22631.2506
Also was reproduceable on Windows 10.

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Not applicable.

Other information about your system:

Sound card is an USB-microphone with output. Model is sE Electronics NEOM USB

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes.

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

Yes. Reproduceable on any NVDA which supports wasapi.

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

Yes.

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

Yes.

[Adriani90]

cc: @jcsteh this also seems related to WASAPI.

[jcsteh]

I assume you're changing the sample rate through some software specific to the audio device, rather than through Windows sound properties? I can't reproduce this when changing the shared sampling rate on the Advanced tab of the Windows sound properties for an audio device.

I don't really know how to action this given that I can't reproduce it. I'm not sure what your audio driver is doing in this case that is different to what the code is expecting.

[beqabeqa473]

I am also unable to reproduce a problem when changing sample_rate from windows sound properties.

Seems it is specific to some sort of soundcard.

[LeonarddeR]

I have seen similar errors in the callback with my RD Access add-on, though I'm not sure whether that has the same error. I never bothered reporting until now because I was pretty sure it is the add-on doing something obscure. It especially happens when pausing speech from a remote session.

[antonshusharin]

Here are some more details about this issue (posting on behalf of @kirill-jjj):
Whenever the sampling rate is changed in the driver's ui, the audio device is disconnected and reconnected in around a second. During this window, NVDA attempts to use the system's default audio device for output. If it is not available, the behavior described in the first comment occures (speech goes silent and does not recover).
Interestingly, NVDA's ui sounds do switch to the original device after it is reconnected. It is only speech that is affected.

[antonshusharin]

We have also discovered that if speech is disabled with NVDA+S while the sampling rate is being changed, the issue does not occure. After speech is reenabled NVDA functions correctly.

[jcsteh]

To be clear, the external device you are tweaking is also the default audio device and there is no other default device at any point? That is, while the sample rate is switching, there is no default device at all?

[antonshusharin]

To be clear, the external device you are tweaking is also the default audio device and there is no other default device at any point? That is, while the sample rate is switching, there is no default device at all?

Yes. When we plug in another device before changing the sample rate, NVDA briefly switches to it and then to the original device once it becomes usable again.

[cyrmax]

@antonshusharin Thank you very much for making things more clear.
When we tried to investigate the problem first time we didn't pay attention to those things.
@jcsteh @Adriani90 @beqabeqa473 Yes, we changed sample rate from a sound card driver and yes it reconnects this sound card as a new device or the same device with modified parameters.

[jcsteh]

Does this work as expected with WASAPI disabled? I'm trying to work out how we can best handle this. If it does work, does it log a bunch of errors?

[antonshusharin]

Yes, this works correctly when WASAPI is disabled. I believe there are no errors, but will need to follow up with @kirill-jjj to be sure.