3

After I installed and uninstalled lxde with Ubuntu 16.04, I cannot hear any sound in Ubuntu after logging in with my user (at the login screen, it works).

It started with (from history | grep apt):

  149  sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop 
  166  sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop
  167  sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop && sudo apt install unity
  168  sudo apt lightdm restart
  170  sudo apt autoremove 
  172  sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop && sudo apt install unity
  176  sudo apt remove lxde-core 
  177  sudo apt remove lxde-common 
  178  sudo apt autoremove

And afterwards, the sound was not there anymore (maybe even earlier and I did not recognize).

After some tries (with reboots in between) the sound did not work either:

  194  sudo apt remove alsa-base 
  195  sudo apt autoremove 
  198  sudo apt-get autoremove pulseaudio
  199  sudo apt autoremove 
  202  sudo apt install pulseaudio
  206  sudo apt-get remove alsa
  207  sudo apt autoremove 
  210  sudo apt-get remove alsa-base alsa-utils
  212  sudo apt install indicator-sound
  213  sudo apt-get remove --purge alsa-base
  215  sudo apt-get remove --purge alsa-base
  216  sudo apt-get remove --purge pulseaudio
  217  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
  219  sudo apt-get install alsa-base
  220  sudo apt-get install pulseaudio
  224  sudo apt install indicator-sound

But when I created a new user and logged in as that one, it worked. I've read this article, Sound not working in Ubuntu 14.04 and No sound-indicator after login but did not find any solution for the problem that the sound is only unavailable for one user. It seems like it is a configuration issue of this user. In the home folder, the following configuration files are present:

reichelt@reichelt-Aspire-S3:~$ ll | grep \\.
drwxr-xr-x 28 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:59 ./
drwxr-xr-x  4 root     root      4096 Jul  4 10:48 ../
-rw-------  1 reichelt reichelt 10537 Jul  4 10:48 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 reichelt reichelt   220 Jun  9 20:53 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 reichelt reichelt  3771 Jun  9 20:53 .bashrc
drwx------ 21 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:21 .cache/
drwx------ 24 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:35 .config/
drwx------  3 root     root      4096 Jul  4 10:21 .dbus/
-rw-r--r--  1 reichelt reichelt    25 Jun 21 00:50 .dmrc
-rw-r--r--  1 reichelt reichelt  8980 Jun  9 20:53 examples.desktop
drwx------  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:59 .gconf/
-rw-rw-r--  1 reichelt reichelt   205 Jul  2 15:15 .gitconfig
-rw-r-----  1 reichelt reichelt     0 Jul  4 10:20 .gksu.lock
drwx------  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:59 .gnome2/
drwx------  2 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  3 17:20 .gnome2_private/
drwx------  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:50 .gnupg/
-rw-------  1 reichelt reichelt  6954 Jul  4 10:50 .ICEauthority
drwx------  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jun 21 00:50 .local/
drwxrwxr-x  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jun 20 23:27 .m2/
-rw-rw-r--  1 reichelt reichelt   402 Jul  3 20:16 missfont.log
drwx------  4 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jun 21 00:50 .mozilla/
drwxrwxr-x  2 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  2 15:15 .nano/
drwx------  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jun 20 23:29 .pki/
-rw-r--r--  1 reichelt reichelt   675 Jun  9 20:53 .profile
drwx------  6 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 00:00 .Skype/
drwx------  2 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jun 20 23:44 .ssh/
drwxr-xr-x  3 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  2 17:44 .texmf-var/
drwx------  4 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  2 10:50 .thunderbird/
drwxr-xr-x  2 reichelt reichelt  4096 Jul  4 10:59 .vim/
-rw-------  1 reichelt reichelt  7900 Jul  4 10:59 .viminfo
-rw-------  1 reichelt reichelt    63 Jul  4 10:50 .Xauthority
-rw-------  1 reichelt reichelt    94 Jul  4 10:50 .xsession-errors
-rw-------  1 reichelt reichelt   829 Jul  4 10:48 .xsession-errors.old

Deleting .config, .gnome2, .gnome2_private and .local and then logging out and back in did not change anything. Has anyone an idea where the wrong configuration may be?

Zanna
  • 70,465
David Georg Reichelt
  • 640
  • did you tried checking levels with alsamixer?, in a terminal alsamixer, left/right arrows to select the item, up/down to change the volume level – bistoco Jul 04 '16 at 09:12
  • I haven't tried it, but unfortunately, this didn't change anything. – David Georg Reichelt Jul 12 '16 at 08:25
  • @DavidGeorgReichelt i have the same problem and creating a new user solved it but as you said what is the cause of the problem in other user? any idea? – Anish Silwal Oct 04 '16 at 15:53

2 Answers2

1

I had the same problem yesterday. I installed Jack and after a reboot I encountered this.

After a little searching I came out with this solution.

  1. Uninstall JACK

  2. Go to directory ~/.config/pulse/

  3. Remove all the files located there.

Suddenly, I found my output devices started to show in sound settings.

Hope this helps.

Ahsan A. Ishan
  • 21
0

I was in the same situation when a new user had sound but I had not after probably screwing something up with apt.

In alsamixer my sound card was displayed, but in settings -> sounds not.

It was solved when I copied (as new user):

/home/newuser/.config/pulse/*

to (as new user; also don't forget to mkdir this):

/home/newuser/pulsecopy/

because the user can't access the other users .config and then to (as original user)

/home/originaluser/.config/pulse/
anonymous2
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sezanzeb
  • 219