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Problem: I can't play any sounds.

In Settings -> Sound -> Output there is no device listed.

System: Ubuntu 18.04. This is my laptop, only one user ever connected

Attempts

I've tried lots of forums, threads, ideas, nothing worked.

(1) I've tried 

$ aplay -l

returns the devices correctly

(2) I've uninstalled pulseaudio and reinstalled with no success.

(3) To check the groups

$ sudo groups <myuser>

which returns 

sudo audio pulse chrome-remote-desktop

(4) If I try to kill it using

$ pulseaudio -k

I get

E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon. No such process

(5) IF I try to start pulseaudio

$ pulseaudio --start

then I get

E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

What am I missing? How can I grant the user the access to audio device?

Marius
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3 Answers3

4

One thing that helped out is this link: No audio on Ubuntu 18.04 which says to 

$ sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
$ pavucontrol

Also I removed then reinstall the pulse audio as

$ sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

With the steps above at least I see my hardware in the Sound settings (output) So it is a step forward. Sound is still muted, but I am working on that.

Marius
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2

Check if the service is running:

systemctl --full --all --user status pulseaudio

Make sure to carefully check the output of the command above. You may see a potential cause if you see things like:

Nov 26 12:52:13 pc pulseaudio[2462]: No UCM verb is valid for hw:0
Nov 26 12:52:13 pc pulseaudio[2462]: No UCM verb is valid for hw:2

If that failed to show the cause, start by checking the device and other related info:

sudo lshw -C sound
sudo lspci
alsa-info
sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
aplay -l
aplay -lL
sudo apt -y install inxi && inxi -SMA
ls /sys/class/sound  # Check if the card* file numbers match the card* from aplay -l and fuser -v outputs.

You may need to:

systemctl --user enable pulseaudio
export USERI=$(whoami) && sudo addgroup ${USERI} pulse

And you could also consider doing any of these:

sudo alsa force-reload
sudo apt purge alsa-base pulseaudio && sudo apt install alsa-base pulseaudio

Then try reboot.

Roel Van de Paar
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0

Upon reinstalling Audacity as a snap this useful tip was displayed:

sudo snap connect audacity:alsa

Worked without rebooting.

Mata Pata
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