After upgrading to Windows 8.1, none of my music plays

Although I see you have fixed your problem, this is for others in the a similar situation.

After the upgrade, BOTH my soundcards would not play in any application, even though there were still listed in the "Change soundcard settings" panel. A Realtek onboard soundcard, and a M-Audio Audiophile 192K. Simply reinstalling the same driver versions I was using before fixed the problem after a reboot.

So even if there aren't Windows 8.1 drivers specifically available, try to reinstall the latest ones anyway.

For me the fix was simple but makes no sense IMO. I went to my sound dialog box by right clicking my speaker icon in the lower left corner of the desktop. Selected play back devices and checked to make sure everything was checked properly, it was. I went ahead and unchecked my RealTec speakers and selected digital output just in case they are reversed. No change. So I put it back correctly and now it works even after multiple restarts. Makes no since but it solved my no sound issue. I should note that the system sounds still worked just not any music or video sound play back from any of my software. Maybe some folks reading this have the same issue. Must be some kind of glitch from the upgrade.

The solution for me required refreshing the correct sound driver from the vendor to replace the faulty driver from Microsoft.

HP ENVY - WIN8.1: Same problem with upgrade on my HP Envy running Windows 8.0 when upgrading to Windows 8.1. During the upgrade Windows improperly loaded the wrong driver. Uninstall and reinstall only resulted in same incorrect driver loading.

(Unclick and reclick of dialog box was NOT the issue, nor was speaker muted - the unhelpful simpleton suggestions on the Microsoft site).

Had to go to the HP website and uninstall the Microsoft bad driver and reinstall the HP correct driver from the HP website. Apparently the wrong driver install is a pattern with the Win8.1 upgrade.

The tip off that it is a driver issue is that NO PROGRAM has sound (not even the default blips, clicks, and burps normally in windows).

(Sincere thanks to the expert user who gave me this tip somewhere else on the web - after three days of digging! Reposting here to help others in distress.)

A quick kick on that horse: I just experienced the same issue. No music would play: VLC, Windows Media Player...not even the "test" in the sound settings would work.

Turns out that it was a partially installed HDMI audio driver causing the issue. I updated my NVidia drivers a couple days ago. While doing so I unchecked the HDMI audio driver install.

Today while poking around trying to find the cause I noted in the NVidia panel that audio was enabled. Checking the sound playback devices I did not see anything for the HDMI Audio.

Going back to the NVidia panel I disabled the HDMI audio device. As soon as I did audio started playing again from my other devices.

This was on a fresh install of Windows 8.1, Dell m6800

Go to start->type services.msc->press Enter. Click Yes, if UAC prompts. Look for Windows Audio. Double click on it. Click Stop. Once it's been stopped, click Start. Then, check. If the issue persists, stop the service. Similarly, look for the service Windows Audio Endpoint Builder. Stop the service and again, start the service. Then start Windows Audio Service and then check.