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I was having some minor problems with the audio on my machine in that when I connected to HDMI there was no option to play sound out of HDMI sometimes (as described by this thread No choice for HDMI audio output)

I followed the instructions in this post and installed Pulseaudio, which worked for that issue, but I then noticed that the standard sound settings and volume controls no longer functioned correctly (something which is more important to me than connecting to HDMI) so I removed Pulseaudio and then rebooted my machine.

After doing this not only is the system sounds not available but the system settings GUI is missing many of the usual entries (I only have Language Support, Security and Privacy, Printers, Landscape Service and Software and Updates).

I tried then to purge Pulseaudio and it had no effect and then reinstalled it also with no effect (although I am able to change the sound levels through the pulseaudio interface).

I am running V14.04

  • None of the posts including the duplicate linked posts you mentioned recommend purging, installing or reinstalling pulseaudio - therefore it is hard to say what broke your sound. Please be as specific as possible as what you did there. Consider to also give us your Ubuntu release version, and details on your audio and graphics cards. – Takkat Oct 06 '14 at 07:12
  • Thanks Takkat. So that's correct, although the problems started as soon as Pulseaudio was installed. – Munki Fisht Oct 06 '14 at 12:39
  • @MunkiFisht, try sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop to install missing packages which may had been removed when pulseaudio removed. – user.dz Oct 06 '14 at 19:24

1 Answers1

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@Sneetsher gave me the clue, I found that

sudo apt-get install unity-control-center signon gnome-control-center

actually fixed the problem but just to be sure nothing else is broken I tried

 sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

as well. I had to logout and back in before things worked.

It seems to have had something to do with permissions (although what exactly I'm not sure). Launching gnome-control-center from the command line wouldnt' work but when doing as su did. This has also fixed the problems I had with the controls not working with Pulseaudio.