Missing stone placement sound

The sound system used by recent versions of Java will not play the sound used when a stone is placed on the board. This page offers a solution for updates 33 to 45 of Java 6. However, with Java 7, there have been substantial changes to security. Using older versions of Java may increase risks to your computer. We suggest KGS users update to the most recent version of Java, and use the sound fix described here.

Did you recently upgrade to Java 7, or Java 6-update 33, or more recent? Are you having problems with sound? Your client won't run now? This page offers you ways to fix it.

1. My sound isn't working.What can I do?

For users of Java 6, what will be the simplest solution is to tell Java to not use the new audio engine. This is done by adding the flag -J-Dsun.sound.useNewAudioEngine="false" to your java shortcut. For the non-tech savvy here is a simple two step guide for doing that (Note: this applies to Windows users, for Linux or Mac the exact steps may vary, but the process should be more or less the same):

This fix will not work with Java 1.7.

Download a copy of CGoban.jnlp:

Right click on this link: Download CGoban for Java Web Start, and click "Save link as..." (Note: in some browsers this might be "Save Target as..." or some other variation).

Save it in an easy to find folder (here we will use the C: drive):
Modify your KGS shortcut:

Find the KGS shortcut you use to launch CGoban (for instance, under the start menu), right-click and go to properties:

Find the shortcut target:

Note: before modifying this shortcut it is recommended you make a copy of your current KGS shortcut, that way something goes wrong and you need to go back it is much easier.

The shortcut will be split into multiple parts, the first part is the important one. It should be a path followed by javaws.exe, in this case it is "C:\WINDOWS\system32\javaws.exe". Delete everything after "javaws.exe", then add -J-Dsun.sound.useNewAudioEngine="false" followed by the path to the new CGoban.jnlp file you just downloaded. If you saved your file to the C: drive like the example above, the new target would look like this:
Launch KGS from the shortcut

If this method doesn't work, you can change your shortcut back to what it was originally, and try one of the methods below:

You can try the solution posted here in post #29 or here in post #30.
You can also try downgrading to Java 6.30 here or to Java 6.31 here (Remember to uninstall any other versions).
Please note that downgrading your Java can cause security issues.
Oracle has ended support for Java 1.6 with update 43 and recommends updating to java 1.7
For mac users Java 1.5 has sound issues but Java 1.6 is fine.

2. My client doesn't work now. Is there anything that I can do?

First of all, you may want to remove the client from the javaws cache, which is explained here. Once that is done:

It is possible that you may need to re-install the client if it is not working. This will restore the correct KGS file associations. Here are some details.
You can try using the .jar file located here To run the .jar file open the command screen and type in java -jar cgoban.jar
You can also try downloading Cgoban3 with no file association.

Note: For Mac users if your applet is not working you can try downgrading to a previous version of Java or using the client.

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