No audio when watching movies, seems to be Graph related

[Buggle]

After re-installing my computer with Vista Sp1 integrated (my laptop was getting awfully slow), I'm having problems with watching video: it has no audio! All points noted below take place with any video I have tried (most or maybe all with Xvid/mp3).

My hardware is functioning fine: winamp plays my audio well, regardless of directsound or wave output. So there is no driver problem (although I tried to reinstall the driver, but that was no help).

Movies I try to play in windows media player crash right after the player 'acquired the nessesary codec', saying it cannot play the video or that it is broken.

My normal player, MPC-HC, plays them fine, but no audio. in the 'filter properties' menu (right click on the playing video and then filter), there is a video decoder, a renderer and an avi splitter, but nothing related to audio. When I look into the properties of the avi splitter it seems to detect the audio track, but it doesn't connect it to anything. Playing an mkv gives a real error:
"the following pin(s) failed to find a connectable filter", [AudioSwitcher] (the Audioswitcher::out is named many many times in the dropdown, all with different audiofilter out pins. This is the first:
C:\Users\Bugi\Videos\Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno).2006.mkv::Audio
ffdshow Audio Decoder::Out
Audio Switcher::Out

Media Type 0:
--------------------------
Audio: PCM 48000Hz stereo 1536Kbps

AM_MEDIA_TYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Audio {73647561-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
subtype: MEDIASUBTYPE_PCM {00000001-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
formattype: FORMAT_WaveFormatEx {05589F81-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 1
cbFormat: 18

WAVEFORMATEX:
wFormatTag: 0x0001
nChannels: 2
nSamplesPerSec: 48000
nAvgBytesPerSec: 192000
nBlockAlign: 4
wBitsPerSample: 16
cbSize: 0 (extra bytes)

pbFormat:
0000: 01 00 02 00 80 bb 00 00 00 ee 02 00 04 00 10 00 ....€»...î......
0010: 00 00 ..


Media Type 1:
--------------------------
Unknown

AM_MEDIA_TYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Stream {E436EB83-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}
subtype: MEDIASUBTYPE_None {E436EB8E-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}
formattype: FORMAT_None {0F6417D6-C318-11D0-A43F-00A0C9223196}
bFixedSizeSamples: 0
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 307200
cbFormat: 0

When I reinstalled the computer I also installed Nero 9, including Showtime, since I own a few recodes that have nero subs in the mp4. The Nero player would sometimes play the movies fine, including the audio, and sometimes only show audio and no video (file type detected as mp3). I thought maybe Nero was the problem, but uninstalling it has not solved anything.

Does any of you know where the problem is located? I use the latest CCCP stable package, but varying codecs (I even installed AC3 filter to maybe 'render' my audio or something) has not solved the problem. The way I see it it seems to be between the decoded audio and the connection to the audio hardware, where the stuff fails. I have never come across this problem before.

[edit:] one other thing, I also had ReClock installed (latest from Slysoft), and since that normally is the audorenderer I figured it might be due to that one. But removing it has nog solved the problem, and it doesn't kick in anyway when using EVR and Haali splitter.

[Leak]

I'd say try opening your file in GraphStudio (http://blog.monogram.sk/janos/tools/monogram-graphstudio/) and see what happens...

[Buggle]

Well, using the graph tool, it shows that the audio file does not get connected to a filter: video goes from either avi splitter or directly (mkv) to the ffdshow filter and then to a renderer, whereas the audio out is not connected to anything.

I do have ffdshow audio installed and configured, but also mpc-hc internal filters are not working. Or the MP3 ACM codec that is already in windows, for that matter (looking at WMP trying to acquire a codec).

[edit:] hmm, interesting. When I manually added ffdshow audio decoder to the graph, connecting it to the audio output of the avi, the whole thing crashed because the .ax crashed (aka the dsfilter). This is strange behaviour and even though I cannot be considered a noob I have absolutely not a single clue as to what is going on here.

[edit2:] I also tried dropping a wmv file in the graphstudio. Even here, the audio is not getting connected to any filter; only the video.

[edit3:] Have been playing around with the grapheditor, finding out that I am not able to connect an audio renderer to the audio decoder. When I right click the audio output pin of the avi splitter, I can choose the compatible filter (ffdshow audio), but rightclicking the ffdshow audio output pin and choosing for one of the compatible filters/audio renderers, nothing happens. When I connect the pin to the null renderer, the video plays fine. The crash as described before happens when I do not connect the ffdshow audio decoder to any renderer.
To sum it up: I am not able to insert any audio renderer into the graph, nothing happens. No DS renderer, no Waveout device, nothing, except the Null renderer. As I thought before, the problem lays between decoded output and hardware.

[Buggle]

Anyone? This is kind of a problem, as you might assume. I haven't got a clue why I cannot put an audio renderer in place... I tried with thesame streams and program on my Desktop, and it worked. I could easily insert an audio renderer and remove it, etc.

[Buggle]

After almost giving up (already moved much of the data to an external disk), I finally got it to work. It seems to me installing the latest DX redist solved my problem. Still, GraphStudio says it is using the waveout device, which is kind of strange. One would expect the DirectAudio to be in place. But hell, at least I won't have to reinstall my system :)

[Edit] Unfortunately I yelled to soon. I started Graphedit in Administrator mode, which seems to have solved my problems. Whenever I just open a movie, it gives me no audio renderer. When I start the player in Administrator mode, everything is fine. So conclusion is, in the present state the audio renderers cannot be accessed unless with administrator rights. (recall this is on Vista). This is so weird, because I have never encountered this before, video (as will be clear) for instance loads fine without having those rights.

Does ANYONE have some ideas how to tackle this issue?