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This question has become irrelevant. See ETA3 at bottom.

Following this (which I'd close if I knew how), I was forced to reboot, and now sound doesn't work at all. Chrome, mplayer, aplay, nothing. And Googling 'ubuntu troubleshoot sound' just makes things more confusing -- for instance, trying to open alsamixer just yields "cannot open mixer: No such file or directory".

My volume isn't muted, either -- somehow it got set to MAXIMUM in the reboot. There are other weird things going on, too -- I don't think System Settings : Sound : Output is supposed to say "Dummy Output" under "Play sound through."

I'm sure there's sense to be made out of this. I just can't make it.

ETA: Behavior has persisted after another reboot (which took several minutes longer than it should've, if it matters). Something's broken here.

ETA2: The last three blocks of the latest history.log are as follows. Sorry for the scroll bar; couldn't figure out how to preserve single line breaks with blockquotes.

Start-Date: 2012-05-22  11:48:12
Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.423'
Upgrade: ubuntu-docs:amd64 (12.04.4, 12.04.5), libxml2-utils:amd64 (2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4, 2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4.1), linux-headers-3.2.0-24:amd64 (3.2.0-24.37, 3.2.0-24.38), linux-image-3.2.0-24-generic:amd64 (3.2.0-24.37, 3.2.0-24.38), linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic:amd64 (3.2.0-24.37, 3.2.0-24.38), ubuntu-sso-client-qt:amd64 (3.0.0-0ubuntu1, 3.0.0-0ubuntu2), libxml2:amd64 (2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4, 2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4.1), libxml2:i386 (2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4, 2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4.1), libxml2-dbg:amd64 (2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4, 2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4.1), python-ubuntu-sso-client:amd64 (3.0.0-0ubuntu1, 3.0.0-0ubuntu2), ubuntu-sso-client:amd64 (3.0.0-0ubuntu1, 3.0.0-0ubuntu2), linux-libc-dev:amd64 (3.2.0-24.37, 3.2.0-24.38), python-libxml2:amd64 (2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4, 2.7.8.dfsg-5.1ubuntu4.1)
End-Date: 2012-05-22  11:58:09

Start-Date: 2012-05-24  08:11:45
Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.475'
Upgrade: libsnmp15:amd64 (5.4.3~dfsg-2.4ubuntu1, 5.4.3~dfsg-2.4ubuntu1.1), postfix:amd64 (2.9.1-4, 2.9.1-5), linux-headers-3.2.0-24:amd64 (3.2.0-24.38, 3.2.0-24.39), linux-image-3.2.0-24-generic:amd64 (3.2.0-24.38, 3.2.0-24.39), libutouch-geis1:amd64 (2.2.9-0ubuntu2, 2.2.9-0ubuntu3), linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic:amd64 (3.2.0-24.38, 3.2.0-24.39), libsnmp-base:amd64 (5.4.3~dfsg-2.4ubuntu1, 5.4.3~dfsg-2.4ubuntu1.1), vino:amd64 (3.4.1-0ubuntu1, 3.4.2-0ubuntu1), google-chrome-beta:amd64 (19.0.1084.46-r135956, 20.0.1132.11-r137611), resolvconf:amd64 (1.63ubuntu11, 1.63ubuntu14), linux-libc-dev:amd64 (3.2.0-24.38, 3.2.0-24.39)
End-Date: 2012-05-24  08:21:07

Start-Date: 2012-05-25  08:33:31
Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.511'
Install: ubuntu-sso-client-gtk:amd64 (3.0.0-0ubuntu2)
Upgrade: nautilus:amd64 (3.4.1-0ubuntu1, 3.4.2-0ubuntu1), libatspi2.0-0:amd64 (2.4.1-0ubuntu0.1, 2.4.2-0ubuntu0.1), python-gobject-dbg:amd64 (3.2.0-3, 3.2.2-1~precise), at-spi2-core:amd64 (2.4.1-0ubuntu0.1, 2.4.2-0ubuntu0.1), xserver-xorg-core:amd64 (1.11.4-0ubuntu10.1, 1.11.4-0ubuntu10.2), xserver-common:amd64 (1.11.4-0ubuntu10.1, 1.11.4-0ubuntu10.2), nautilus-dbg:amd64 (3.4.1-0ubuntu1, 3.4.2-0ubuntu1), software-center:amd64 (5.2.1, 5.2.2), python-gi:amd64 (3.2.0-3, 3.2.2-1~precise), python-gi-dbg:amd64 (3.2.0-3, 3.2.2-1~precise), libssl-dev:amd64 (1.0.1-4ubuntu5, 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2), libssl-doc:amd64 (1.0.1-4ubuntu5, 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2), gir1.2-atspi-2.0:amd64 (2.4.1-0ubuntu0.1, 2.4.2-0ubuntu0.1), python-gi-cairo:amd64 (3.2.0-3, 3.2.2-1~precise), nautilus-data:amd64 (3.4.1-0ubuntu1, 3.4.2-0ubuntu1), python-gobject:amd64 (3.2.0-3, 3.2.2-1~precise), google-chrome-beta:amd64 (20.0.1132.11-r137611, 20.0.1132.17-r138701), openssl:amd64 (1.0.1-4ubuntu5, 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2), libnautilus-extension1a:amd64 (3.4.1-0ubuntu1, 3.4.2-0ubuntu1), xserver-xorg-input-synaptics:amd64 (1.5.99.902-0ubuntu5.1, 1.6.0-0ubuntu1~precise1), libssl1.0.0:amd64 (1.0.1-4ubuntu5, 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2), libssl1.0.0:i386 (1.0.1-4ubuntu5, 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.2)
End-Date: 2012-05-25  08:39:11

ETA3: The result of Githlar's tip may be found here.

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Shay Guy
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  • It could be a coincidence. Can you put your most recenty /etc/apt/history.log in your question please (the last three chunks should be sufficient)? Also, did you do a hard reboot (holding down the button/pressing the reset button) or go to a VT and issue the reboot command? – Chuck R May 24 '13 at 03:27
  • ls -a shows no history.log in /etc/apt/. As for a reboot, I actually did both -- issued the reboot command from tty1 and then performed a hard reboot after several minutes of the "Ubuntu ....." loading screen. Or unloading screen, in this case. – Shay Guy May 24 '13 at 03:40
  • Clarification -- which reboot did you mean? The one I had to do that started this, or the one I used to try to solve it? – Shay Guy May 24 '13 at 04:01
  • The first one. And the log file is actually /var/log/apt/history.log -- sorry about that. – Chuck R May 24 '13 at 04:08
  • Ah, OK. The first reboot I think was a pure soft one; I attempted a normal reboot the second time and then had to hard-reboot. Got them mixed up in my memory. >_< – Shay Guy May 24 '13 at 04:16
  • P.S. Did you try my tip in the first answer's comments? (pull all power and let it sit a few seconds) – Chuck R May 24 '13 at 04:19

1 Answers1

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This happened me on my Macbook. What device are you using?

The only way I found to enable sound again (as it was persistent over reboot) was to boot back into OSX and start some sound playing. Then when I rebooted into Ubuntu, it would start to work again.

For me the issue first occurred when I put the device into sleep after installing software updates from ubuntu that included a new kernel update 3.8.0-19. Ubuntu would also fail to shutdown after this happened. All my sound devices were moved and I just had dummy output.

It has since rectified itself with a new kernel update 3.8.0-21. I was never able to find out more info.

I would have added this as a comment since it doesn't answer the question but I don't seem to have the option to do that to the OP. My original question which nobody could answer, I posted below: Sound not working after suspend MacBook7,1 Ubuntu 13.04

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brim4brim
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  • My device is a Lenovo B570. I've got Windows 7 dual-booted, but I haven't used that in ages. – Shay Guy May 24 '13 at 03:41
  • I've heard of certain operating systems cough Windows cough leaving the sound card in an unstable state upon shutdown which confused Linux at startup. My old Dell also had a similar problem that seemed to be an intermittent hardware issue. In order to fix it I had to shut down the computer, unplug it, remove the battery for several seconds and the boot it back up. – Chuck R May 24 '13 at 03:46
  • I tried this. It has had interesting results. By which I mean that now I might need to ask my third question here today. At least sound is working now... at least it is in tty1. (I don't think I thought to try it there before... pity.) See, I can't quite log in through the GUI now. ETA: Basically this. – Shay Guy May 24 '13 at 04:50