A burning fireplace goes silent and stays silent while it keeps burning:

• Walk ~100 m away from a burning fire and come back: no crackle anymore.

• Light a fire, alt-tab out ~30 s after lighting it and come back: no crackle anymore.

The fire, flames and smoke are all still there; only the sound is gone. Several players on our community server report the same.

Reproduced on vanilla: local retail DayZServer 1.30.164200 with the stock dayzOffline.chernarusplus mission, no mods, BattlEye off, retail client with no mods. Both ways (alt-tab, and walking ~100 m away and back) silenced the fire. It does not happen on the DayZDiag build.

Likely cause (from the 1.30 scripts)

1. The loop is started with PlaySoundSetLoop(m_SoundFireLoop, ...). Object.PlaySoundSet creates the EffectSound with SetAutodestroy(true).

2. When the engine ends the wave (the listener left the 20 m range of LightFire/HeavyFire/NoFuelFire_SoundShader, or the game lost focus), Event_OnSoundWaveEnded → Event_OnEffectEnded destroys the effect and m_SoundFireLoop becomes null.

3. FireplaceBase.RefreshFireParticlesAndSounds only plays a sound again when the fire state changes (m_LastFireState != fire_state). A fire that keeps burning stays in NORMAL_FIRE, so nothing ever restarts the loop.

protected void RefreshFireParticlesAndSounds(bool force_refresh)
{
	FireplaceFireState fire_state = GetFireState();
	if (m_LastFireState != fire_state || force_refresh)
	{
		// particles + SoundFireLightStart() / SoundFireHeavyStart() / SoundFireNoFireStart()
	}
}

Possible fix: in OnVariablesSynchronized (client), if m_SoundFireLoop is null while the fire is in a burning or smouldering state, start the loop for the current state again.

1. Light a fireplace and stand next to it until it burns steadily (crackle audible).

2. Walk ~100 m away, then walk back to the fire.

3. The fire is burning but makes no sound.

Alternative:

1. Light a fireplace.

2. About 30 s later alt-tab out of the game, wait a bit, alt-tab back in.

3. The fire is burning but makes no sound.

From the code, the sound only returns when the fire changes state (e.g. adding fuel turns a small fire into a big one, or it starts going out).

A burning fireplace is always heard when you are near it, also after walking away and back or alt-tabbing.