Arch Linux

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Sound stopped working completely

Recently, my sound (which was working perfectly) - stopped working altogether.  However, alsamixer tells me it is working, as does the gnome sound settings.  Yet there is no sound at all.  My hardware is as follows:

Dell Latitude D610 laptop

Sound Card:

snd_intel8x0         (from dmesg)

Modules loaded:

snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_codec
ac97_bus
snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc
snd_timer
snd
soundcore

I have nothing to add that would account for this.  Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks.

--Theoden

#edited to remove the superfluous and annoying Help! in thread title: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ow_to_Post

Last edited by jasonwryan (2012-06-07 07:14:35)

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Re: Sound stopped working completely

Update:

The problem seems to be pulseaudio - won't start.  Downgraded pulseaudio.  It won't start at all.  It gives the following error when I try to start it:

# pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

Still need some help.  Must be someone out there who can help.

--Theoden

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

prasinoulhs

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2011-10-30

Posts: 53

Re: Sound stopped working completely

pulseaudio -vvv

Will give give you a more verbose output and you may be able to find the problem.

If you have have alsa utils installed you could try removing them and see if the audio comes back.

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Re: Sound stopped working completely

pulseaudio -vvv

Will give give you a more verbose output and you may be able to find the problem.

If you have have alsa utils installed you could try removing them and see if the audio comes back.

Thanks.  I tried all of those suggestions.  I could not really understand the readout of pulseaudio -vvv so could really not find anything wrong.

Removing alsa-utils made no difference.  I reinstalled the latest pulseaudio and libpulse and did finally get pulseaudio to start - but even though the players and testers all show the sound working, nothing is coming out - no sound at all.

I'm mystified.

--Theoden

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

DSpider

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 2,273

Re: Sound stopped working completely

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pulse#Installation

Note: PulseAudio wiki recommends that users should not be part of the "audio" group.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pulse#Running

Is "dbus" in the DAEMONS line from /etc/rc.conf? If not, add it and reboot.

Which DE/WM?

PulseAudio is very likely launched automatically via either /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/pulseaudio or the files in /etc/xdg/autostart/ if users have some DE installed.

For pure Openbox you should probably use this in line ~/.xinitrc:

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch openbox-session

But then again, for pure Openbox you should probably be using ALSA instead of Pulse...

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"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Re: Sound stopped working completely

So far I have researched all leads provided here - tested various changes.  Still absolutely no sound, yet the system behaves as if there is.  This is frustrating.  Anyone else with some ideas or solutions?  Thanks.

--Theoden

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

windscape

Member

Registered: 2010-04-30

Posts: 69

Re: Sound stopped working completely

Hi,

Perhaps your system has multiple audio controllers and an update recently added support for an additional one and changed the default audio controller?

Please provide the output of aplay -l

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Re: Sound stopped working completely

Hi,

Perhaps your system has multiple audio controllers and an update recently added support for an additional one and changed the default audio controller?

Please provide the output of aplay -l

Here is the output you referred to:

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel ICH6]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 4: Intel ICH - IEC958 [Intel ICH6 - IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

--Theoden

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

windscape

Member

Registered: 2010-04-30

Posts: 69

Re: Sound stopped working completely

Hi,

Perhaps your system has multiple audio controllers and an update recently added support for an additional one and changed the default audio controller?

Please provide the output of aplay -l

Here is the output you referred to:

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel ICH6]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 4: Intel ICH - IEC958 [Intel ICH6 - IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

--Theoden

You might want to check the ALSA wiki here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Alsa and make sure that card 0 device 0 is the default sound card.

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Re: Sound stopped working completely

You might want to check the ALSA wiki here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Alsa and make sure that card 0 device 0 is the default sound card.

I read through all of that - there is nothing obvious that is wrong on my system.  I am running gnome3 - so pulseaudio is setup automatically by gnome.  And it was working perfectly, and gnome still thinks it is - but no sound comes out.  <sigh>

--Theoden

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

windscape

Member

Registered: 2010-04-30

Posts: 69

Re: Sound stopped working completely

My next suggestion then would be to read through the Pulse Wiki entry here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pulse and see if any of that helps.

Theoden

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 240

Re: Sound stopped working completely

My next suggestion then would be to read through the Pulse Wiki entry here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pulse and see if any of that helps.

Sorry - everything checks out according to the wiki instructions,  This one is a real skull scratcher. 

--Theoden

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"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."

Rasi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-08-14

Posts: 1,914

Website

Re: Sound stopped working completely

well its nice, that you tell us that you dont understand the output of -vvv, but i doubt thats helpful

pastebin the output please.

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DSpider

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 2,273

Re: Sound stopped working completely

Are you dual booting with something (eg. Windows or another Linux distribution) ? And do you have sound there? Because it could be a hardware issue.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 9#p1102199

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"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

Dotslash

Member

Registered: 2012-02-02

Posts: 62

Re: Sound stopped working completely

Kinda a n00b here but:
$ pulseaudio --start
pasted that from: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pulseaudio
You appear to be running it as root, not sure if thats bad or w/e.

Last edited by Dotslash (2012-06-10 05:26:31)

toad

Member

From: if only I knew

Registered: 2008-12-22

Posts: 1,775

Website

Re: Sound stopped working completely

... it could be a hardware issue.

Last time this happened to me my cat looking was looking sheepishly at me from the back of the computer

Seriously, if things go wrong all of a sudden without any changes having been made I usually start at the wall.

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never trust a toad...
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