USB Audio Device Can't Work Well in ESXi 6.7

[beiqidaye]

I have to play some audio in Windows server 2016 which is installed in ESXI 6.7 for some special reasons.

I bought an USB Audio device and insert to the physical machine.

Then I add an usb device at the setting of the VM(Windows server 2016)

I started the VM, the Win2016 can recognize the USB Audio Device.

But , when I play an audio, there is no any sound to be outputed.

I have tried two USB Audio devices which can work well at an ordinary PC and Windows Server 2016.

They all can't work at the VM installed in ESXi 6.7.

And I found that the playing speed is strange.

like this gif:

I think USB Audio Device can be supported by windows server 2016.

The problem is on the ESXi side. Or I missed some settings ?

Is there anyone else has the same problem? Or Is there anyone else has achieved to use an USB Audio Device at ESXi?

Pls give me some suggestion, thanks in advance.

[vmrale · Accepted solution]

Hi,

what's the model of this audio device?

Look at this VMware Knowledge Base

These USB devices are not available for passthrough:

• USB devices such as mice and keyboards that have a bootable HID interface.
• USB devices such as real time video cameras and audio devices that use isochronous data transfers.

[beiqidaye]

>>USB devices such as real time video cameras and audio devices that use isochronous data transfers.

I think it is the cause of this issue!

The device I used is an USB 2.0 External Sound Adapter.

It is cheaper. And I searched the data transfer type of the USB Audio Device.

Most of them use isochronous data transfers.

Thanks for your reply!

[vmrale]

I'm glad I could help You a little bit.

Have a nice day!

[VM-Mike]

The solution to this is to enable passthough of the USB controller on the host machine.  Under host, select manage and then go to the hardware tab.  Look for a PCI xHCI USB device (there could be several, you'll have to pick one and then look for the associated port).  Toggle passthrough and then reboot the host.

Under the guest machine, edit the setting and add other hardware.  Look for the PCI device and add it to the machine. 

Plug in your USB sound controller (you may have to try different ports) and the power on your virtual machine.  It should then see the device. 

Note:  You may have to open Device Manager on the client machine and "Scan for Hardware Changes"

To playback on the device, you will need to enable audio playback on the remote machine in the RDP settings under Local Resources.

This procedure worked to get my Focusright Scarlett 2i4 to playback audio on a windows 10 VM on ESXi 6.7

As always, YMMV but I think this is the correct solution to this problem.

[DanfieldAutomat]

Was there a change regarding this between ESXi 6.0 and 6.7?  I had this working great (with almost identical USB audio) under ESXi 6.0.  After the upgrade to 6.7 it stopped. It still shows up to the OS and Windows thinks it has a audio card, just no sound...

[happnatious1]

Just in case anyone else runs into this issue I finally had to give up on ESXI as audio doesn't work past version 6.5. I switched to proxmox ve 8 and everything just works. Should have switched years ago. Still using VMware workstation on my Linux daily driver though.