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(Solved) Suddenly no sound.
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:42 pm
by rdh61
Hi,
I've come back to this computer, running Gloria, after 2 weeks absence. On leaving it it had no problem. Nobody else has used it since. On turning on there is no sound - no signature sound, no music, no sound on Skype, nothing. Speaker is not muted. I have sound if I boot into Windows.
What should I be looking at to get my sound back?
Thanks.
Re: Suddenly no sound.
Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:05 am
by efflandt
I assume you checked your speaker wires and power.
Did you do any updates that might influence that or use a different kernel, maybe without all the necessary modules? I had been playing around with different Linux distros before hitting Mint and when I updated Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, I lost sound when I booted to the alternate old kernel, but it returned when I booted the new kernel.
One thing that inadvertently knocked out X sound was changing the hostname of mint by just changing /etc/hostname. I thought all I had to do for that to take effect was reboot, but it did not dawn on me immediately why I lost sound, because I still had the little sound before login. X uses network sockets and I also had to make sure that hostnames matched in /etc/hosts. Then sound in X started working again.
Re: Suddenly no sound.
Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:03 am
by rdh61
Hi efflandt
efflandt wrote:I assume you checked your speaker wires and power.
It's a laptop so no wires. Power OK.
efflandt wrote:Did you do any updates that might influence that or use a different kernel, maybe without all the necessary modules? I had been playing around with different Linux distros before hitting Mint and when I updated Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, I lost sound when I booted to the alternate old kernel, but it returned when I booted the new kernel.
No updates since have noticed problem. Don't really know what a kernel is(!)
efflandt wrote:One thing that inadvertently knocked out X sound was changing the hostname of mint by just changing /etc/hostname. I thought all I had to do for that to take effect was reboot, but it did not dawn on me immediately why I lost sound, because I still had the little sound before login. X uses network sockets and I also had to make sure that hostnames matched in /etc/hosts. Then sound in X started working again.
Don't know what "X" is. Haven't changed hostname or tampered with the etc directory.
Is there a way I can get sound back by restoring Mint, and if so, how do I do it?
Again thanks.
Re: (Solved) Suddenly no sound.
Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:10 pm
by rdh61
Solved by referring to the "comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide" at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449/
In my case typing "alsamixer" in a terminal I saw that all my audio channels except "Master" were muted. Unmuting them solved the problem.