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Ubuntu Feisty - Sound was working, but mysteriously stops working after reboot.

Hi there...I'm running Ubuntu Feisty. I installed a fresh copy of Feisty a few months ago. When I installed, the sound worked great. "All of a sudden" the sound stopped working. The GNOME volume control shows a little "crossout" sign (like what's in front of a butt for a no smoking sign...you know) and you can't access the volume control. So I used this guide to try and diagnose the problem:

http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Compre...olutions_Guide

Here's the output:

Code:

swoods@newcomb:~$ aplay -l

aplay: device_list:222: no soundcards found...

swoods@newcomb:~$ lspci -v



[NOTE: various devices omitted here...]



00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)

        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Unknown device 810d

        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21

        I/O ports at e800 [size=256]

        I/O ports at ee80 [size=64]

        Memory at febff800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]

        Memory at febff400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]

        Capabilities: <access denied>



[...and here...]



swoods@newcomb:~$ sudo modprobe snd-intel8x0

swoods@newcomb:~$ aplay -l

aplay: device_list:222: no soundcards found...

I haven't recompiled ALSA because I figure it works already as packaged with Ubuntu.

I got fed up and tried reinstalling, but to no avail. It worked well for awhile, but then I rebooted and the sound didn't work. Maybe there's an error log somewhere? I tried looking in syslog, but...nothing....

Thanks in advance!

Look in dmesg (that is under /var). Have you tried running the command
alsaconf
from a terminal? I don't know whether this is still available on Ubuntu but it works well enough on Debian. You may need to install alsa-utils first.

Thanks for the reply...

Tried alsaconf, doesn't work (probably not with ubuntu) ... apt-get doesn't find it.

Here's what I get when I try the dmesg:

Code:

swoods@newcomb:~$ sudo modprobe snd-intel8x0

swoods@newcomb:~$ dmesg | tail

[146257.283996] sda: assuming drive cache: write through

[146257.284014]  sda: sda1

[146337.785216] usb 5-5: USB disconnect, address 7

[146349.867910] SCSI device sda: 625142448 512-byte hdwr sectors (320073 MB)

[146349.873540] sda: Write Protect is off

[146349.873550] sda: Mode Sense: 11 00 00 00

[146349.873554] sda: assuming drive cache: write through

[146349.876449]  sda: sda1

[153829.823776] ppdev0: registered pardevice

[153829.871916] ppdev0: unregistered pardevice

swoods@newcomb:~$ dmesg | grep snd

swoods@newcomb:~$ dmesg | grep intel

[  15.853939] intel_rng: FWH not detected

[  17.867474] intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 52160 usecs

[  17.867479] intel8x0: clocking to 48000

swoods@newcomb:~$ dmesg | grep 8x0

[  17.867474] intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 52160 usecs

[  17.867479] intel8x0: clocking to 48000

..check out those last two dmesg commands...is there something there? That's my sound card it's picking up, right?

Thanks again!

Edit: alsa-utils is already at the latest version according to APT

Yes, it does look like the card is getting picked up.

Do you get sound running the liveCD?

Yep. LiveCD and initial Ubuntu install work fine. I tried thinking of all the changes I made between when it was working and when it didn't work, but I don't think I made any, really...I just rebooted. Perhaps something "took effect" on reboot.

Either way we should be able to diagnose it somehow.

I had this exact problem, and had also tried all the steps you mentioned. In my case, it turned out to be a permissions issue. For some reason, my user account wasn't in the "audio" group, so I didn't have the correct permissions to (I think) /dev/dsp.

Here's the steps I used to fix it:

Open /etc/group in an editor as root:

Code:

tim@nightcrawler$ sudo vim /etc/group

Then find the line that reads something like

Code:

audio:x:29:

And change it so it reads something like

Code:

audio:x:29:tim

(where tim is your username instead)

Then I logout/login again.

Hope this also fixes your problem :)

I was having essentially the same problem as Woodsy934, except mine came after I created other accounts. The parent account worked fine, but no sound on the child accounts. I ran across a suggestion to restart alsa-utils (sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart) and chmod the permissions to the sound directory(sudo chmod 666 /etc/snd/*). These worked fine, until I rebooted, then I would be back to the no sound icon on the volume control. I strongly suspected I had a permissions issue but had no idea how to resolve that issue on a permanent basis. Tim J's message gave me that answer, and now all the accounts now have sound.
Thanks Tim J!

Chuck

I know this is an old thread but I was having intermittent sound problems on my HP EliteBook 8540p running Ubunutu 10.04 and Tim's solution of adding my account to the audio group in /etc/group seems to have fixed it.