Articles / Fixesupdated for DaVinci Resolve 21.0 (June 2026)

DaVinci Resolve No Audio: Every Cause and How to Fix It

Marius Manolachi6 min read

Quick answer

DaVinci Resolve usually loses audio for one of five reasons: a muted or soloed track, a clip disabled in the Inspector, the wrong I/O Engine or output device in Preferences, a sample rate mismatch between your timeline and your audio interface, or Export Audio left unchecked on the Deliver page. Check each in that order.

Illustration of a silent DaVinci Resolve timeline with a muted waveform

Your timeline plays. Your video looks fine. And there's nothing coming out of your speakers. It's one of the most common panics a new Resolve editor hits, and almost every time, it's a setting, not a broken program.

The Quick Answer above gives you the five usual suspects. Below is how to check each one, in the order that finds the problem fastest.

Illustration of a silent DaVinci Resolve timeline with a muted waveform

Why is my DaVinci Resolve timeline silent when the clip has audio?

Start at the track header, not the clip. Every audio track in Resolve carries its own Mute button, and next to it, a Solo button. Solo doesn't just boost the track you clicked, it silences every other track in the project until you turn it off. That's the single most common reason a whole timeline goes quiet after a routine audio check: you soloed one dialogue track an hour ago to listen for a cough, moved on, and forgot to switch it back.

Mute and Solo live in the track header column on both the Edit page and the Fairlight page. On Edit, look left of the timeline itself. On Fairlight, they sit above the track's meter, next to the fader. If either one is engaged, the fix takes one click.

If the track itself checks out, go to the clip. Select it, open the Inspector, and click its Audio tab. Clips carry their own mute state independent of the track, so a track that plays every other clip fine can still have one silent clip sitting on it.

Illustration of Mute and Solo buttons on a DaVinci Resolve track header

Why does DaVinci Resolve show no audio device, or the wrong one?

If Mute and Solo are both clean and you still hear nothing, the problem has moved from the timeline to your hardware setup. Open Preferences, then System, then Video and Audio I/O.

Resolve routes audio through an I/O Engine, and it offers a short list of options: System Audio, Desktop Video, Fairlight Audio Accelerator, and ASIO on Windows, according to Blackmagic's own DaVinci Resolve manual. System Audio uses your computer's built-in sound hardware. Desktop Video routes through a Blackmagic capture or playback device instead, like an UltraStudio or DeckLink, and it's the setting that trips up editors who used to have one of those devices connected and don't anymore.

There's a second trap inside the same panel. A checkbox called Automatic speaker configuration quietly overrides your manual output choice and routes audio to whatever built-in hardware Resolve thinks you're using, even with a different device enabled. Uncheck it if you need Resolve to stick to the output device you actually picked.

Confirm the Output Device dropdown itself points at the speakers or headphones you're listening through right now. Switching headsets, docks, or interfaces mid-session is the most ordinary reason this drifts.

Illustration of the Video and Audio I/O preferences panel with the I/O Engine setting open in DaVinci Resolve

Why does a sample rate mismatch cause DaVinci Resolve to go silent?

This is the cause that looks the most like a bug, because nothing in the interface flags it. Your project has a timeline sample rate, set under Project Settings, then Fairlight. Your speakers or audio interface run at their own rate too. When those two numbers don't match, Resolve can output nothing at all instead of throwing an error.

Fairlight is built to handle mismatched source media. It converts clips recorded anywhere from 44.1kHz up to 384kHz to match your project's Timeline Sample Rate automatically. What it won't silently fix is the last step: the rate your project outputs at versus the rate your actual playback device is configured for. Check both, and set them to match.

If you're mixing dialogue, music, and clip audio recorded on different devices, this is worth checking early rather than after you've torn apart every track looking for a mute button that was never engaged.

Illustration of a sample rate mismatch between a DaVinci Resolve project and an audio interface

Why does my exported video have no audio even though the timeline sounds fine?

This one catches editors who fixed the problem for monitoring and never checked it survived to the render. Two things need to be true at once, and Resolve treats them as separate settings.

First, whatever Mute or Solo you used to isolate a track during editing has to be switched off. Per Blackmagic's own manual, engaging Mute or Solo on the Audio Mixer disables that track's audio "both during playback and delivery for output." A track muted for a quiet afternoon of editing renders just as silent as one muted on purpose. It doesn't ask before it exports that way.

Second, open the Deliver page, then the Audio tab inside Render Settings, and confirm Export Audio is checked. It's an easy box to uncheck by accident, and just as easy to forget you unchecked. If you want more detail on the rest of the Deliver page, our DaVinci Resolve export settings guide covers the full render checklist beyond just this checkbox.

Illustration of the Deliver page audio settings with Export Audio checked in DaVinci Resolve

Is this a bug, or just a setting?

Almost always a setting. Editor and trainer Larry Jordan, who has built training webinars specifically around Fairlight in Resolve, described running into exactly this pattern himself. "When I first created this webinar, I found what I thought was a bug," he wrote. "It wasn't. It was actually a preference with a very bad default setting," in his walkthrough of Fairlight audio editing.

That's worth remembering before you file a bug report or reinstall the app. Resolve's audio path has more checkpoints than most editors expect, from the track to the clip to the I/O Engine to the sample rate to the export flag, and a silent timeline is rarely more than one of those five checkpoints set wrong.

If you're still new to where these panels live in Resolve's interface generally, our beginner's guide to DaVinci Resolve maps out the seven pages and where Fairlight and Deliver sit among them.

Illustration of a magnifying glass inspecting a DaVinci Resolve preferences menu

What's the fastest way to check every audio setting in order?

Work through these five in sequence. Most editors find the problem in the first two.

  1. Track header. Check Mute and Solo on every track, on both the Edit and Fairlight pages.
  2. Clip Inspector. Select the silent clip and check its own Audio tab for a clip-level mute.
  3. I/O Engine. Preferences, System, Video and Audio I/O. Confirm the engine and output device match your actual hardware.
  4. Sample rate. Project Settings, Fairlight, Timeline Sample Rate, checked against your interface's rate.
  5. Export Audio. Deliver page, Audio tab, checked, with no leftover Mute or Solo from earlier in the edit.

If hunting through five different menus for one setting is the part that eats your afternoon, that's the specific gap TryUncle is built for. It's an AI tutor that looks at your actual Resolve window and points at the exact control you're asking about, instead of sending you to a ten-minute video for a two-second answer.

Illustration of a five step audio troubleshooting checklist over a DaVinci Resolve interface

The short version, one more time

Track mute and solo first, clip mute second, I/O Engine and output device third, sample rate fourth, Export Audio last. Work top to bottom and you'll find a silent timeline's actual cause in under two minutes, almost every time. Save the reinstall for the rare case where all five check out clean.

Frequently asked questions

Why does DaVinci Resolve play video but not audio?
Usually a muted or soloed track, a clip muted individually in the Inspector, or a mismatch between your project's audio sample rate and the rate your audio interface is set to. Check the track header Mute and Solo buttons first, since they're the fastest thing to leave on by accident.
Why is there no sound in Resolve even though I can see a waveform on the clip?
A visible waveform only proves the clip has an audio stream, not that anything is routing it to your speakers. Check Preferences, then System, then Video and Audio I/O, and confirm the I/O Engine and output device match the hardware you're actually listening on.
Why does my exported DaVinci Resolve video have no audio?
Two separate settings control this, and either one alone produces a silent export. Confirm any Mute or Solo you used to isolate a track while editing is switched back off, since Resolve disables that track for delivery too, then confirm Export Audio is checked in the Deliver page's audio tab.
How do I fix a sample rate mismatch causing no sound in DaVinci Resolve?
Open Project Settings, then Fairlight, and check the Timeline Sample Rate. Then open Preferences, System, Video and Audio I/O, and set your output device to that same rate. Fairlight converts mixed-rate source clips automatically, but the timeline's own output rate still has to match what your speakers or interface expect.
Why did DaVinci Resolve stop playing audio after I switched headphones or speakers?
Resolve doesn't always follow your operating system when you plug in a new device. Reopen Preferences, System, Video and Audio I/O, and manually reselect the correct output device, since Resolve can keep pointing at whatever was selected the last time it launched.
Is DaVinci Resolve's audio problem a bug I should report?
Rarely. It's almost always a setting, not a bug. Work through the Mute, Inspector, I/O Engine, and sample rate checks below before assuming the app itself is broken.

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