Sound randomly stops playing, videos stop working

Okay, this has been a problem in the last few days. It wasn't a problem before that.

After a while, for some reason, sound will stop playing in new YouTube videos. Previously opened ones will still play sound, but not new ones. Music playing programs won't play sound, and video viewing programs won't play sound either. The only things that play sound are videos or whatever that's already running at the time. Programs like Winamp, iTunes, VLC, etc. stop playing sound.

Closing programs doesn't fix it. Resetting my computer is the only thing that fixes it.

What causes this? It was not a problem in the past. Did Windows release an update that breaks things?

 

Never mind. Having 100+ tabs open had something to do with it. As I closed tabs, more programs began to play sound and/or video. Some had to be closed and reopened in order to work, but work they did.

I'd have hoped my 16 GB of RAM would have allowed my computer to not have these problems, but I guess there's more to it than that.

 

I know all about the "kill whatever's using the most CPU and/or memory" trick, and I employ that when need be, especially at work. I let Java update itself, as annoying as its constant update begging is. Adobe Flash I haven't updated in a while, though, but I use the HTML5 version of YouTube when possible. Anyway, thanks for the info.

 

It's still happening. Even with lots of tabs closed. Very annoying. Also, Flash is fully updated.

 

It might be helpful if you posted what version of Windows and what browser you use when opening 100 tabs.

 

Windows 7, and both Chrome and Firefox (all up to date).

 

Updates in Windows 7 that caused problems were: Silverlingt 3011970 and root certificates: 3004394
MS released 3024777 to remove 3004394
Then later Silverlight was offered again.

Check your update history and see it any of these three updates appear.

 

Nope. None of those show up.

 

Then you can't blame the problem on a Windows update.

 

Of course. I'm still annoyed that this didn't seem to be a problem in the past, when I could run all kinds of things and not have sound or videos stop, but now suddenly I do.

 

While I appreciate the help, the problems seem to go away if I close a bunch of tabs. I'm not too worried about it, since I seem to have headed it off.

I never use IE. Ever.

My PC is a custom build with Intel, Nvidia and other parts. I tried the idea of updating my audio driver, but all drivers appear to be up to date.

I have a few addons to Firefox and Chrome - minimal ones like typing emoji and unicode symbols, though I wouldn't rule out them causing conflicts.

However, the problem is not showing up now, so I'm not too worried at the moment.