No More System Sounds [SOLVED]

[ScottyK]

I noticed the other day that my 10.10 system doesn't play system sounds anymore. Whether I boot up or shut down, I don't hear the usual sounds.

I played some MP3's and videos to verify the hardware is working, and no problems there.

Tried rebooting the computer with no effect.

I found this thread, and directed me to the settings. When I click on the sound for each event, nothing is played.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3114570.0

ideas? Running KDE 4.6

[lmilano]

Have you looked at the Player Settings tab in

System Settings > System Notifications Configuration > Manage Notifications

It should be set to KDE sound settings. HTH!

[ScottyK]

Just checked and that option is checked.

[lmilano]

Oh, then it must be a bug in 4.6. It might be worth looking into Multimedia -> Phonon and see if there is anything fishy there ...

[Snowhog]

ScottyK@

First, what sound card/chip do you have?

lscpi | grep udio

Second, what Multimedia Backend is installed? System Settings > Multimedia > Phonon > Backend

[ScottyK]

1. Running your command came up with this error.

Segmentation fault

2. Backend is Xine (4.4.4)

When I upgraded to 4.6 (using the backports) I had system sounds for a while. Just about 3-4 days ago I noticed that when I start the computer I didn't hear anything. Everything else sound wise is fine.

[Snowhog]

Sorry. My bad (typo) in the first command. It should be:

lspci | grep udio

[ubuntuku]

You may need to reset the phonon and knotify settings. Close all running applications then run these commands in terminal:

rm $(kde4-config --localprefix)/share/config/phonondevicesrc
rm $(kde4-config --localprefix)/share/config/*notifyrc
sudo shutdown -r now

[ScottyK]

ubuntuku - No effect.

Snowhog - Here is what I got..


00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

[Snowhog]

Let's ensure that the obvious isn't biting you.

K > System Settings > Application and System Notifications > Manage Notifications > Player Settings
Make sure that Use the KDE sound system is checked, and that Volume is set to 100%.

Also verify that you actually have sounds associated (checked):

K > System Settings > Application and System Notifications > Manage Notifications > Applications > Event source: KDE Workspace. Click on Login.
Play a sound should be checked, and KDE-Sys-Log-In-Short.ogg shown as the sound file. Verify the others in the list. Test each by clicking on the play button arrow to the left of the listed sound file.

[ScottyK]

1. Verified the 'KDE Sound system" is checked, and at 100% volume.

2. Verified sounds are described for the event. The "Play a sound" to the left is checked. Clicking on the "play" button next to the sound plays nothing. Tried several sounds that used to work. Then played a video, and the video had sound, confirming the hardware works, and was not muted.

I'm wondering if the KDE 4.6 upgrade borked something. Almost 2 months to go until the release of Natty, perhaps it will solve itself then!

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Snowhog]

Let's try an experiment. Open a console and type:

kdesudo kcmshell4 kcmnotify
This will launch the Manage Notifications - KDE Control Module 'as root'. Check the settings and try the sounds again. Do they still not work, or do they play?

[ScottyK]

Negative. As before, I heard a slight "click" coming from the speakers, but no sounds played. further attempts to play sounds did not produce the "click".

[lmilano]

Wild shot. What if you click "Defaults" in the "Manage Notifications" window to reset everything to Default values?

[ScottyK]

Still nothing..

[lmilano]

Maybe if you try gstreamer's backend?
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=153&t=86833

[ScottyK]

I installed the phonon-backend-gstreamer and ensured that after installation that it was the preferred backend over phon. Still result as before.

Would it help to update the kernel? I'm still running 2.6.35-22. Did an upgrade to .25 a while back, but ran into some problems and reverted to .22

[lmilano]

I would be surprised if a kernel upgrade would help, given that this used to work. Most likely it is related to the 4.6 upgrade. There will be a bugfix release in a week (4.6.1, to be released March 1st). Maybe it's worth to wait and see ...

Darn it, we tried sooo many things!

[ScottyK]

At this point it seems the best course of action is to wait for the update next week.

Thanks to everybody who sent suggestions and ideas my way. In the process of trying to fix this, I've learned a little bit more of Linux that I didn't know about last week!

[ubuntuku]

Please post the output of this command:

lsof | grep /dev/snd

[ScottyK]

pulseaudi 1999 scott 22u CHR 116,9 0t0 7532 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi 1999 scott 29u CHR 116,9 0t0 7532 /dev/snd/controlC0

[ubuntuku]

Here's mine:

ubuntuku@satellite:~$ lsof | grep /dev/snd
kded4 1735 ubuntuku 19u CHR 116,8 0t0 8237 /dev/snd/controlC0
knotify4 1836 ubuntuku 17u CHR 116,8 0t0 8237 /dev/snd/controlC0
kmix 1888 ubuntuku 14u CHR 116,8 0t0 8237 /dev/snd/controlC0

Looks like pulseaudio is locking the audio device, that's why you don't get any notification sound. Did you installed it manually? unless you need it, I recommend to remove it completely and reconfigure your sound:


sudo killall pulseaudio
sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio
sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-sound-base

[ScottyK]

Wahoo! I finally have system sounds! Once I rebooted the computer, I was greeeted by the familiar KDE startup chime.

However, I seem to have lost all of the plug ins required to play mp3's and videos.

At first I thought it was due to the removal of pulseaudio, so I went to reinstall the restricted codecs.


sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras


The system came back and said they were "already installed", so I decided to remove them and reinstall.

For good measure, rebooted the computer again, but no go.

Amarok and Dragonplayer keep searching for codecs via Kpackagekit, but can't find any.

so as far as I can tell, the codecs are there, but the programs can't find them. How do I "tell" the programs about the codecs?

Should this fork into a new thread, since the original problem (no system sounds) has been resolved?
Suggestions?


Update - Decided to switch back to the Phonon Xine backend to see what would happen. Rebooted the computer, and now I have system sounds and all multimedia.

Mission accomplished!

[lmilano]

Awesome, back in business! Good call, Ubuntuku :D