Windows 11 Bluetooth no sound/microphone and crashing

Anonymous
2022-01-09T03:35:21+00:00

My Bluetooth earphones have been working well all the time until I upgraded my laptop to Windows 11. The laptop shows my earphones are connected, but neither sound nor microphone works. The browser and Zoom crash every time I try to use Bluetooth earphones to listen to music or join meetings.

I have tried disconnecting/reconnecting Bluetooth earphones, turning on/off Bluetooth, resetting my earphones, restarting my laptop, and none of these resolves the issues of no sound/mic and crashing. I even bought a new pair of Bluetooth earphones, and it did not work either.

I think this is a bug in Windows 11. Am I the only one facing this issue? What exactly is going on with Windows 11 Bluetooth? And what else can I do now?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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.

0 comments

92 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2022-06-23T19:25:11+00:00

    +1 for 95% of comments here: any Bluetooth audio device isn't working properly with Windows 11. No issues on Windows 10 with the same set of devices & drivers. One year after OS release: still in beta with no working audio xDDD

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-22T15:31:02+00:00

    Same problem here. Dell XPS 13 working sweetly with Bose QC35 II and QC45 with Windows 10, but since upgrade to Windows 11, nothing but problems.

    Windows Audio service stops, Spotify (no audo and hangs, need to kill app), Youtube (video just spins), Teams all stop processing audio. Rebooting the PC fixes it, but it reoccurs again if headphones are turned off/charged or laptop goes to sleep.

    It's driving me crazy as I use Bluetooth headphones all day, every day.

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-15T21:15:20+00:00

    I think I might have some sort of a solution!

    I've been using it for the last couple of hours and it seems to work!

    This solution only enables me to use the headphones on hands-free mode (the mode with the low quality audio + mic) so it's not suitable for listening to music or anything like that.

    Basically the idea is to trick windows to use the mic all the time, that way the auto switch to audio mode (which was introduced in win11 - see here, and I believe is the one causing this issue) won't trigger and the headphones will remain in the hands-free mode.

    Here are the steps I did -

    • Preparation Step (only need to do once) do this when you're headphone are disconnected. Not sure if this one is needed but haven't yet tested without it.
      • Go to control panel
      • Click on Sound (make sure you're not in "View by: category" mode so the Sound icon appears)
      • Click on the Recording tab
      • Right click and disable each one of the recording devices except for your headphones.
    • Day to Day use - we now want the headphones to start in hands-free mode and stick to it
      • Once again, open the Sound setting and click on the Recording tab
      • Connect your headphones
      • Now, the recording tab tries to use the mic on the headphone to display the sound level, so the headphones should be in hands-free mode. As long as you keep this window open, the headphones should remain in that mode.
      • You can now go into zoom/google meet/teams/any other video conference app you use

    As I said, this worked for me for the past day... even made some zoom calls and people were actually able to hear me again :)

    Let me know if this helped you!

    Was this answer helpful?

    10 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-05-31T15:54:52+00:00

    I have no idea how this is still an issue. It's driving me absolutely mad!

    Was this answer helpful?

    10 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2022-04-24T08:05:23+00:00

    Same problem here. Just jumping on the thread incase Microsoft responds.

    Had no trouble with Windows 10, now it's happening with all of my Bluetooth headphones in Windows 11. I've got all the same problems and tried all the same fixes as the people above me. I really wish I'd realized this was an OS issue back in the first 10 days, but no.

    Stay strong, my people! Someday, the great Microsoft might actually hear our cries of torment and fix the thing! I mean, it could happen, right?

    Was this answer helpful?

    8 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments