[Solved] No sound - headphones all greyed in alsamixer

[forestofstars]

Had to reinstall mint due to a problem I was facing with the updating process.

Ever since, I have no sound at all. I have searched for a solution to my problem, both in and out of these forums. But no joy.
Let me say that I have uninstalled-reinstalled pulseaudio, shortly before completely replacing it with alsa.
I may have done something wrong though, I'm not really sure.
And I have been striving to fix this thing for so many hours that I'm really dizzy and desperate and -please help me.


For what it's worth, I use the asus p5kpl motherboard.

Thank you

[lmintnewb]

Might not help ... Just a random thought. But noticed in the Synaptic package manager you can click on the custom filters button down in the lower left hand of it's screen when open. One of the menu items listed is called "broken packages".

Would assume if someone had a "broken package" it would show up. Said it is supposed to display packages with broken dependencies when you look there. There's another tab in that custom filter menu called "missing recommends". Either way maybe this will help you find out if you've got a package with broken dependencies or that missing recommends might help show ya a solution to your issue too.

Am a complete newb to linux mint. Just figured this seemed relevant and couldn't hurt either way. Would also search for which audio packages you have installed and are using in synaptic and see what comes up in the list that's not installed.

Like for alsa a search in the synaptic search bar turns up 3 packages.

alsa-firmware-loaders
madfuload
flashplugin-nonfree-extrasoun

Do you have all the packages you need for whatever you're using to work right ?


Could also do similar in the software manager search bar. Compare available packages vs what you've got installed. And in the update manager you can get a look at your update history. By opening it and selecting the view tab. One of the choices there is view the update history.

Don't know if any of this will help. But I gave it a good try for ya. Good luck finding the solution. All if all else fails ... There's always the back up and do a fresh install option.

[forestofstars]

It turned out I didn't have any broken packages at the time, but I'll keep this info in mind for the future.
And I did install alsa-firmware-loaders and madfuload, nothing changed though. But thank you very much for replying anyway.


I just noticed that even though I have uninstalled oss so that I would only use alsa,
volume control shows High Definition Audio 0x1106039 (OSS v4 Audio Mixer) as the device being currently used.
I suppose this is not good, right?

[forestofstars]

Forgot to mention, I've already reinstalled twice today in hope that it would get fixed..
But it doesn't, which surprises me a bit.

Anyway, I really do thank you for trying to help.

[lmintnewb]

2 fresh installs and nuttin ? Yikes ... as mentioned mint is a good distro for me, becuz when it comes to linux I'm green, lol. Trying to think what that'd indicate and not coming up with anything. A fresh install should've put everything back the way it was orginally. If it were working originally should be working afterwards.

Ok nother shot in the dark for ya. Might go to control center and look around in the sound and audio related menu entries. Then head on over to startup applications and see what progs are and are not loading when you bootup. Ya might have to add something there perhaps ?



Look I should probably stop helping before I make summin worse for ya. This is a case of the blind leading the blind me thinks.

[forestofstars]

Mine too, I really like this distro.

I checked my startup apps and, apart from Gnome Login Sound, there's nothing that has to do with sound in there.
Should it be like that?

[lmintnewb]

Hold on lemme switch to gnome and see the layout. I don't use it as default anymore ... brb.

[forestofstars]

Ok. Thank you.

[lmintnewb]

In the gnome control center there's a menu item called "Sound" listed under the Hardware section. It seems to have a bunch of audio related settings in it. This is missing in your control center menu ?

Any progress ? I feel involved now ... sighs. Ya see people, this is why I shouldn't try to be helpful. Da OP has now dropped offline. I probably did summin that made her/his computer blow up. Make note and heed this people ! NEVER LISTEN TO ME, SHEESH ... EVEN I DON'T LISTEN TO ME USUALLY !

[lmintnewb]

This looked like it may be highly relevant. Brought to you by mads and the mint community forum. Though get the feeling you're on fresh install take 3 or 4 or or. Hope this helps ya out. Would read the 1st one 1st if you're using Mint 10 main edition.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... io#p409483

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 13#p339673

[forestofstars]

Well, strangely enough there's no such menu in my Hardware section.
And I have already checked these info about replacing pulseaudio with alsa, although I have to mention that there were some steps that I couldn't follow. Unchecking pulseaudio in the startup apps for instance, there wasn't anything like that in there even before I touch a single thing on my system.

And hey, you didn't make me destroy anything. I just disappeared for a while cause I was busy rerereinstalling/freaking out/not knowing what to do.

And thank you very very much for trying to help me.


I noticed that, the headphones section in alsamixer is greyed. It apparently means that it's my headphones that are not being recognised for some reason. Any ideas about this? Anyone?

[lmintnewb]

Which version of mint are you using ? Since none of these menu items are in your menu ... It doesn't sound like Mint 10 main edition ( more like can't be). Which would have gnome as the default desktop. Can you identify which version of Mint you have installed ?

Might help people to help try to figure out whatever problem you have. Reinstalling it isn't helping ? Does your OS ( whichever version of mInt you have ) work well after you reinstall ? Or does it already have problems even then ? 32 bit .... 64 bit ? Is your computer made for that software ?

No worries, was teasing about blowing up your puter. Errrr though I've probably helped make some problems worse for people. While trying to help them figure summin out in the forums.




(edit) Will say one thing. You're tenacious girl ... Definitely aren't a quitter ... good.

[forestofstars]

I'm using mint 10 in gnome. The 64 bit one. Which, aside from this bloody sound issue, seems to work just fine.

My computer used to work flawlessly with this exact distro. What on earth?

[lmintnewb]

It's strange ... does sound work at all ? Or is it just the headphones not working ? Also curious about summin .... go and hit your menu button.When your control center is open, hit the box to maximize it so that it takes up the whole screen. Press the Print screen key, it'll be up top on your keyboard next to your F1 - F12 buttons. Assuming this is a desktop, if not you might have to look around for it.

If you have gnome as the desktop that's a keyboard shortcut to take a screenshot of your desktop. Did it work ? If so it'll ask you where you want to save it and yada, yada.

Screenshot.png

Here's mine or should be, lol. Haven't posted a pic to this forum before. Look around in that mess. Does your control center menu look like that or no ? Gawd that looks terrible, lol. Ummmm, see up in the top of that gigantic mess ... under the personal section. There's a menu tab called startup applications, that's what mads was talking about. If you click on that ... all the programs with a x in the check boxes next to them automatically start everytime you bootup your computer. Is pulseaudio in there ?

[lmintnewb]

I should start a remote tech support service. Instead of geeksquad, we could be technotards, lol. Already have a sales slogan picked out.

Well either fix your computer .... or destroy it ... Whichever comes 1st ! GUARANTEED !

[mads]

And I have already checked these info about replacing pulseaudio with alsa, although I have to mention that there were some steps that I couldn't follow. Unchecking pulseaudio in the startup apps for instance, there wasn't anything like that in there even before I touch a single thing on my system.

Hi. I am the author of the tutorial. Although it is strange that you don't see "PulseAudio Sound System" and "PulseAudio Sound System KDE Routing Policy" in Menu > Preferences > Startup Applications, you could safely ignore this step. However, it is important to follow the remaining steps as described.

[lmintnewb]

Whew ... someone who actually knows summin about this ... thank the gods. The linux gods have shown you favor OP. Ye are blessed with the poss assistance of someone who isn't linux mint clueless.

[forestofstars]

Well, this is interesting. I installed windows just to make sure that no, the fact that I had no sound was irrelevant to the os used.
So I decided to reset my bios and give it another shot, and it worked. I then rerererereinstalled mint and everything seems to work just fine now.

lmintnewb> Thank you very much for everything.

mads> First of all, thank you for replying. I am quite sure that there there was nothing in the startup apps that had to do with pulseaudio whatsoever. I checked over and over again when following several instructions, yours included, on how to replace pulseaudio with alsa.
Plus, there was no "sound" entry in the Hardware section and, when I attempted to use it via the menu, the window used to freeze saying something like "waiting for the program to respond".


All of the above are ok now, nothing seems to be out of place. I was wondering though, could really my dysfunctional bios have caused all of these?

[mads]

I then rerererereinstalled mint and everything seems to work just fine now.

So all the time you had your sound disabled in BIOS.
Just kidding, happy to see that everything works fine now.

[forestofstars]

I then rerererereinstalled mint and everything seems to work just fine now.

So all the time you had your sound disabled in BIOS.
Just kidding, happy to see that everything works fine now.

I'm glad that my big fat misery amuses you ..
Come on, how on earth should I know? I was listening to music and whoop, 3 secs later the only thing I could hear was my neighbour screaming at her dog in an impressively supersonic way. And, may I add, it's a recently-bought motherboard that we are talking about (which definitely deserves some throwing-out-of-the-window by the way)..

But enough with the complaints, thank you.