i thought i saw a reply from you, whale-av, after my last comment with the screenshots but for whatever reason i can't see it anymore...

okay so i ran the file you made, worked like a charm for resetting PD, but i'm still running into the same problem. maybe (probably) there's something i'm doing wrong but i can't figure out what. the first pic is my REAPER setup, a guitar track on the right, volume coming through, everything working great. second pic is with PD after running your patch, the volume seems to be showing up on the main window, but the ASIO4ALL is red on the bottom toolbar and nothing coming out of the speakers, i threw together a quick patch to try and get some sound, but to no avail. if you have any ideas/suggestions as to what i'm doing wrong i would be eternally grateful, thank you again!

thank you again, been away for a couple days, but i'm going to try this tonight and get back to you tomorrow, just wanted to let you know how much i appreciate your help!

thank you very much for the quick reply! unfortunately i've still had no luck. i'm not sure if part of the problem is my speakers, they're good speakers, but i have to run them from my computer because they are USB, which i've never had trouble with any other program, the ASIO4ALL settings like the one you showed i can just set up the input as interface and output from my speakers, which i guess is running through my computer's audio. but yes the little green icon on the bottom toolbar has turned red and i can't figure out why cause my setup hasn't changed. i've been using other DAWs i've mentioned for over 6 years so i'm familiar with setting that up, but for whatever reason my normal method just won't work. i have yet to try your other suggestion, i'm afraid it's a little over my head at the moment, but i will look into it and i really appreciate you responding with such detail! i did notice that my current ASIO4ALL needed an update so i did that right before trying last night. i'm not giving up but i've sure as hell hit a wall, because without being able to input, that takes a lot of steam out of this program for me. thank you again this is my first post here so i appreciate your help!

I'm new to pd, and one of the reasons I wanted to learn it was to process my guitar/mic signal, I use a basic Focusrite usb interface that works perfectly fine with my other DAW's (FL Studio & Reaper) but when I try to select it from the Audio Settings in pd, I get no output. Then when I open the Audio Settings window again (after first selecting my usb interface, closing it and trying to use a patch) the two boxes for Input & Output Device are all but gone, no text. Also, when pd is in this state, the object boxes will not move, they stay wherever they are "put" on the canvas. I can't imagine why. I'm using the pd-Extended. If anyone might now what I'm talking about or how I can fix the issue, I would be forever grateful. Thanks
Oh and I've already checked to make sure the DSP box is checked, and I'm aware that the signal needs to be manually connected from an [adc~] to a [dac~] Thanks again for reading