sounds stops working in 8.10 (Ibex)

[edwinw]

When I first start the computer, sound is working fine. However, the problem is that sound stops working in all applications after a certain amount of time, usually over 12 hours. Rebooting is a workaround (simply logging in and out is doesn't work) but is an annoyance for obvious reasons.

When I go into sound settings to test them, I get the error message:

audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink: Could not open audio device for playback.

Googling this error message comes up with hits for people in which sound is not working at all right off the bat. Nobody seems to have quite my problem.

I took a look at my system messages log file and this entry seems to be relevant (I'm guessing it's the time my system loses its sound ability):

Dec  7 12:22:55 edwin-desktop3 pulseaudio[5419]: protocol-native.c: Failed to push data into queue
Dec  7 12:22:56 edwin-desktop3 last message repeated 1498 times

So this appears to be a pulseaudio problem, anybody have any ideas on how to fix it? Thanks!

[tomszyszko]

Exact same problem

Dec  9 11:56:51 tom-laptop2 pulseaudio[6025]: protocol-native.c: Failed to push data into queue

Its very annoying. Also found that if you:

killall pulseaudio
sudo pulseaudio

You get

 sudo pulseaudio
W: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
W: main.c: This program is not intended to be run as root (unless --system is specified).
E: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: Device or resource busy
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device_id=0 sink_name=alsa_output.pci_1002_4383_sound_card_0_alsa_playback_0"): initialization failed.
ALSA lib control.c:909:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL front:0

[tomszyszko]

Found a workaround.
If sound stops working do :

killall pulseaudio
sudo alsa force-reload

Sound starts working.

[edwinw]

Thanks tomszyszko, will try it out next time my sound cuts out, I'll keep on looking for a fix as well.

[psyke83]

Exact same problem

Dec  9 11:56:51 tom-laptop2 pulseaudio[6025]: protocol-native.c: Failed to push data into queue

Its very annoying. Also found that if you:

killall pulseaudio
sudo pulseaudio

The next time this happens, try the following instead:

killall pulseaudio
pulseaudio -vv

In other words, check the verbose output - and don't run as root. Ubuntu is configured to launch PulseAudio as a user process (spawned from gnome-session-daemon in Intrepid, and via a Gnome Session startup entry for Hardy), so running it as superuser may cause problems.

I've observed users reporting problems with PulseAudio crashing only for certain sound cards, due the tweaked buffering in Ubuntu's PulseAudio.

Edit /etc/pulse/default.pa, and change this:

default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 10

To this:

; default-fragments = 8
; default-fragment-size-msec = 10

This will force the internal fragment settings for PulseAudio and may increase stability in your case.

See here for information on PulseAudio (including some recommended troubleshooting steps): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578

[Burmuda]

Edit /etc/pulse/default.pa, and change this:

default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 10

To this:

; default-fragments = 8
; default-fragment-size-msec = 10

Found this settings in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and disabled them.

I also added myself to the pulse-rt and pulse group (Administration -> User and Groups). But when I play music over pulseaudio the sound or even the whole X still hangs some times...

I'm using powernowd - could this be a problem? It shouldn't....

lspci | grep Audio
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon HD 2600 Series]

See here for information on PulseAudio (including some recommended troubleshooting steps): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578

I reinstalled pulseaudio like described there - didn't help.

[alex1973]

Sound stopped working 2-3 days ago. Restarting alsa and pulse fixes the sound until restart.

I'm on Intrepid with "proposed" enabled and http://ppa.launchpad.net/psyke83/ubuntu.

$ lspci | grep Audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon HD 2600 Series]

[caro]

Thanks psyke83 and tomszyszko!

[Subban]

Found a workaround.
If sound stops working do :

killall pulseaudio
sudo alsa force-reload

Sound starts working.

Same problem has been bugging me also, this workaround gets sound back without a reboot, as noted earlier log out/log in isn't enough to fix it.

[jsully1]

This is now suddenly happening to me on my Thinkpad T60 as well as my Asus M2N desktop all within the last few weeks. Then today it just started happening out of the blue today to a colleague. It's strange to me that this would come up out of the blue on three unique machines - is anyone else experiencing this suddenly?