No sound in Ubuntu 13.04, only Dummy output device listed

My sounds suddenly stopped playing on Ubuntu 13.04 64bit. I can only see Dummy output device in the Sound Settings and no sound is played during testing.

I can get the sound temporarily working by killing one of the strange processes, but I have to repeat the same after reboot

jan@jan-HP-Desktop:~$ ps -ef|grep pulseaudio
112       1405     1  0 09:38 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
112       2132  1405  0 09:38 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/pulseaudio/pulse/gconf-helper
jan       2575     1  0 09:39 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
jan       2597  2575  0 09:39 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/pulseaudio/pulse/gconf-helper
jan       3160  2975  0 09:40 pts/2    00:00:00 grep --color=auto pulseaudio

jan@jan-HP-Desktop:~$ sudo kill 1405

Is there a permanent solution for this problem?

Solution 1:

I had this problem after having an Xorg problem, uninstalling unity and reinstalling xfce. My probablem probably revolved around not adding gconf back and the re-install scripts not adding my user back to the various audio groups. I got sound working after:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-x11 \
    pulseaudio-module-zeroconf \
    pulseaudio-module-gconf

And also adding my username to audio related groups in /etc/groups:

audio:x:29:pulse,jreynolds
pulse:x:123:jreynolds
pulse-access:x:124:jreynolds

And of course, flushing my various pulse related settings:

pulseaudio -k
sudo alsa force-reload
rm ~/.pulse-cookie
rm -rf ~/.config/pulse
sudo shutdown -r now

When my system rebooted (and I don't know if that was necessary) I ran a check:

pacmd list-sinks

And this displayed my sound cards and not the dummy device!

Solution 2:

Following the instructions at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2143157&p=12650610#post12650610 , I disabled speech-dispatcher as follows:

sudo vi /etc/default/speech-dispatcher

And I changed RUN=yes to RUN=no, then rebooted.

My system now boots with sound, and much faster.

Solution 3:

Here's what I did, worked for me. Ensure that pulseaudio control utility is installed:

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

run the utility

pavucontrol

Move to the leftmost tab (configuration), there is adrop downlist of profiles. Work through this until something forks (for me it was "Analog Stereo Output", whereas the default had been "Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output")

HTH

Rob

Solution 4:

I also had it - Does sound work before reboot after one update? If yes it is probably the same.
It's bug related to kernel 3.8.0-18.

1. Run uname -r to check your version of Kernel. If it is 3.8.0-18-generic - try next steps
2. Reboot and in GRUB select Advanced options
3. Chose Ubuntu with Kernel ... (Any before -18)
   

Also you can subscribe this bug at Launchpad, I hope they will fix it soon