Crash Issue and Solution: "failed to init fmod system error code 51"

Hey everyone,

I'm bothering to make this post because I found an old thread which sorta covered the solution but it honestly wasn't very good and the thread was locked because it was over 3 years old. Its unlikely this will crop up higher in the google results for a long time if ever but if someone finds it hopefully it will help them.

The game crashes on start up giving the error "failed to init fmod system error code 51". This is some sort of bug related to the way that POE is handling sound with your OS and probably the intermediary sound program you're using. In my case I am using VoiceMeter to handle my sound over windows.

To solve the issue you need to make sure to change what output device windows is trying to use to match one of the valid options with your sound over-ride program. In my case I needed to change it from using my receiver directly to using the digital output called "VoiceMeeter Aux Input" there were other valid options that also worked, but that's because I'm using VM Potato so it has more channels to use.

I believe the reason this is all happening is because VoiceMeeter or your sound program of choice is trying to override what windows is doing, but then Path wants to use the system default. So then Path and the audio program get into a sort of fight about it and since Path is unsure of what to do it eventually gives up and says "screw this, error 51".

The reason why restarting the computer works for some users and not for others is because VM reverts to the last saved settings on reboot, so if you changed something which caused the problem but the system hadn't auto-saved it yet, then it will revert. Otherwise reboot alone is not enough.

Thanks a lot. I did find this via a google search. Same case, I use VoiceMeeter and as soon as I changed my wireless headset PoE crashed and wasnt able to open it again. My hardware output changed in Voicemeeter as well as in Windows sound settings. Changing them back to voicemeeter aux fixed the issue.

Eventually I was gonna figure it out since the problem showed out immediately after messing with my sound but this really saved me time. Thanks!

Thanks for this post! It solved my issue.

I really appreciate it — this solved my problem for real.