If you’ve been facing the annoying no sound error bug on your Kodi media player and are looking for a fix, then your search ends here. Read on to find out how...
Adnan Ahmed
Last updated on January 5, 2022
Adnan Ahmed
Author
Student by day, Android enthusiast by the night, anything that has material design intrigues me. Passionate about filmmaking, writing, and now design. The goal is to add a little bit of a personal touch to anything and everything I create!
If you’ve been facing the annoying no sound error bug on your Kodi media player and are looking for a fix, then your search ends here. Read on to find out how you can easily Fix Kodi No Sound Error within a matter of a few minutes.
Kodi, or formerly known as XMBC, is a popular media player that is available on numerous platforms. It depends on third-party services to sort and add media to its own library, and once set up properly, Kodi can provide a very seamless experience. Users with Kodi installed on their devices can not only enjoy the latest movies, TV shows, anime but also have the leisure to use Kodi as a music player to stream all of their favorite podcasts. As we speak, Kodi is available for a wide spectrum of devices, including Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. It also supports many Televisions with the proper firmware, but that requires you to have a physical Android box that can do the trick for you. Following are a few of the features that Kodi lists on its website :
Kodi can play all your music including mp3, FLAC, Wav, and WMA formats. It has a cue sheet, tag reading support, and smart playlists for ultimate control of your music collection.
Kodi can do Movies too! Supporting all the main video formats including streamable online media, Kodi can import, browse and play your Movie collection with ease.
The TV Shows library supports episode and season views with posters or banners, watched tags, show descriptions, and actors. Great for keeping track of your progress.
Import pictures into a library and browse the different views, start a slideshow, sort or filter them all using your remote control.
Kodi allows you to watch and record live TV all from easy to use interface. It works with a number of popular backends including MediaPortal, MythTV, NextPVR, Tvheadend, and many more.
Kodi allows you to completely change the whole appearance of the interface with skins. We have no doubt that you will find something that suits your tastes (or loungeroom).
The real power of Kodi comes from the vast selection of user created Add-ons. There are Add-Ons for popular web services, applications, and scripts.
What is the No Sound bug?
This bug has been around for ages and is quite a common issue for not only Kodi-enabled devices but for other media players too. Usually, if such a bug exists, there are multiple ways to diagnose and fix it, and while there is no one particular fix for this, we have a long list of methods by which you might be able to tinker this bug from your Kodi device away. The No Sound bug may occur for multiple reasons, but most of them are due to wrong audio routing, some hardware issues, or the selection of the wrong output device.
In any case, if you’ve been searching everywhere to find a fix, then look no further. Below is how you can fix Kodi no sound error in a few minutes or less!
The first and foremost step in diagnosing an audio device that doesn’t seem to work is to check if you have any of the hardware issues regarding it. There are a few common mishaps that you might want to check out and see if it fixes the no sound bug on your Kodi device.
Audio Cables – Make sure all the cables that manage the audio interface are kept without any curls or overlaps, and also recheck all the connections to see if there are any lose ends that may break the connection.
Bluetooth – If you’re using a Bluetooth pair of speakers for your Kodi device, then make sure they are plugged into the wall, and are connected properly. Alternatively, you can try pairing the speakers to your phone to check if the speakers themselves work or not. Make sure the distance between the media player and your Bluetooth speakers isn’t interrupted by any other channel raceways that might disrupt the wireless connection.
Ports – Lastly, make sure all the audio in and out ports in your media player and the speakers are free of any lint or dust that may interrupt the connection. You can use a blower to blow away any dust if you have stuck in it.
The first thing to do if you’ve already checked out for any hardware deformities is to try and restart your Kodi service. Many a times, this will re-route any of the broken audio channels, and will reset the speaker settings too.
On Firestick and Fire TV :
Enter the Settings from the homescreen on your Firestick or Fire TV.
Navigate to Applications > Manage Installed Applications and then select Kodi from the list. Source : TroyPoint
From the menu, select Force Stop and head back to the main menu. Source : TroyPoint
Launch Kodi again and check if the issue still persists.
Use the Exit Command
Launch the Kodi app.
Head over to the menu, and click on the Power button, then select the Exit option. Source : TroyPoint
This will force close the app itself. Try launching Kodi once more and check to see if the issue still persists.
Source : TroyPoint
Method #3 – Check the Volume
Your best bet as to why the audio isn’t working in the Kodi app is probably because the volume has been reset to zero. Try and see if increasing the volume fixes your bug.
From the homescreen, navigate to Movies, and play any video of your choice that has audio in it.
Once the video starts playing, click on the Settings icon, and then go under the Audio Settings tab. Source : TroyPoint
Here, use the remote to slide the volume to the right to increase the decibel counter. Source : TroyPoint
Head back to the video file, and see if the issue still persists.
Method #4 – Enable Audio Passthrough
The way Kodi, and a lot of other media players handle the audio is by decoding them into a simpler code, and then streaming the audio in a format that is less tasking on the CPU. This does usually affect the playblack in a good way, but also might reduce the sound quality if your source clip was of a higher bitrate. Enabling passthrough will deny Kodi from following these steps, and instead it throws out the raw audio as is, without any interference. Most of the times, if your audio passthrough channel is broken, the audio might also be lost, so enabling this feature might fix your no sound bug.
From the homescreen, navigate to Movies, and play any video of your choice that has audio in it.
Once the video starts playing, click on the Settings icon, and then go under the Audio Settings tab. Source – TroyPoint
Scroll down, and enable the Audio Passthrough toggle. Source – TroyPoint
Head back to the video file, and see if the issue still persists.
Method #5 – Configure Audio Settings
If all the above steps fail, then you might want to try to configure your actual audio settings themselves to see if they make any difference.
From the homescreen, launch the Settings app.
Navigate to System and then hop into the Audio tab. Source – TroyPoint
Here, you will find a bunch of audio settings that you can play around with. We’ve briefly explained what each option does below :
– Audio output device : This option will allow you to select the speaker or device that you want the audio to be thrown out from. Make sure this is selected as your primary speaker setup.
– Output configuration : This will allow you to select from three different presets (Fixed, Best Match, Optimized) to filter out the audio quality from your speakers. We recommend the Best Match option.
– Resample quality : This option resamples the audio in either low, medium or high modes. We recommend not changing this as this might significantly reduce the quality of the audio.
– Keep audio device alive : This feature will allow you to set a timer for how long your speakers stay in the running mode. While Kodi recommend you to have this option set to 1 minute, you can try to select the never sleep option and check if this fixes your issue.
Source – TroyPoint
Method #6 – Change Audio Channel
Most of the online video entertainment uses the 5.1 channel system to throw out the audio in a balanced manner, and this uses all of your speakers as well as the subwoofer. Even if you don’t own a 5.1 speaker setup, most of the times Kodi might only use the 5.1 channel runway to be able to provide any audio playback, hence we recommend you try to select this option.
From the homescreen, launch the Settings app.
Navigate to System and then hop into the Audio tab. Source – TroyPoint
Select Number of Channels, and from the drop down list choose the 5.1 option. Source – TroyPoint
Try streaming a movie or audio file and see if the problem still persists.
Method #7 – Update Add-on to the latest version
Many a times, if you are using an add-on service to use the media player, you might face the no sound bug if the latest version isn’t applied by default. The simple fix for this is to make sure your current add-on is updated to the latest version.
From the homescreen, head over to the Settings app.
Navigate to Add-ons and then select the add-on that you use to stream your media.
Click on the Update button, and select the versions that pop up if available.
The update may take a few minutes, so grab some coffee while you’re at it.
Once done updating, restart your Kodi app and try to play a media file to check if the problem still persists.
Alternatively, you can check for the Kodi system updates itself. Many a times this will bring new audio drivers and will fix any outdated ones within the update package itself.
If you are running the Kodi media player on a Windows or a Mac, then the following troubleshooting steps might help you out as well :
Method #8 – Update Audio Drivers
You can manually or automatically update to the latest audio drivers for your actual speakers to see if this fixes the issue. This is a common bug, and sometimes you need the latest firmware in order for third party services like Kodi to support audio playback.
Windows :
Click the Start menu, and type in Device Manager. Launch the app.
You will see a long list of drivers, ranging all the way from USB Controllers to CPUs. You are interested in the audio department, so click on the little arrow beside the Sound, video and game controllers tab.
From the list, select your primary speaker setup (usually named High Definition Audio Device). Right click on it and launch the Properties window. Source – TroyPoint
From the window, select the Drivers tab and click on the Update Driver button.
The computer will now search the internet for the latest software available.
If you computer finds a new driver, it will install it automatically. Source – TroyPoint
Once done, give your computer a reboot and check to see if the problem still persists in Kodi by playing a movie or an audio file.
MacOS :
Click on the little Apple icon to the top left of your Mac, and select the App Store option. Source – TroyPoint
On the new page that pops up, select the Update All option.
This will scan through all the connected hardware, and will check for any new software or firmare files. Source – TroyPoint
If available, the system will update itself. Give it a reboot and check if the problem still persists in Kodi by playing a movie or an audio file.
That’s all folks! We hope at least one out of our many troubleshooting methods helped solve the no sound bug on your Kodi device. If you have any queries regarding the guide, do let us know down below, we’d be glad to assist you!
