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Following the advice of This question to fix the double-alert-sound bug, I executed

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.sound event-sounds false

this caused there to be no alert sounds at all. However,

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.sound event-sounds true

didn't restore the alert sounds, even after a restart. It seems that something permanently killed itself as a result of the first command. There are no alert sounds from AccessX sticky keys, emacs C-g, terminal tab completion, etc.

Does anyone know what is going on and how to get the alert sounds back? (Preferably in a way that fixes the aforementioned double-alert-sound issue). I need the bell to work for sticky keys. Everything looks normal in the graphical settings:

Gnome sound settings showing normally

David Zhao Akeley
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  • The alert sounds can be heard when one of them are chosen in the sound settings, but they can't be heard anywhere else. – David Zhao Akeley Aug 20 '19 at 06:39
  • They've come back for a moment but they're gone again. This corresponded with me trying to modify the /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/bell.ogg file, but restoring it didn't restore the original bell behaviour, even with a restart. – David Zhao Akeley Aug 20 '19 at 06:45
  • Another symptom I noticed is that the system audio cuts out whenever an alert sound should be played. For example, if I'm playing some music in the background then press C-g in emacs, the background music will cut out abruptly for a fraction of a second as emacs tries to send a bell. – David Zhao Akeley Aug 20 '19 at 06:48
  • I don't usually talk to myself so much, but another thing I noticed is that the alert sounds sometimes come back if I switch to another audio output device, then switch back to my original device (the one I'm actually listening to). I'm not simply listening to the wrong device, since all other sounds such as the aforementioned background music come through just fine. Not sure if this is a tenable workaround or if the alert sounds will kaput again soon... – David Zhao Akeley Aug 20 '19 at 06:59
  • Try changing sound file to the one that last 7 seconds and see if the last two seconds play after 5 second delay. I had a similar problem about six months ago but am not at my computer now. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Aug 20 '19 at 17:32
  • So far the workaround (switching audio output devices) seems to work. I lose the bell sounds on restart but once I do the workaround, the bell sounds seem to persist until the next shutdown. It's things like this that make me feel that GNOME 3 is the Win Doze of Linux land. – David Zhao Akeley Aug 21 '19 at 20:53
  • I still use Unity on Ubuntu 18.04 and 19.04 so I don't experience the common complaints. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Aug 21 '19 at 21:56

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