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I had an unexpected system crash and when I came back, the sound wouldn't work on wired headphones or the built in speakers. (This is an Alienware 15r1.) The indicators in Settings->Sound show movement when I play audio files. I've tried both HDMI sound and the PCH sound, no luck. Here's what I've tried:

  • alsactl restore (as well as doing this with sudo)
  • purging and reinstalling alsa-base pulseaudio alsa-utils pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol
  • messing around in alsamixer
  • alsa force-reload
  • blowing up ~/.config/pulse
  • checking for missing drivers, kernel modules, etc
  • the procedure here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure

The only weird thing I can see is this output from alsactl:

alsactl: state_lock:125: file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state lock error: File exists
alsactl: load_state:1683: Cannot open /var/lib/alsa/asound.state for reading: File exists
alsa-lib main.c:1021:(snd_use_case_mgr_open) error: failed to import hw:0 (empty configuration)
Found hardware: "HDA-Intel" "Intel Haswell HDMI" "HDA:80862807,80860101,00100000" "0x1028" "0x0685"
Hardware is initialized using a generic method
alsa-lib main.c:1021:(snd_use_case_mgr_open) error: failed to import hw:1 (empty configuration)
Found hardware: "HDA-Intel" "Creative CA0132" "HDA:11020011,10280685,00100918" "0x1028" "0x0685"
Hardware is initialized using a generic method

Here's my alsa-info output: http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=38c54b284f92305405593c1a6240699fbc94d455

Let me know if there's any other output you think is relevant.

Ben C
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2 Answers2

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/var/lib/alsa/asound.state appears to be corrupted, empty or has permissions issues.

To fix this, run in the terminal:

sudo mv /var/lib/alsa/asound.state /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.old

then, run:

sudo alsactl --file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state store

then, run:

sudo alsa force-reload

then, run:

mv  ~/.config/pulse/ ~/.config/pulse_old/

then, run:

pulseaudio -k

or just reboot your system.

If that didn't work, check the alsamixer settings as in this answer then repeat the above steps.

Raffa
  • 32,237
  • Thanks for the attempt, but sadly this didn't work. I may end up reinstalling ubuntu, as it seems sound works if i boot from a live CD – Ben C Mar 04 '21 at 17:16
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Ultimately, after trying some more things I found here and elsewhere I ended up reinstalling from a Live CD.

Ben C
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