After Effects won't playback audio on my Windows Machine. Whilst Premiere has no problems

[pacey-j]

After Effects has been temperamental with audio on this machine. But generally it doesn't work. And right now it doesn't and hasn't for a while. It used to be that I could switch the hardware to ASIO. But this would turn off the sound for every other program. I have screengrabbed all my settings and I really hope one of you spots something!

I am getting the green bars suggesting that AE is playing and the output routing is wrong, but there is no option to change this. As you'll see below that box is greyed out in AE.

System audio works fine, audio even plays back fine in Premiere Pro with more or less identical settings.

After Effects has been reinstalled in the last few days with the problem existing either side of this.

It's driving me crazy! I just googled how much I could sell my Windows machine for and go back to mac with my tail between my legs.

...But that is irrational.

Dell XPS 15 9560. Windows 10 Pro. Realtek Audio.

Here are the WORKING settings from Premiere Pro where I get audio.

Here are the settings from After Effects including the preview settings:

[Mike_Abbott]

As it happens I have a very similar machine: XPS 9530.

Audio settings appear identical to yours - and my audio works fine. Frustrating...

I'm not sure what to suggest but it might be worth toggling this on/off:

Preferences > Previews > Mute audio when playback is not real time

[pacey-j]

Thanks for your suggestion, it didn't help unfortunately.

Can I check: In your Audio Output Mapping is the first box 'Map Output For:' grayed out?

[Mike_Abbott]

Yes - exactly as your dialog.

I've also just powered up Premier to check my settings - same set up as you, the only thing I notice is that my default output is:

"Speakers / Headphones (Realtek High Definition Audio)"

as opposed to your:

"Speakers / Headphones (2 - Realtek Audio)"

But I don't think that's of significance.

Sorry I haven't got a solution...

Just on an off chance have you tried plugging headphones in in case it's some output mapping oddity...

you could always try trashing your AE prefs...

Ctrl + Alt + Shift immediately on AE startup

[pacey-j · Accepted solution]

I just shared my screen with an adobe agent and they found it

Embarrassingly simple:

The system's volume mixer had muted it for some weird reason, probably to do with ASIO at a guess.

Anyway, if you're a mac user who's switched it might not be obvious to you either so right click on the speaker icon at the bottom left of the Start Bar and choose 'Open Volume Mixer'

​Thanks for trying to work it out!