Dorico 5 user. I was having problems with the program playing back through my speakers. Finally determined that the computer audio was fine, the speakers were fine, and the computer played audio through those speakers. Then went into Edit>Device Setup to compare the speaker there with the speakers selected in the speakers icon on the desktop, though I hadn’t made any changes to either, and there was no problem earlier today. Sure enough, they were on different speaker settings: Dorico showed “Realtek digital output (Realtek High Definition Audio)” and my computer speaker setting showed “Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)”. So, I tried to make the settings the same, first through Dorico (which didn’t work) and then through the computer speaker setting, which also didn’t work.
Now I can’t even try more, because Dorico won’t load. In its “boot” process it quickly reaches the message: “audioDevie BaiosChange: devicePortsChanged” and freezes.
You probably still have the audii engine running (and stalled). You need to force quit it. I don’t know exactly how you do that on Windows (on mac, the utility is called activity monitor).
So, Windows or Mac? Always good to tell us. Then we are better able to help.
If Windows, download Process Explorer. It can help you find and kill the Dorico Audio Engine. The normal Task manager can also. Look for the VSTAudioEngine process. Search by name.
At most, a restart (of the computer) should fix it.
Note that Dorico uses the audio output in Device Setup. The System audio output has no effect on it. Most audio apps like Logic, Cubase, etc do this (though admittedly, some do have a setting to follow the system output.)