Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Desktop 64-bit - HDMI output can be selected but there is no sound output

Question

There are several solutions on the internet, none of them work for me.

Using pavucontrol and starting a song, it says audio comes out but in reality there is no sound output.

I use HDMI to HDMI cable.
I have already checked that the monitor audio is enabled.

Do you use a HDMI-HDMI cable, or do you use a DisplayPort-HDMI cable, or an HDMI-DisplayPort cable or even a DisplayPort-DisplayPort cable? — paladin, May 21 '21 at 09:43
Stupid question, but do you have enabled audio at your monitor? — paladin, May 21 '21 at 10:10
Does sound come out if using a different device? It would help a lot if you post the output of commands 1-9 and 12-13 of https://askubuntu.com/questions/1258510/only-dummy-output-sound-in-ubuntu-20-04-after-reboot-broken-driver-modul — sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio, May 21 '21 at 11:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '21 at 19:16

I had a similar problem.

If you use the Ubuntu 20.04 tool to Test the speakers don't rely on that. Sometimes doesn't work.

Better play a video with a program like VLC. Ideally don't use the browser with youtube as sound may be muted for certain windows. Check your settings and that things like system Sounds are not muted.

Also when my monitor entered powersave I was losing the Audio, so to make it work I was restarting it with:

pulseaudio -k

I explained how I made it work in my blog:

https://blog.carlesmateo.com/2020/10/13/fixing-problems-with-audio-not-sounding-after-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts-to-20-04-1-lts/

Also it may seem a silly question, but make sure your monitor has speakers. Many monitors have control volume because they have a jack to connect earphones but they don't have speakers.

Cheers

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 28 '21 at 07:36

This can sometimes be resolved by forcing PulseAudio to re-initialise its cached configuration files:

sudo killall pulseaudio
rm -rf ~/.config/pulse/*
rm -rf ~/.pulse*

Once cleared, reboot the machine. You should be good to go again. I've never had to do this more than once on a machine.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Desktop 64-bit - HDMI output can be selected but there is no sound output

2 Answers2