Kinect on Windows v2 keeps restarting

I have been playing with the Kinect for Windows v2 for a while, but I met a strange problem in the recent months: the Kinect kept restarting after 5 or 6 seconds. The RBG and depth channel looked fine in the Kinect Studio and Kinect Evolution, but the video stream kept running for 5-6 seconds then hung for 1-2 seconds (i.e. no new frame was received and the connection from the Kinect was actually lost). I have tried to reinstall the driver and SDK several times without much lucks. I though that it might be a problem with my Kinect, so I left it there until I can test with another Kinect.

Yesterday I tried to search for that problem on the Internet and found that several people also got the same issue. Someone on Microsoft’s forum suggested to disable Kinect audio and some other suggested to enable the audio device, so I decided to give it another try. It turned out that I have disabled Kinect Microphone Array. Re-enabling it fixed the strange problem.

It is a weird issue and does not seems to happen on older driver, and it is unfortunate that Kinect Studio could not give a better error message. I really hope that Microsoft would address that in a later version of driver and SDK, although I doubt that they will do that anytime soon.

13 thoughts to “Kinect on Windows v2 keeps restarting”

  1. Hello nguyenquyhy,
    I’m suffering from the same issue and unable to figure out how to fix this one. Tried Disabling & Enabling Microphone array from device manager but that did nothing. Did you find any solution yet?

  2. Thanks nguyenquyhy, I got my issue fixed by getting a new motherboard. Previously I used USB 3.0 PCI Express card with which I had this restarting issue.

  3. Hi, I work with Kinect v2 and code witha MATLAB, about months the Kinect worked well, but recently it disconnect and reconnect in 5~6 second cycle. Any idea?!

  4. Hey, thanks! Im having microphone issues in windows 10 so disabled this.

    Your solution fixed it. Never would have thought of that.

  5. Hey nguyen,

    I’ve been trying to get my Kinect v2 to work. I even went out and bought an adapter for it. Tried uninstalling sdk. And even your solution to disable the sound and re enabling the microphone array xbox nui sensor. Still it persist to not work. I don’t know what else to do but return everything. I wish it would just work already. What else would you recommend?

  6. I am fighting with than for a long time
    my kinect worked for years
    then after a windows update that was over :
    it started conecting / disconnecting every few seconds,
    but the kinect work fine with every other PC.
    I tried everything : drivers version, power management of USB. external usb 3.0 hub wuth power.
    Just tried your hack : did not solve itm
    but let me ask : do you enable disble the array mic with the device manager when the device is present ?

  7. For me this was because I had disabled the mic array on the device in “Manage Sound devices” .. re enabling this allows the kinect software to wrok.

  8. Hi nguyen,

    I have the same problem here with my laptop dell xps 15 9570. My kinect was working fine for one day, next day it started to restart every 5 seconds. I tried to disable KinecNUI microphone, but ti started to get worse. Now, since it is restarting every 5 sec, there is no time to change any setting on the microphone. Is that any definitive solution for that problem?

  9. Hello! I know maybe it’s an old issue and you’ve already solved it, but I’m trying to get my Kinect v2 to work on my new notebook as when I plug it in it starts to turn on and off continuously. I find it strange since in my previous notebook it works without problems. I currently have Windows 10, Intel I7 and installed KinectRuntime-v2.0_1409-Setup.
    I already tried to solve the problem by editing the “LowerFilters” system registry, enabling the microphone privacy permissions for use in applications and some other things related to audio but without positive results.
    Anyone know any way to solve it currently?

  10. Hi.

    Thanks for that. It was not working on me, but this (and in my case praying Jesus to help me) helps: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28077901/kinect-2-0-for-xbox-one-to-pc-usb-3-0-keeps-disconnecting

    1. Kinect Studio can be started and connected
    2. Go to Control Panel
    3. Search “Microphone”
    4. Select “valitse, mitkä sovellukset voivat käyttää mikrofoniasi”-in Finnish, I think in English it would be like: Select which apps could use Your microphone.
    5. Under title “Allow apps to acces Your microphone” my settings was off
    6. Selecting on (or enabled) Kinect stopped to restart.

    I hope this helps to You!

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