Desktop Video/Audio Help! Please!

I’m having a really strange issue trying to play a Vimeo training video on my Windows PC and I’m hoping someone can help me figure out what’s actually causing it.

The video plays perfectly on my phone, so the Vimeo video itself appears to be fine. While I technically can watch it on my phone, that really is not a practical solution. This is an almost four hour seminar teaching me an entirely new appraisal report format that I need to learn for my job. I need to be able to clearly see the software, fields, menus, examples, and everything being demonstrated on screen. The size and scale of the video on my phone makes it very difficult to follow along and would not be useful for this type of training.

On my desktop computer, the video usually just sits on the loading circle and never starts. I have tried Google Chrome, Chrome in Incognito mode, and Microsoft Edge, and the issue occurs across all three.

I use Bitdefender. After a lot of troubleshooting, I found that if I go into Bitdefender and turn Encrypted Web Scan OFF, the Vimeo video will sometimes start playing. The problem is that when the video finally starts playing, Windows then says “No audio device is installed,” so I have no sound.

If I troubleshoot the audio problem and get my audio device working again, the Vimeo video goes right back to not playing and just sits on the loading circle. Turning Encrypted Web Scan off does not actually solve the problem because I keep ending up in the same cycle where either the video plays with no audio, or the audio works and the video will not play.

I already added Vimeo as an exception in Bitdefender, along with other Vimeo related domains, but the problem continues. Bitdefender also is not showing any Critical notifications or telling me that it blocked anything.

Things I have already tried include:

• Google Chrome

• Chrome Incognito mode

• Microsoft Edge

• Clearing browser/site data

• Flushing DNS

• Clearing Chrome DNS and socket pools

• Checking Widevine

• Changing hardware acceleration

• Changing Edge tracking prevention

• Bitdefender exceptions for Vimeo and its CDN domains

• Windows audio troubleshooting and checking Device Manager

• VLC

The most consistent behavior seems to be:

Encrypted Web Scan OFF = Vimeo may start playing, but Windows says no audio device is installed.

Fix the audio device = audio works again, but Vimeo stops playing and goes back to the endless loading circle.

Encrypted Web Scan ON = Vimeo generally will not play.

My PC is connected directly through Ethernet. I’m trying to figure out how to get Vimeo playing normally with working audio at the same time.

Has anyone run into anything like this with Bitdefender, Vimeo, and Windows audio? Could this be some kind of HTTPS inspection, certificate, driver, or hardware acceleration conflict?

Side note: I am not a tech savvy person at all when it comes to computer software, troubleshooting, codes, etc. I have basically been using Google’s AI and ChatGPT to walk me through the troubleshooting. I have also spent over three hours trying to resolve this issue, which is probably pretty dumb on my part considering I really have no idea what I’m doing. If anyone has suggestions, simpler step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated.