I have been getting the error "Bad DirectSound Driver" "Error: 88780078" lately, when this happens my volume controls don't work and the system thinks I have no soundcard, I can't even open the volume control..... yet, some programs can still play sound.

Ok, so when my system boots and finishes loading the desktop everything seems to be going fine. Everything can play sound ok. Eventually though, my system seems to just forget that I have a soundcard.

Anything that was open BEFORE this happens however has no problem playing sound (For example, I tend to open Spotify and keep it open shortly after my desktop loads, it can still play sound, if I start Winamp and try to play an MP3 it cannot and instead gives me that DirectSound error, despite playing find before, if I were to close Spotify and re-open it, then it would not be able to play sound again either. Windows error tones work too since they were initialized before the DirectSound error popped up).

Rebooting the system fixes it..... temporarily. But I want to know what is causing this weird issue, since my soundcard is clearly physically fine and anything that was playing sound before and didn't get closed can still play sound, I can't just keep rebooting the system every time that error crops up.

Any ideas anyone?