SMPlayer always launches with no audio

[Devil505]

Version: 20.6.0 (revision 9418) (64-bit) on Windows 10 Pro x64

SMplayer is set as Windows default for videos so whenever I open any video via explorer or any other file browsers, SMplayer is launched and starts playing video - but there's no audio.
A quick DOUBLE toggle of muting (hitting the M key TWICE) starts audio output, so it's not that SMplayer is actually invoked muted.

Playing a number of videos that way (i.e. invoking SMplayer several times for several videos in a row) has exatly the same effect.
Actually invoking a 2nd video while playing the 1st one (with sound re-enabled) changes the video shown in SMplayer but again the new video starts with no sound.

I recently migrated from a Windows 7 x64 Laptop to a Windows 10 x64 Desktop and I had no such problem with the same version of SMplayer on the laptop.

Given, it's not a major issue but an inconvenience but still I would guess that's not as it should be.

Apart from the change of operating system there are of course hardware differences between both platforms, one being that the current desktop provides 3 different sound outputs:
1) the most often used Realtek chipset on the main board
2) the alternate Logitech Headset that comes with its own USB sound card
3) the nearly never used nVidia High Definition Audio supplied by the GPU/ Monitor combo

The laptop had only 2 different devices available, the on board Dolby system and the external Logitech USB sound card and actually used the latter nearly 100% of the time.

I just mention them as obvious differences, though the fact that a simple muting and un-muting getting it going doesn't seem to indicate that SMplayer is having a problem to decide for 1 of the 3 output devices.

[rvm]

Maybe the initial volume is set to 0 in your configuration, I don't know.

[Devil505]

thanks for the reply.

Actually smplayer.ini has the entry "initial_volume=40" and none of the other volume entries indicate anything towards silence or very low volumes.

The mediafile specific config files (the ones that save the specific settings for every files played so far) all have volume entries that seem to reflect that initial_volume works correctly (all show values not far from 40) that would indicate that the basic mechanism seems to work, initializing every new media file config with the given value.

I wonder if even IF initial_volume would be 0, a simple mute/ unmute would increase the volume somehow.

[rvm]

Does this still happen if you select another audio output in preferences -> general -> audio?

[Devil505]

Originally it was set to default.

I checked now with wasapi, openal and sdl without any change in behavior compared to my original postings.

Actually when I change the output during a video (with working sound) to another output it immediately stops playing sound again while continuing to play video.

I'm reluctant to use the term "mute" here, 'cause technically while the program isn't paying any sound, it seems to "think" it isn't muted, as a double toggle of mute gets it playing sound again and the mute status on OSD is shown accordingly during toggling.

[Devil505]

I just changed the output from default to 3 of the other working settings without any change in behavior on starting new videos.

In fact, whenever I changed the output during playing a video with working audio it immediately stopped playing audio while continuing to play the video.

And each time audio could be enabled again by touble-toggling mute.

By now I think I also tried nearly any combination of the other settings in that audio preferences tab just in case - didn't make any difference I noticed in respect of the problem.

[rvm]

Could you send the smplayer log (menu View) after playing a video?