While using Windows 11 I notice that occasionally my speaker icon at the taskbar will not list the available audio output devices. Here's the situation: Meanwhile if I click on "More volume settings" I see this: Which is my current workaround. Another lead to this issue is that this seems to happen after a Remote Desktop Connection is made to this machine. Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question. Anonymous 2023-03-24T01:06:02+00:00 So I have an update on this issue and I would like to report a bug. I tried the previous instructions and none of them worked. However, I was able to pinpoint the cause and reproduce the problem in more than one machine. It involves the Remote Desktop Application: The scenario: Host and inbound RDP connection: Windows 11 machines Connecting and outbound RDP connection: macOS machine Software: Remote Desktop from MS (NOT a 3rd party) Result: When a macOS machine connects to a Windows PC through the Remote Desktop application, and subsequently when the connection is closed, often the Windows machines will have issues listing the audio devices available. To save some time I am going to list the specs of the second machine in which I was able to reproduce the issue: 0 comments No comments So I have an update on this issue and I would like to report a bug. I tried the previous instructions and none of them worked. However, I was able to pinpoint the cause and reproduce the problem in more than one machine. It involves the Remote Desktop Application: The scenario: Host and inbound RDP connection: Windows 11 machines Connecting and outbound RDP connection: macOS machine Software: Remote Desktop from MS (NOT a 3rd party) Result: When a macOS machine connects to a Windows PC through the Remote Desktop application, and subsequently when the connection is closed, often the Windows machines will have issues listing the audio devices available. To save some time I am going to list the specs of the second machine in which I was able to reproduce the issue: Anonymous 2023-03-10T04:22:28+00:00 Thanks for your reply. But I think we might be heading in the wrong direction here. This does not seem to be a driver issue. All devices are working fine. As matter of fact, from my original post, the 3rd print shows that they are working, but for whatever reason, I have to click on "More volume settings" to select which output device the audio signal will be sent to, and also to set the volume level. This seems to be more of a Windows bug, than anything else, since for whatever reason Windows gets lost while listing the devices from the 'speaker icon'. But it fetches the correct list when accessed through: Settings -> System -> Sound. Also, after restarting my computer the speaker icon is working properly again. And while restarting seems to 'reset' everything back to normal, it's not always convenient to restart your computer in the middle of your day while at work. I am looking for a solution that would either avoid this problem entirely; or provide a local fix where I could restart a service or execute a command to get things back to normal. 0 comments No comments Thanks for your reply. But I think we might be heading in the wrong direction here. This does not seem to be a driver issue. All devices are working fine. As matter of fact, from my original post, the 3rd print shows that they are working, but for whatever reason, I have to click on "More volume settings" to select which output device the audio signal will be sent to, and also to set the volume level.

This seems to be more of a Windows bug, than anything else, since for whatever reason Windows gets lost while listing the devices from the 'speaker icon'. But it fetches the correct list when accessed through: Settings -> System -> Sound. Also, after restarting my computer the speaker icon is working properly again. And while restarting seems to 'reset' everything back to normal, it's not always convenient to restart your computer in the middle of your day while at work. I am looking for a solution that would either avoid this problem entirely; or provide a local fix where I could restart a service or execute a command to get things back to normal. Anonymous 2023-09-01T13:23:31+00:00 Have there been any further updates on this? I have nearly the same problem with literally every Win11 computer in the house, all with quite different hardware. It started happening mid summer 2023 on all of them. The only difference is that clicking the "select a sound output" button does absolutely nothing at all. Occasionally the entire widget-thing crashes completely and won't open, and when I restart the computer also 'forgets' what wifi network it is connecting to. It's clearly a windows problem and not driver related. Btw, I do not use remote desktop on any of these machines. 0 comments No comments Have there been any further updates on this? I have nearly the same problem with literally every Win11 computer in the house, all with quite different hardware. It started happening mid summer 2023 on all of them. The only difference is that clicking the "select a sound output" button does absolutely nothing at all. Occasionally the entire widget-thing crashes completely and won't open, and when I restart the computer also 'forgets' what wifi network it is connecting to. It's clearly a windows problem and not driver related. Btw, I do not use remote desktop on any of these machines. Anonymous 2023-11-28T19:39:43+00:00 Same here. Even if I connect (and install) external or virtual audio devices. They work fine, but the taskbar menu stays empty. I discovered when I click on the empty area on the left side (where the devices should be), the old legacy audio troubleshooter starts. 0 comments No comments Same here. Even if I connect (and install) external or virtual audio devices. They work fine, but the taskbar menu stays empty. I discovered when I click on the empty area on the left side (where the devices should be), the old legacy audio troubleshooter starts. Anonymous 2024-09-07T05:26:48+00:00 So this is *absolutely* a bug from Microsoft. I just started having this problem this morning. I ran many of the fixes here and on another locked thread about the same topic, none of them worked. However, after doing a restore from backup, I noted something different. Magically, instead of there being 3 icons in the sound menu in the task bar, there were six. There's also something I never noticed before--a pencil icon and a settings icon. What was weird, is that those six icons used to be three, and the pencil and gear were never there before. So I adjusted the GUI back to the way I (mostly) remembered it. If you click the pencil, you can remove items by clicking the little x'd out pin icons: After I made it look like the old way with just internet/bluetooth/airplane, all of a sudden the missing functionality came right back: And then BOOM, back to normal: Notably, after I did this, I was able to keep the old functionality even when putting those back. I haven't yet validated that this fix works permanently after reboots, but there's clearly a bug in how this menu gets drawn/redrawn that has to do with the new widgets when they get added to the bar. NOTE: Windows + Ctrl + v is a hotkey to jump straight to the selector menu. 0 comments No comments So this is *absolutely* a bug from Microsoft. I just started having this problem this morning. I ran many of the fixes here and on another locked thread about the same topic, none of them worked. However, after doing a restore from backup, I noted something different. Magically, instead of there being 3 icons in the sound menu in the task bar, there were six. There's also something I never noticed before--a pencil icon and a settings icon. What was weird, is that those six icons used to be three, and the pencil and gear were never there before. So I adjusted the GUI back to the way I (mostly) remembered it. If you click the pencil, you can remove items by clicking the little x'd out pin icons: After I made it look like the old way with just internet/bluetooth/airplane, all of a sudden the missing functionality came right back: And then BOOM, back to normal: Notably, after I did this, I was able to keep the old functionality even when putting those back. I haven't yet validated that this fix works permanently after reboots, but there's clearly a bug in how this menu gets drawn/redrawn that has to do with the new widgets when they get added to the bar. Windows + Ctrl + v is a hotkey to jump straight to the selector menu.