Sound at login - no sound after ubuntu loads?

[Yellow Pasque]

If you want to share a lot of text, pastebin is probably best/easiest. Ubuntu has 'pastebinit' package to quickly pastebin a text file in the terminal, or you can got pastebin.com and manually copy/paste the text.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert at reading pulseaudio logs (I personally don't even use pulseaudio), but I believe the log doesn't show any major issues, despite all of the errors/failure messages.

If I had to try something next, it would be this: http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/62687
chromium and other browsers are notorious for using whatever sound device has index 0, regardless of what you have chosen in the sound settings.

[Ace.....]

I think that it goes deeper than the browser.
Standard Sound Settings panel has a test feature to play a sound through the speaker..... and it doesn't.

What's clear is that the two basic pulse audio tests carried out, show that the processes aren't running.

I note at:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Config..._Audio/Testing

Is stated:

To test a PulseAudio installation use pacat which is equivalent to ALSA's aplay utility

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/ind...undcardTesting

They mention -w switch but this doesn't exist.
Either way..... couldn't get sound to play, nor the vu meter using -v
version is 1.0.25

So neither pulseaudio nor alsa seem to work.
Somebody somewhere will know what the problem is.

Re pastebin...... I tried it, but the text file was too large, so it was refused...... hence why I went to filebin.

Thanks for all the help.

[Ace.....]

Just searched on re-installing pulseaudio.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/42664...o-ubuntu-12-04

One response was:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio
sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get autoremove
Reboot. Open a terminal again and type (ignore any errors with the rm command):


rm -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound* ~/.pulse-cookie ~/.config/pulse
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio
sudo alsa force-reload
pavucontrol
The last command should restart the PulseAudio server and launch a desktop application for its settings. Another thread notes that there might be conflicts with IPv6. If so, then edit /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf and set use-ipv6 to no:


[server]
use-ipv4=yes
use-ipv6=no
Restart the avahi-daemon (e.g., reboot again).

This sounded sweet and easy to try, however, here's the first command result:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio
[sudo] password for mark: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  indicator-sound* indicator-sound-gtk2* libcanberra-pulse* pulseaudio*
  pulseaudio-module-bluetooth* pulseaudio-module-gconf* pulseaudio-module-x11*
  ubuntu-desktop*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 8 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 4,491 kB disk space will be freed.

I aborted.
I noted it would remove ubuntu-desktop.
Yet no mention of reinstalling desktop was made.

What's the situation here?
It seems that to purge pulseaudio, I must remove ubuntu-desktop.

But I am also using xubuntu/xfce

What are the implications of this command?

[Ace.....]

Well, I've asked a question on Unix & Linux.
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...is-the-problem

One of the high posters saw it and helped by editing in a third link (which was good of him, cos as a new member I could only add two).
However, he didn't upvote the question, and it remains at 0, which doesn't help get it seen.
(does anybody here have voting privileges?)

Still, it's been seen 18 times, but no responses.

I'm in conversation with an Alsa chap, through their mailing list, but no concrete suggestions.
The pulseaudio mailing list has yet to produce a response.

I have a sinking feeling that this is going to be a problem that remains unresolved, but let's see.

[Ace.....]

Got a response

Here are the suggested tests, and all results:

http://pastebin.com/3nhedfx6

[Ace.....]

Advised to test with alsamixer.
Downloaded gnome-alsamixer.

Here's the results:
http://pastebin.com/4UVxCJXM

Got a response from the pulseaudio mailing list

Suggested to try (with sound playing):

PULSE_LOG=99 pactl info

Here's the log:

http://pastebin.com/XxbSDvRR

I note that the default channel is front-left front-right.


The laptop only has a single speaker.


Could the sound be being channeled to an external speaker output that doesn't exist?


But there again..... strange that at login, the sound is channeled correctly.


If the pactl log doesn't help....
Can we check the setup at login, and compare to the 'post desktop load' setup?


At least we would then see a working setup.

[Yellow Pasque]

The laptop only has a single speaker.

Maybe you need to do something like this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...stereo_to_mono

[Ace.....]

Maybe you need to do something like this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...stereo_to_mono

That's interesting.
Here's the instructions:

Remap stereo to mono
Remap a stereo input-sink to a mono sink by creating a virtual sink.

It would be useful if you only have one speaker. Add to

/etc/pulse/default.pa:

load-module module-remap-sink master=alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo sink_name=mono channels=2 channel_map=mono,mono
# Optional: Select new remap as default
set-default-sink mono

replace alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo in the sound card name shown from

pacmd list-sinks

Switch player between virtual mono sink and real stereo sink.

I tried editing the default.pa file in Gedit, but couldn't save the new file, or even save as.
How does one add the above code?

However, I also noted that the script comments warn:
This startup script is used only if PulseAudio is started per-user (i.e. not in system mode)

Is 'system mode', at the login screen?

Here is the script and comments..... I note it must detect hardware....... is it screwing up?

#!/usr/bin/pulseaudio -nF#
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
# Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.


# This startup script is used only if PulseAudio is started per-user
# (i.e. not in system mode)


.nofail


### Load something into the sample cache
#load-sample-lazy x11-bell /usr/share/sounds/gtk-events/activate.wav
#load-sample-lazy pulse-hotplug /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav
#load-sample-lazy pulse-coldplug /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav
#load-sample-lazy pulse-access /usr/share/sounds/generic.wav


.fail


### Automatically restore the volume of streams and devices
load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-stream-restore
load-module module-card-restore


### Automatically augment property information from .desktop files
### stored in /usr/share/application
load-module module-augment-properties


### Load audio drivers statically
### (it's probably better to not load these drivers manually, but instead
### use module-udev-detect -- see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink


### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
.ifexists module-udev-detect.so
load-module module-udev-detect
.else
### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev/hal support)
load-module module-detect
.endif


### Automatically connect sink and source if JACK server is present
.ifexists module-jackdbus-detect.so
.nofail
load-module module-jackdbus-detect
.fail
.endif


### Automatically load driver modules for Bluetooth hardware
.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif


### Load several protocols
.ifexists module-esound-protocol-unix.so
load-module module-esound-protocol-unix
.endif
load-module module-native-protocol-unix


### Network access (may be configured with paprefs, so leave this commented
### here if you plan to use paprefs)
#load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-native-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-zeroconf-publish


### Load the RTP receiver module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-rtp-recv


### Load the RTP sender module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-null-sink sink_name=rtp format=s16be channels=2 rate=44100 sink_properties="device.description='RTP Multicast Sink'"
#load-module module-rtp-send source=rtp.monitor


### Load additional modules from GConf settings. This can be configured with the paprefs tool.
### Please keep in mind that the modules configured by paprefs might conflict with manually
### loaded modules.
.ifexists module-gconf.so
.nofail
load-module module-gconf
.fail
.endif


### Automatically restore the default sink/source when changed by the user
### during runtime
### NOTE: This should be loaded as early as possible so that subsequent modules
### that look up the default sink/source get the right value
load-module module-default-device-restore


### Automatically move streams to the default sink if the sink they are
### connected to dies, similar for sources
load-module module-rescue-streams


### Make sure we always have a sink around, even if it is a null sink.
load-module module-always-sink


### Honour intended role device property
load-module module-intended-roles


### Automatically suspend sinks/sources that become idle for too long
load-module module-suspend-on-idle


### If autoexit on idle is enabled we want to make sure we only quit
### when no local session needs us anymore.
.ifexists module-console-kit.so
load-module module-console-kit
.endif


### Enable positioned event sounds
load-module module-position-event-sounds


### Cork music streams when a phone stream is active
#load-module module-cork-music-on-phone


### Modules to allow autoloading of filters (such as echo cancellation)
### on demand. module-filter-heuristics tries to determine what filters
### make sense, and module-filter-apply does the heavy-lifting of
### loading modules and rerouting streams.
load-module module-filter-heuristics
load-module module-filter-apply


### Load DBus protocol
#.ifexists module-dbus-protocol.so
#load-module module-dbus-protocol
#.endif


# X11 modules should not be started from default.pa so that one daemon
# can be shared by multiple sessions.


### Load X11 bell module
#load-module module-x11-bell sample=bell-windowing-system


### Register ourselves in the X11 session manager
#load-module module-x11-xsmp


### Publish connection data in the X11 root window
#.ifexists module-x11-publish.so
#.nofail
#load-module module-x11-publish
#.fail
#.endif


load-module module-switch-on-port-available


### Make some devices default
#set-default-sink output
#set-default-source input

[Yellow Pasque]

Is 'system mode', at the login screen?

No, Ubuntu does not use system mode. It uses per-user/daemon mode so pulseaudio starts when you log in.

I tried editing the default.pa file in Gedit, but couldn't save the new file, or even save as.

As always, you need root permissions to edit a system file.

gksu gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa

[Ace.....]

No, Ubuntu does not use system mode. It uses per-user/daemon mode so pulseaudio starts when you log in.
As always, you need root permissions to edit a system file.

gksu gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa

Thanks Temujin.

Went to bed last night (this morning) vowing to drop this.

Anyway, managed to get some work done.... didn't look at any feeds, until I'd achieved something

Pulseaudio got back to me...... apparently they need

pactl list

This should provide the info we need
Anyway, here it is with no sound:
http://pastebin.com/meqqh3m7

Here it is with youtube:
http://pastebin.com/PnuFzQcW

Here are the differences I found between the two files:
http://pastebin.com/dgK5uFQG

Thanks for the reminder on gedit.
I'll check out the stereo to mono mod tomorrow