YouTube/audio files refuse to play

ROBOCRIPPLE · December 5, 2018

Sometimes, when I turn my PC on and try to watch a video on YouTube in Firefox, the video won't play at all. Clicking Play wouldn't work. At the same time, a music file won't play in Windows Media Player, and Spotify "can't play [a] song". So, I have to restart my PC once or twice, even, just to get them to work again. Also sometimes, after I wake my computer from sleep or turn it on, it won't output anything from either my main monitor or new 4K display, so I had to turn off my UPS and/or unplug my 4K display and then plug them back in to fix the problem. Simply hard-resetting my PC or turning it off forcefully and turning it back on wouldn't work. I don't want to deal with these issues, anymore. I just want my setup to work every time I turn it on or wake it up from sleep.

I didn't have these issues, before. I keep my computer updated via Windows Update (and NVIDIA GeForce Experience for my graphics card) and haven't had a threat, recently. Actually, I started with a pre-built "abs" PC from 2014-15 and upgraded the hardware along the way, even the motherboard and CPU. I also cloned the Windows installation from the SSHD of my pre-built system into an SSD with the same capacity. I didn't use a UPS before I got the one I'm currently using. I've been using the same PSU as the one I got in my pre-built.

What seems to be causing the issues? I even thought about starting over with a fresh installation of Windows 10, backing up my important files, of course; I'm not really looking forward to downloading and installing my games and apps, again! (my download speed goes up to 80Mbps) I don't want to re-install Windows, I just don't want to spend any more of my time unplugging things or restarting my system several times unnecessarily.

ROBOCRIPPLE · December 6, 2018

Hello, anybody? What do I do to prevent these issues from ever happening again? The problem with the YouTube and audio files refusing to play is happening again!