Blender crashes on startup if playback device disabled #38372

System Information
Microsoft Windows 7 x64
NVIDIA Quadro FX1000M (driver

Blender Version
Broken: 2.69

Short description of error
Blender crashes on startup. Briefly a console window is shown stating a crash log is written in C:\Temp\blender.crash.txt, but that file only contains the line "# Blender 2.69 (sub 0), Revision: 60995". After using the debugger I found out the problem is caused by having my primary audio playback device disabled ("manage audio devices from the windows control panel, right-click on speakers and select disable). After enabling my speakers again blender runs fine again. Here is a stacktrace when running blender with my playback device disabled:

0x80009a20
WINMM!DriverCallback+0x6e
msacm32_7fefa960000+0x14a1
msacm32_7fefa960000+0x167d
WINMM!DriverCallback+0x6e
wdmaud!mxdMessage+0x9a5e
wdmaud!wodMessage+0xae
WINMM!waveOutOpen+0x1cd
msacm32_7fefa960000+0x1c2f
msacm32_7fefa960000+0x2691
msacm32_7fefa960000!wodMessage+0x10b
WINMM!waveOutOpen+0x1cd
wrap_oal!alcOpenDevice+0x7d0
blender!PyInit_aud+0x12112
blender!PyInit_mathutils_geometry+0x5f5aae
blender+0x601522
blender+0xfcfe
blender+0x1005f
blender+0x4e20
blender+0x11e0

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error

In the windows control panel, go to "manage audio devices"
Right-click the primary playback device and select "disable" (I had a another playback device (headphones) enabled)
Try to start blender

Changed status to: 'Open'

Added subscriber: @maurice-3

Added subscribers: @neXyon, @ThomasDinges, @Sergey

@ThomasDinges, can you check this on windows?

@neXyon, maybe you've got some knowledge around this?

The call stack is very weird, when I start blender on linux PyInit_aud is not called at all. Moreover there is no direct call to OpenAL in that function either!

Added subscriber: @jrp

I think that there is a missing
if (speaker->sound)

at line 736 of sound.c, so that it looks like:

						if (strip->speaker_handle) {
							AUD_addSet(new_set, strip->speaker_handle);
							AUD_updateSequenceData(strip->speaker_handle, speaker->volume_max,
							                       speaker->volume_min, speaker->distance_max,
							                       speaker->distance_reference, speaker->attenuation,
							                       speaker->cone_angle_outer, speaker->cone_angle_inner,
							                       speaker->cone_volume_outer);

							mat4_to_quat(quat, ob->obmat);
							AUD_setSequenceAnimData(strip->speaker_handle, AUD_AP_LOCATION, CFRA, ob->obmat- [x], 1);
							AUD_setSequenceAnimData(strip->speaker_handle, AUD_AP_ORIENTATION, CFRA, quat, 1);
							AUD_setSequenceAnimData(strip->speaker_handle, AUD_AP_VOLUME, CFRA, &speaker->volume, 1);
							AUD_setSequenceAnimData(strip->speaker_handle, AUD_AP_PITCH, CFRA, &speaker->pitch, 1);
							if (speaker->sound)
								AUD_updateSequenceSound(strip->speaker_handle, speaker->sound->playback_handle);
							AUD_muteSequence(strip->speaker_handle, ((strip->flag & NLASTRIP_FLAG_MUTED) != 0) || ((speaker->flag & SPK_MUTED) != 0));

If that would be the problem then there's a bug somewhere else, because a Speaker should always have a sound! Also I see absolutely no connection between this bug and this part of the code, they have nothing to do with each other. O_o

OK. I was going by the

							if (speaker->sound) {

at line 715 of that file.

Added subscriber: @BenjaminNeumann

I tried to reproduce it yesterday and got the same error but it was too late for a decent bug hunt. Somehow it works today after reboot. This is really strange I tried disabling all the soundcards I have installed (3) still nothing.

maurice, is it still an issue for you?

Now that I know that my disabled soundcard is the problem, I can easily work around this issue.

Well, crashing blender is bad anyway. However, stack-trace goes to msacm32 which is a windows library and if it does have issues we couldn't work-around them from blender side.

Please check whether there're driver updates on your sound card vendor's site.

Added subscriber: @MartijnBerger

Is there anyway you could maybe test with a buildbot build of blender (maybe even both 2008 and 2013 build).
They use different openal versions and could give a clue to if this issue is still present and if it happens in both versions.

Changed status from 'Open' to: 'Archived'

Well, not reply in some weeks.. New openal might have solved the issue.

But blender does not do anything specific with the devices directly, so it's very much likely issue in a third part lib which is out of the scope of this tracker..

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Blender crashes on startup if playback device disabled #38372