Audio Service issue

My PC stopped outputting audio, it said the Windows audio service was not working. I stopped the process in the services app, restarted it, made sure it was set to automatic start, did the same with the companion audio service and dependancies. I updated all device drivers. I haven't touched any hardware, everything is connected as it was yesterday when everything was working fine. I tried a wireless USB headset with a USB dongle to make sure it wasn't a hardware issue with the rear Io. I tried plugging the speakers into the front panel audio. I tried running 2 different administrator command prompts in the shell that verified members on this site had used to fix audio service issues. I tried Windows update and it got stuck on "download pending" despite the fact I was able to surf the web. I restarted the Windows update service and its companion services. I tried changing the time when updates were downloaded, which continually crashed the settings app. Windows troubleshoter is no help. I have tried every fix I found online from basic to the type of fixes no end user should have to try, to no avail. Discm did nothing. I wasted so much time. I'm not the only one reporting this issue, I saw another thread from 2 hours ago. I can't use my computer for anything with audio despite the devices being acknowledged, the master volume being up etc. And I can't even get the pending updates. The settings app in an OS shouldn't be crashing. But I can launch and play every app, surf the web, play games, watch videos, but no sound and no ability to update or make changes to the update schedule. Sorry for the long rant, but it was a frustrating afternoon. Just need to make it known that there are some new bugs out there. Anything I haven't tried feel free to suggest, thanks.