Brief summary

• When Audio ducking mode is set to "Duck when outputting speech and sounds", nothing is ducked.
• When Audio ducking mode is set to "Always duck", all sounds including speech of NVDA are ducked.

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch any application, such as media player, that produces non-stop sound.
2. Toggle between Audio ducking modes by pressing NVDA+Shift+d.

Actual behavior

• When Audio ducking mode is set to "Duck when outputting speech and sounds", nothing will be ducked.
• When Audio ducking mode is set to "Always duck", all sounds, including speech of NVDA, will be ducked.

Expected behavior

• When Audio ducking mode is set to "Duck when outputting speech and sounds", all sounds except speech and sounds of NVDA should be ducked during speech and sounds of NVDA.
• When Audio ducking mode is set to "Always duck", all sounds except speech and sounds of NVDA should always be ducked.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments

The latest version of nvda.log attached.

NVDA type

installed copy

NVDA version

NVDA 2026.1beta2 (2026.1.0.54516)

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

Yes, the previous beta version of NVDA. The behavior is similar to the behavior of NVDA 2026.1beta2 (2026.1.0.54516).

Windows version

Version 10.0.26200 Build 26200

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue

Firefox version 140.7.0 and others with audio/video playback running

Other information about your system

Running Windows 11 as Administrator in normal mode

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

I have restarted my computer and the issue still occurs

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

I have restarted NVDA with add-ons disabled and the issue still occurs

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

I have run the COM Registration Fixing Tool and the issue still occurs