Zoom call has to be active for my computer's audio to work?

[invictus12]

I noticed a really strange issue on my laptop (Dell XPS Windows 11) since the last update of zoom. The audio on my laptop (through speakers and headphones) only works when a zoom call is active. For example, when I try to watch a movie on my laptop's browser, there is no sound, however, if I open up a zoom meeting and "connect computer audio", the sound on my computer suddenly starts to work. Has anyone experienced this?

[jtm]

Same problem. No laptop sound unless a zoom session is open. Dell xps-13 Win 10 Pro. Noticed this a few days ago -- around Sept 10 or 11, 2022. Thanks for posting. I thought I was nuts!

[jtm]

Added note: I have a second, older xps-13 win 10 pro. I am NOT experiencing the same problem. Sound works normally. The machine that is acting up is a year old, touch screen, and the user often "hosts" zoom meetings.

[Sandoval · Accepted solution]

One of our users had this exact same issue.  We reached out to Zoom Support but have yet to hear from them.

We fixed it today by uninstalling the realtek audio drivers through the Add/Remove Programs window (NOT DEVICE MANAGER. That didn't work for us), rebooted, and allowed Windows to automatically re-install the audio drivers.

This allowed computer audio to work again outside of Zoom.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

[invictus12]

Thank you, that helped!

[Sandoval]

Quick update - The issue came back for our user. They were running version 5.11

We downgraded to Zoom v 5.9 and the issue went away.

[invictus12]

The problem returned for me too

[Pravimt]

Thank you! 

I, too, faced the same issue. But once the  Realtek audio drivers were uninstalled through the Add/Remove Programs window issue got fixed.

[MCRECAA]

Thank you! But I can't find 'realtek' or 'audio' under add/remove programs. 

[Harvester]

I had the same problem, many thanks for the fix!

[Sentil]

I have the exact same issue. Audio works via headset but laptops builtin speaker does not work for anything unless I have zoom opened up to the Audio Settings tab.

[Sentil]

I have uninstalled my audio driver and reinstalled it via Windows Update - did not work

My Zoom version is 5.12.3 and its a corporate account, I cant downgrade it.

[MCRECAA]

 Hello there I have the same problem and the above solution didn't work for me unfortunately.