Hi everyone! This is my first post to this forum, but I have been using Linux Mint for several years now and love it ... most of the time!

I am currently running Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon on a Dell Latitude E-7250. I can provide more system info later if necessary, but for now I just want to raise the issue I am having right now. It concerns the system sounds ...

Just recently I noticed that when I fired up Cinnamon, there was no login sound, nor was there any sound when I shut down. Now I know I used to have the sounds but they seem to have disappeared. Coincidentally (or not) I also use GoToMeeting on the Chromium browser and I have been having trouble with both the sound output and input this last week or two. Sound on Skype is fine, as is sound through Firefox and Rhythmnbox whether I use the inbuilt speakers or a headset.

This morning I thought I would try and work out what was wrong and try to fix it. Big mistake for a newbie (as I still call myself!). To cut a long story short, I messed about with alsa and pulseaudio and managed to break my installation completely. Ouch! I did a repair job from my live USB with v19.3 iso (freshly created) and that got me back to a "clean" system. As if by magic the login and logout sounds came back straight away.

So, problem fixed ... no!

As I was checking out the system sounds in the Sound area, I could test the sound files fine hitting the > arrow. All seemed OK, but then I went to the Output tab and hit "Test Sound". Then hit "Front Left" and got the appropriate response, then "Front Right" and got the appropriate response. Then I went back to the Sound tab and tried to play login.oga. Nothing! If you go via Nautilus to ~/usr/share/mint-artwork/sounds/login.oga and double-click it, it plays fine.

So, something about "Test Sound" has interfered with the system sounds playing (and maybe is messing the sound in Chromium).

This may be a bug, or a "feature" I don't know. I can live without the system sounds, but I worry that there might be a wider issue.

Any thoughts/advice/help???

Thanks in advance.

I would dismiss your first thoughts that test sound is the culprit.

I do not use Cinnamon but use the desktop called Xfce. It has a GUI settings manager that has a setting for
Session and start up -> where you can turn off/on things like pulseaudio and start up sounds

so check this out first please

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtop...19e687#p592744
If you are not sure what things you need to enable or keep enabled.....take a screenshot and link to it
I use ingur.com

I am not sure if that is the solution....so have a look around at settings in Adminstration.

take notes of what you change...reboot and test. There may be more than one setting you need to fix.

Thanks for the