Audio not playing/IO resetting problem: can anyone help?

[TinyTachyon]

Background info:
I'm running Pro Tools 12 on a Windows 8 machine that used to run Pro Tools First.

Problem:
When I booted up Pro Tools for the first time, after setting up, no audio was playing. I'd set up a synth, see the volume bars light up, but nothing was coming through my headphones. After some fiddling (none of which made any difference) I clicked through to the "Playback Engine" button, and realised it was trying to play through the "Digital Audio" output (which doesn't actually play any sound) and switched it to my headphones. It said it would reset, and it did, but it still wasn't playing any sound, and I noticed the output was still set to the nonfunctional "Digital Audio"! After quitting and re-opening Pro Tools, the problem persists: my output is locked onto a nonfunctional "digital audio" setting.

Can anyone help with this?

[Darryl Ramm]

What exact audio interface are you actually trying to use for Pro Tools? We cannot guess what "your headphones" are or what/where they are plugged into? They USB headphones? Analog headphones? Plugged into the PC sound card? (What exact one?) plugged into an external Interface?

If you are trying to use a PC sound card does it have an ASIO driver? Is that installed? (The latest compatible version?) or does it need ASIO4ALL? And do you have ASIO4ALL installed? How is ASIO4ALL configured? Have you looked at the ASIO4ALL documentation?

Start by getting a basic audio track working, not a VI. Create a new empty session, Create a stereo audio track And drag and drop a known good music mp3 or similar into that track. If the playback engine and ASIO4ALL control panel seem OK but the track IO options look wrong the go into Setup>IO and in each page click on the default button.

If you want to do much with Pro Tools you will likely want or need a dedicated ASIO audio interface and if you do not have one, now may be the time to get one.

If you need more help here post a SiSoft Sandra report, start at the "help us help you" link up top of this web page. And post screenshots of your ASIO4ALL control panel, Pro Tools playback engine dialog and Setup>IO output and bus pages and the Pro Tools mix window clearly showing track IO assignments.

[TinyTachyon]

As I show in some attachments, my problem isn't whatever audio setup I have (incidentally, headphones in a standard 3.5mm stereo jack); it's that whenever I try to change the settings to something that might work, they default back to this nonfunctional audio output.

[TinyTachyon]

Sorry, might have come off as a bit snappy. Been trying to get this to work for a while, shouldn't have taken it out on a random person trying to help.

[Darryl Ramm]

Lots of questions unanswered... And those headphones get plugged into what? presumably your computer... Which has what sound card/chipset.... And if that has a native ASIO driver did you install it? And so on.

Regardless, the most useful advice you will likely get is to forget Windows Audio and even ASIO4ALL and get a proper Audio interface that has a native ASIO driver.

If you want to waste time with Windows audio device support I would try trashing pro tools preferences and uninstalling and reinstalling the Windows audio drivers and/or install ASIO4ALL. You may also simply be able to delete the Windows device causing the problem here. But a real ASIO interface, from a good vendor, with good ASIO driver support, is going to be a much better option.

[TinyTachyon]

thanks for the info, that should be enough