No Notification Sounds In Kubuntu 19.04
 

earlier today i noticed i no longer have any notification sound. i went into sounds and attempted to set the slider to 78% but it kept going back to 0. i honestly do not know where to start looking for a cause. suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Some diagnostic questions come to mind.

Can you play audio files or streaming audio?

What is the audio chipset in this machine?

When you "went into sounds," where exactly did you go? (I'm pretty sure it was KDE System Settings-->Personalization-->Notifications, but it's nice to know for sure.)

What version of KDE/Plasma is on this box?

all video and audio files play without issue.

there is no setting in either notification submenu under personalization. i rightclicked on the sound icon, clicked audio volume settings, audio volume.

plasma 5.16.3 / kubuntu 19.04

Right-click the Notifications Icon (it may be hidden) and then "Configure Events Notifications and Actions".

(In some KDE versions, it may be within "Configure Notifications", and you will need to click options and options until "Configure Events Notifications and Actions").

Then, choose among many Categories, or "Event source".

E.g., for Login and Logout, go to "Plasma Workspace".

You may enable / disable each event, hear the default sound, and even change the sounds.

Also, you may need to System settings > Multimedia > Audio Volume > Applications tab to set Notifications Volume.

i am missing event sounds altogether. as i said i had the notification sounds then i didn't. it's not a matter of what i have or don't have checked for sound events. might want to reread my post, cause i said the issue is when i go to adjust the slider for the notification sounds to 75% it automatically goes back to 0. flavio thanks for attempting to help, but i've already been through all of that.

Well, I have seen something like this, too.

E.g., last July, 7, after 10:00 PM, I have noted that Notification sounds were ok in my Fedora 30 KDE.

Just now, I have tested it, and no sound. Slider goes back to 0, here, too.

As I didn't change anything, it could be caused by some Kernel revision, as far as KDE / Frameworks / Qt didn't change.

Last July, 7, Kernel had been upgraded to 5.1.16 early in the afternoon.

Yesterday was installed kernel-5.1.18.

i don't think it's the kernel cause i had notification sounds after updating the kernel and rebooting

I was thinking that I didn't consider drivers.

it's not drivers or i wouldn't have any sound at all.

I tend to think about KDE (and Frameworks, Qt) when some behaviors vary with KDE version.

From last May 10 to 25, I have set Notifications Sounds ON within Neon, Mageia, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Mint, Slackware, Arch, Sabayon and Devuan. ─ In PCLinuxOS, they were already enabled by default.

And I could adjust Audio Volume in all distros with KDE > 5.8.9 ─ but not in Mint 18 nor in Devuan 2, which have KDE 5.8.6 and 5.8.9.

But it may be just coincidence.

No other issue in any distro ─ except that some times one of them becomes silent. ─ But I didn't take regular notes of these variations.

can someone that actually knows what they are doing please make suggestions on what commands i should try, or files i should look at to get this resolved? thanks

come on this is simple stuff this is a default build of KDE5 the notifications that link to the sounds have never been set. go set them

come on learn to read it is not the sounds that are off. the service for notification sounds is off / disabled. once again when i go to set the volume for notifications the slider goes right back to ZERO. again one minute i had the notification sounds, and the next i did not. oh fyi yes in kubuntu you have notification sounds right out of the gate.

besides the info provided above looks like instead of using the sound card built into the mother board the system is using my nvidia card to provide sound.

think i might actually have to agree with you on this. read my post just above this one and you will see why.

Have you tried checking what pulseaudio is doing? I have had ongoing sound issues and use simultaneous output with amplifier and headphones and pulse is the goto place for enabling simultaneous output.

My wife has very sensitive hearing and hates modern films/tv shows with all their sudden crescendos, so wants the sound down very low. I like to hear the dialogue so I know what is happening in the show and don't care about the sudden loud bits in my headphones. The wife is happy for me to explain what's going on in the show's plot as she can't hear the dialogue, don't ask----I've had 49 years of this........

What is the source of your audio? HDMI audio for instance can be tricky and needs unique settings, I know, that's what I am using through my Sony amplifier.
see the pulseaudio screenshots. The image pulse2 is a truncated one because the open dialogue boxes which show all the HDMI connections disappear when focus is removed so a screenshot is not possible.
EDIT- I took a shot with my mobile and it shows the HDMI connections (all disconnected apart from one).

I can enable the system sounds from the settings manger for individual notifications. I just turn them off-they are almost as annoying as the constant beeps from my car if I leave a door open-sometimes I just want to rip out the dashboard and stamp on the bloody peizo mini speaker.......don't mention the seatbelt beeper.......

in the kde bug report that my bug report was linked to looks to be a plasma problem. one person had just installed manjaro kde and has no notification sounds. i just installed manjaro yesterday and it has no notification sounds.

Could you point the link to this bug? Excuse if you did already, but I could not find.

Well, coming back to KDE, Qt, Frameworks...

I have noted that Notifications Sound had gone away in Fedora and KDE Neon.

(It didn't happen with Mageia, Debian, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, Mint, Slackware, Arch, Sabayon or Devuan).

And I could get it again in Fedora and KDE Neon ─ just dealing with ON / OFF button in:

System settings > Multimedia > Audio volume > Applications > Notifications sounds

In KDE Neon, I can slide volume from 0 to 100%, and it keeps new level, and it really affects Notifications sound level.

In Fedora 30 KDE, volume always go back to zero ─ but after this, it goes MUTE.

So, I just tested Mute (ON / OFF) and it worked ─ even with slide control at zero.

I am using just Panel Volume controls, now.

sure here you go

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=407397

Thank you.

My experience is similar to #14:

really no one know how to disable kubuntu from using the hdmi sound function and revert to using what is built into the mother board?

Based on what I read of this thread; you CAN play video/audio files and get sound? If I'm right in thinking that; then it's hard to see how it's a hardware problem, because you likely wouldn't be getting any sound at all in that case, same if the sound was muted in alsamixer. That leaves KDE; I take it you've been into KDE System Settings > Multimedia (under the "Hardware" sub-menu) > Audio and Video and changed the order of the audio hardware devices under "Notifications" (under "Audio Playback") ?

If not, try doing that.

I've attached a screenshot for you, just in case I'm not clear above.

See my previous post regarding pulse audio.

You may need to install it. From memory I think it's pavucontrol the menu lists it as PulseAudio volume control
That will list your various hardware audio devices, and that is the place to choose your default
device and configure it.

The alternative is to go into the various scripts and edit the files by hand, very tedious, you have to set the initial values in several different files in /lib, /etc/alsa and other assorted directories, very messy.
I reverted back to Kubuntu 18.04 as I couldn't get 19.04 to play nicely with my sound and mythtv setup.

Tony

as you can see i only have the one option under notification and that's the hdmi. it never use to be that way. under mint, neon, kubuntu, and manjaro i had the notification sounds. as you said looks to be a kde problem for witch i created a bug report for.

https://vimeo.com/358497792

@barfly decided to take one more look at pulse and clicked the playback tab and system sounds was muted there. once i unmuted them i opened multimedia again checked notification sounds and the indicator was set to where i placed it in system sounds. looks like that may have done the trick. just have to wait for or create some kind of event to know for sure. thanks for getting me to look there again. i must of missed that tab some how.

Glad to have helped, sound in linux can be a bit of a challenge. Manufacturers write drivers for Windaz and sometimes Macs, but clever people have to reverse engineer them for linux so much kudos to all those guys.
Tony.

thanks again, after my last post thought to simply open thunderbird cause i'd get a sound notification in it if they were working. low and behold we have notification sounds again. windows can be a pain with creative sound cards, luckily most of the time you can just go into device manager, remove the sound card, reboot, and once back in windows you have your sound back without loosing any of your settings.