Problems with Audio device (ALC-889) - Ubuntu 16.04

Solution 1:

The issue is that Ubuntu 16.04 defaults to HDMI as default audio if HDMI is present on your computer. In my case, it does see my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card, but HDMI (from my video cards) is set as default; and the way to change that differs from how you did that in 14.04.

The files, folders and procedures almost work, but don't if you follow 14.04's "No Sound" issues because file names and locations have changed in 16.04. I get this information from a week of Googling and experimenting. But it appears that it is a known bug so an answer should be coming soon. In the mean time, I guess we both have to wait. When I need sound, I revert to a 14.04 netbook. Netbooks can't meet the system requirements of 16.04, but more than meet 14.04's requirements. That should say something.

Although I don't have an answer for you, I hope this gives you some insight into the issue we are having. If you come up with something, let me know. Thanks,

Solution 2:

Don't know if you are still having issues with this, I experienced a similar problem on my mini PC. It also has the Intel Wildcat audio device; I managed to fix it by doing the following:

• Install pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control); it's available on the software centre as well
• On the "Configuration" tab, check if you have 2 profiles
• Set the profile you don't need to "Off". In my case it was the one with a whole lot of analogue options

Once I did this, all the weird behaviour stopped and my audio was working on all applications (I was specifically interested in Kodi, however Rythmbox, VLC and Videos also started working). I've now got fully functional 5.1 surround. Strangely, youtube streaming on Firefox had audio before the change (and after of course :) ).

Hope this helps.

Solution 3:

I was having this exact same issue after upgrading to 16.04 with my Focusrite Saffire 2i4, I finally found this and fixed it with this command, then rebooting:

sudo apt-get remove fwupd

You probably don't want to do that if you actually need fwupd, but it looks like there's already a bug report out there, hopefully it will get fixed soon.

Solution 4:

I have the same issue. The funny thing is that I can hear the sound of the login screen.

What I also figured out is that VLC works if I configure audio to use ALSA. That makes me think the pulsaudio stuff is broken.

After knowing that I started pulseaudio. I switched configuration, internal device, to Analog Stereo Duplex. It was configured to use Digital Stereo IEC958.