[PatK]

the official driver from Asus be to fault?

To be determined, but it wouldn't be the first time. https://community.amd.com/thread/204727

Using the 'manage' in windows desktop under device manager, and display adapters you have only AMD RX480? These fellows may help http://www.rage3d.com

[Strantford]

I meant the Asus driver for the audio card (Realtek driver).

Yes RX480 is the only device under display adapters.

A crazy thought. Since the very first error in the debug log refers to Directsound, is it possible that the Realtek HD driver does not support Directsound output

I found a relevant topic where a user faced a similar Directsound input problem in Adobe Audition with a Realtek HD audio.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/463514

I went to DxDiag to test DirectSound hardware acceleration but to my surprise there is no Test button either in Video or Audio. I remembered in the past, in the Win XP days the DxDiag had options to test both DirectVideo and DirectSound hardware acceleration capabilities. Has it been removed nowadays because computers and gpus are more advanced?

On the other hand if there were Directsound driver or DirectX problems, I wouldn't have sound in games or while watching movies or listening music....

Honestly since it starts with first notice on Directsound error in debug, I am not convinced that it is the video drivers to blame.

[PatK]

The sound drivers are installed with the graphics card, but yes the first sign of trouble is Directsound error in debug. Your set-up is not too dissimilar to mine, with the big difference being the graphics card, and it's new enough that it's the first suspect.

[TheSwede1970]

Just my opinion but reformat PC and install Windows 10 (don't see the point of using old Windows version)
Let Windows do all updates and driver installations (excluding if there is specific motherboard drivers needed) then install Kodi 17.

By doing this Windows have decided which drivers should work with a new installation.
If it still doesn't work then start with graphic drivers from http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

If you don't have a WIndows 10 key, buy from [link edited] cheap and reliable.

[Edit] Please don't post links to questionable software. Windows 10 is available from Microsoft.[PatK]

[Strantford]

@TheSwede1970
The thing is I don't want to spend another couple of days to set up again the pc with o/s, all the programs, settings etc. Especially if the problem is not solved (and there is a very high possibility it will not) I would have lost so much precious time for nothing really. And I would be stuck also with an o/s (Win10) I hate.

[off topic mode on]
Furthermore I don't like at all Windows 10. I have them in a home laptop and at work and I consider them an intrusion to private life and not an o/s at all. I don't want an o/s that spies on me, I don't want an o/s that decides which updates must be installed (forced), I don't want a bloatware o/s, I need a clean and stable o/s. As far as I am concerned this o/s is and will remain for the time being Windows 7. And is not surprise that MS decided to extent Win7 support for additional years.
Windows 10 is not Win7 replacement, like Vista wasn't. Is more like a beta-testing platform for MS trying to figure out what/how their next o/s will be.
Moreover I don't want to pay for something that I don't need or want even a penny and right now I don't need a new o/s, let alone Win10.
[off topic mode off]

@PatK
The thing is I see a lot of other threads in the forum with similar problems both in Win7 and Win10, especially focused in DirectSound.
Perhaps it is not a problem of o/s or drivers at the end of the day but a problem of Kodi? How it is written and how it communicates/co-operates with the different software parts of a windows pc (o/s - drivers)??
At the end of the day when you build something (e.g. a program) you cannot expect and demand from an o/s or its drivers to go along and comply with you. You should comply with their rules. It is your fault if you cannot work with them, not theirs. A programmer and developer must beta test with all different possible combinations of drivers and components to ensure maximum compatibility.
Is like building a house and blame God because the soil and earth are not good to lay foundations and request God to change the composition of underground material in your backyard or blame the municipality and the state because you don't like the white marble in the pavement (it does not look good with your windows) and you want them to replace the pavements. ;-)

So in our case, is there perhaps a workaround to force Kodi to use Directsound device no matter what? Or force it to use an alternative available device/driver in the system?

[nickr]

Try libreelec, even if just on a usb stick. That will show if perhaps your hardware is faulty. And it wont affect your windows disk.

You may even like it.

[Strantford]

Thanks nickr, I didn't know such thing existed.

I prep the usb

It works perfectly on a small netbook with Athlon II Neo K125 processor and an onboard ATI Radeon HD 4225. The audio circuit is IDT High definition audio codec.
It works perfectly on the old desktop with Q6600 o/c, AMD Radeon HD6850 and Realtek audio

It does not work on my new pc wit i7 and RX480. It gives two errors while booting and stays in a boot loop:
- failed to start samba defaults
- failed to start xorg; is your gpu supported?

After the second error it lists the system devices and goes in an infinite loop of xorg error, system devices, xorg error etc.

In openelec forum for the same error they claim that is due to old graphics cards that are not supported

http://openelec.tv/forum/110-update-open...-supported

But how is that even possible if it runs flawlessly on a Radeon HD4225, on an HD6850 which are older graphic cards, the first also only onboard and fails to recognize an RX480

I've opened also a relevant thread in LibreELEC forum because it is totally strange! I post the link in case anyone faces similar issues so he/she can trace a probable solution.

https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-4555.html

[Strantford]

I tested a theory I had and it actually worked.

I totally removed the Audio driver provided by Asus (which by the way I had uninstalled and re-installed 3 times already) and I let Windows install their Generic High Definition Audio driver.
I started Kodi and it worked.

Since I didn't want to stay with the Windows drivers, I downloaded from Realtek site the latest available driver

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/down...Down=false

Upon system reboot again Kodi works normally.

So the culprit was Asus Audio drivers. Of course by not using the Asus drivers I lost support and I no longer have Sonic Studio 3 and Sonic radar applications.
I hope and wish that by not using the Asus High Definition Audio driver for the onboard audio chip, I am not losing anything in terms of functionality or optimum performance, since it is generally acceptable that the motherboard company drivers are designed to take advantage 100% of the onboard chipset.

It seems at the end of the day I will have to choose between 2 audio applications or Kodi. If I don't lose other things in terms of audio performance and functions as well that cannot be seen right now.

[Strantford]

However now I don't have System sounds in Kodi.
In the past when I was moving to different menus, add-ons, settings etc. back and forth, system sounds were playing for every click on an option.

Now nothing, complete silence. The only sounds are coming from Trakt during scrobling and during a movie, video whatever. But no system sounds.

Under System -> System Settings -> Audio Output I have set the option "Play GUI sounds" to Always but nothing happens.

[roywoods]

i hope you are right be cause you are the first i know of to overcome this problem. and when you mentioned that vulgar name i know what to look at now. even if it doesnt work for me at least i know somebody is beating this and soon fix will be available. guess microsoft was only half wrong when they said this was a kodi error

[TimRex]

So I had slightly different symptoms to you.. but I found uninstalling Sonic Studio 3 and Sonic Radar fixed the issue with Kodi crashing on me..
337786 (thread)

It wouldn't be the first time vendor software got in the way of everything else working normally

[PatK]

Let's curtail this old thread with Kodi Leia in release candidate, the focus is on Kodi 18+ these days. Still have issues, please post a new thread with a proper debug log.