Why would waveOutWrite() cause an exception in the debug heap?

Question

While researching this issue, I found multiple mentions of the following scenario online, invariably as unanswered questions on programming forums. I hope that posting this here

Answer 1

I solved the problem by polling the sound playback and delays:

WAVEHDR header = { buffer, sizeof(buffer), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 };
waveOutPrepareHeader(hWaveOut, &header, sizeof(WAVEHDR));
waveOutWrite(hWaveOut, &header, sizeof(WAVEHDR));
/*
* wait a while for the block to play then start trying
* to unprepare the header. this will fail until the block has
* played.
*/
while (waveOutUnprepareHeader(hWaveOut,&header,sizeof(WAVEHDR)) == WAVERR_STILLPLAYING) 
Sleep(100);
waveOutClose(hWaveOut);

Playing Audio in Windows using waveOut Interface