Sound is working again. Closing this issue -- by marking it as "opinion" (as I understand it, this means the issue is essentially "closed", but people can still comment on it). The problem (still) is that I have no idea why sound stopped working, and no idea how it started working again. Voodoo isn't really a "fix", in my book.
I updated the audio drivers (again, and again, and again) via ppa :ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa, and continued to tweak the audio settings until some sound started to crackle through the headphones. Rebooted, and sound was normal (for now). This is the same path I took originally when I first set up this pc (new desktop, dell xps 8300, bought it about 6 months ago & have re-installed ubuntu 3 times already.) I guess last time I got lucky with the audio controls. That is, I'm guessing, where the problem was this time -- the audio controls. So, as for the "opinion" part: The ubuntu audio configuration is, imho, a user-interface "bug." The pulse audio configuration is a total mystery to me. But I do actually understand how pulseaudio works (in theory); it's a good idea, architecturally (I'm speaking as a software developer, not as a end- user. I'm sure end-users hate this, since it *is* confusing.) But the problem is the interface(s) for configuring audio provide volumes (no pun intended) of meaningless information and numerous controls that have no clear indication as to what they actually do. Just a lot of radio buttons and checkboxes by hardware devices and/or drivers. It's a cat's cradle of configuration options. Specifically, I'm speaking of pavucontrol and gnome-volume-control, (I tried other gui control widgets & whatnots, too, since most help-guides in the forums use some older unknown version of the audio options available via system>pref>sound.) I do have multiple sound cards, and that probably adds to the confusion in the GUI, as the GUI just blindly lists the HW and does not explain what to do. These GUI's provide numerous ways to specify device input/output, but there are so many permutations (and no clear indication as to what the correct values are) -- getting things working really is a crap-shoot. Using "ubuntu-bug audio" is no help... this message is meaningless, as it does not indicate *how* I should correct the problem: "You seem to have configured PulseAudio to use the pci card, while you want output from "HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH". Ple ase correct that using pavucontrol or the GNOME volume control. Continue anyway?" (How do I "correct" the problem?) So I tried to "correct" the problem as per ubuntu-bug's advice. After doing nothing other than reconfiguration through the various GUI controls, I re-ran ubuntu-bug, and it then claimed my distro was "not genuine ubuntu" or some such thing, and I couldn't use ubuntu-bug anymore (wtf?). Eventually I reinstalled ubuntu 10.10 totally from scratch. (Backgrounder note: Originally I had installed v11.04, but then installed 10.10 due to system locking up and freezing on v11.04 -- perhaps due to deluge and/or playing video. Sound worked -- eventually -- under both v11.04 and 10.10, after updating alsa driver modules. This is dual-boot to Windows; sound always "just worked" under windows, and windows never froze up like under v11.04.) When re-installing 10.10, I reformatted drives and everything. Total clean install. Still no sound. Eventually, weeks later, sound works again. All a mystery. Not at all what I would expect from a linux distro. Black magic is what I expect from Windows. There *should* be a methodical, repeatable way to troubleshoot sound issues that a linux- savvy person can follow. Then eventually this could be automated for anyone, using some *simple* GUI widget or wizard. We all can't file bugs for configuration issues...! Ok, sorry for the rant -- but not having sound on this "media center" PC for a few weeks (while guests were visiting from out of town) was a little frustrating (and embarrassing). I had to hook up my mac to the tv so the inlaws could watch movies. Crap. So much for changing people's impression of linux. Worst of all: if this happens again, I'm not sure how I can fix it. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/803350 Title: [HDA-Intel - HDA Creative] ALSA test tone not correctly played back To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/803350/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
