[Acceptable workaround] No sound. No device in sound settings and Pavucontrol not starting.

[DirkCYF]

Hi
Just this week I installed Mint on Lenovo Miix 300-10IBY (2in1) after too much windows problems and updates taking too much space, It is my first time using Linux. I got most problems solved including touchscreen rotation and blackscreen. The only problem left is my audio is not working, no sound from internal speakers or earphones plugged in.
The sound settings has no device listed and volume is stuck at softer and the slider can't be dragged to louder.

I installed Pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control), but it does not start and gives error:
Conection to PulseAudio failed. Automatic retry in 5s
In this case, this is likely because PULSE_SERVER .... is misconfigured.
...

What can I do to get my sound working?

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~$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: Kernel: 4.15.0-34-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.9 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1)
           Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: portable System: LENOVO product: 80NR v: MIIX 300-10IBY serial: N/A
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Madrid v: SDK0J91196 STD serial: N/A
           UEFI: LENOVO v: DACN25WW date: 08/20/2015
CPU:       Quad core Intel Atom Z3735F (-MCP-) 
           arch: Silvermont rev.8 cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 10662
           clock speeds: max: 1832 MHz 1: 1255 MHz 2: 687 MHz 3: 548 MHz
           4: 550 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 800x1280@59.99hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Bay Trail
           version: 4.2 Mesa 18.0.5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio driver: HdmiLpeAudio
           Card-2 bytcr-rt5640 driver: bytcr-rt5640
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-34-generic

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~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Audio [Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio], device 0: HdmiLpeAudio [Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Audio [Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio], device 1: HdmiLpeAudio [Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: bytcrrt5640 [bytcr-rt5640], device 0: Baytrail Audio (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: bytcrrt5640 [bytcr-rt5640], device 1: Deep-Buffer Audio (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

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~$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

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~$ pulseaudio --check; echo $?
1

I tried the following:
1.) deleting the contents of the directories: ~/.pulse
2.)

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get remove --purge alsa-base pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install alsa-base pulseaudio pavucontrol
sudo alsa force-reload
reboot

but it did not solve the problem.

I would appreciate any help thanks.

[MrEen]

Hi DirkCYF.

Try deleting the files in ~/.config/pulse/ then in the terminal pulseaudio -k (as it seems pulseaudio isn't running, you might need to do pulseaudio --start again.)

If that doesn't work, it might be a permissions issue. Does find $HOME ! -user $USER return a bunch of stuff?

[DirkCYF]

Hi MrEen

Thank for replying.
I deleted the files in ~/.config/pulse/
Then:

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~$ pulseaudio -k
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such process

Then:

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~$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

Maybe it is a permission issue I don't know too much about Linux:

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~$ find $HOME ! -user $USER
/home/dirk/.cache/at-spi2-socket-7899
find: ‘/home/dirk/.cache/doc’: Permission denied
/home/dirk/.cache/doc
/home/dirk/.config/dconf/user

Is the Permission denied a problem?
Thanks

[MrEen]

Yeah, we have some issues.

In the terminal, type sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER to fix the permissions.

Then try pulseaudio --start

Good luck.

[DirkCYF]

Ok I ran

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sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER

and it returned nothing, assuming it fixed the permission problem.

Then:

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~$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

So I unistalled Pavucontrol, reboot and installed it again, reboot again but still:

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$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

Then tried again what you suggested:
Deleting the files in ~/.config/pulse/ then in the terminal pulseaudio -k then pulseaudio --start again.
But still it failed.

What else can I try? Thanks for the help.

[MrEen]

This might help:
sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
I'll bet that returns something that is blocking pulseaudio from starting.

[DirkCYF]

I tried it:

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~$ sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
[sudo] password for dirk: 
dirk@Dirk-T:~$ 

It returns nothing?

[MrEen]

Ahh crap. Thought for sure that was going to be it. I'll need a bit of time to find other ideas.

[MrEen]

This might help find the culprit:
pulseaudio -vvv
Let that run for a little bit and see what errors it generates.

[DirkCYF]

Thanks for trying I appreciate:

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~$ pulseaudio -vvv
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
D: [pulseaudio] core-rtclock.c: Timer slack is set to 50 us.
D: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: RealtimeKit worked.
I: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Successfully gained nice level -11.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: This is PulseAudio 11.1
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compilation host: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compilation CFLAGS: -g -O2 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/pulseaudio-EOwPuF/pulseaudio-11.1=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wall -W -Wextra -pipe -Wno-long-long -Wno-overlength-strings -Wunsafe-loop-optimizations -Wundef -Wformat=2 -Wlogical-op -Wsign-compare -Wformat-security -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wformat-nonliteral -Wpointer-arith -Winit-self -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wfloat-equal -Wmissing-prototypes -Wredundant-decls -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-noreturn -Wshadow -Wendif-labels -Wcast-align -Wstrict-aliasing -Wwrite-strings -Wno-unused-parameter -ffast-math -fno-common -fdiagnostics-show-option -fdiagnostics-color=auto
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running on host: Linux x86_64 4.15.0-34-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 27 15:21:48 UTC 2018
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Found 4 CPUs.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Page size is 4096 bytes
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compiled with Valgrind support: no
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running in valgrind mode: no
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running in VM: no
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Optimized build: yes
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: FASTPATH defined, only fast path asserts disabled.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Machine ID is ef635a010d284bc38d762d2b9f0e65ac.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Session ID is c2.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using runtime directory /run/user/1000/pulse.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using state directory /home/dirk/.config/pulse.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using modules directory /usr/lib/pulse-11.1/modules.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running in system mode: no
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: System supports high resolution timers
D: [pulseaudio] memblock.c: Using shared memfd memory pool with 1024 slots of size 64.0 KiB each, total size is 64.0 MiB, maximum usable slot size is 65472
I: [pulseaudio] cpu-x86.c: CPU flags: CMOV MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4_1 SSE4_2 
I: [pulseaudio] svolume_mmx.c: Initialising MMX optimized volume functions.
I: [pulseaudio] remap_mmx.c: Initialising MMX optimized remappers.
I: [pulseaudio] svolume_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized volume functions.
I: [pulseaudio] remap_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized remappers.
I: [pulseaudio] sconv_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized conversions.
I: [pulseaudio] svolume_orc.c: Initialising ORC optimized volume functions.
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup without any loaded modules, refusing to work.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon terminated.

Hope it gives a clue

[MrEen]

Here's the line that tells us what the problem is:

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E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup without any loaded modules, refusing to work.

Now we just need to figure out why that's happening.

Still searching...

[DirkCYF]

I have no Idea what Daemon does? But it doesn't want to work with me.

[MrEen]

It's the sound server.

Let's see if we can find a problem here:

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cat /etc/pulse/default.pa

and

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cat ~/.config/pulse/default.pa

[DirkCYF]

Yes we have something to work on here:

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~$ cat /etc/pulse/default.pa
cat: /etc/pulse/default.pa: No such file or directory

and

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$ cat ~/.config/pulse/default.pa
cat: /home/dirk/.config/pulse/default.pa: No such file or directory

I am not sure what it means.

[MrEen]

Aha! Try:

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apt install --reinstall pulseaudio

Maybe the earlier permissions issue caused a problem when you removed and installed the first time.

[JowiKrause]

Hallo Dirk, Du hast wohl das gleiche Problem wie ich.
Frage: Hast Du auch die Home Partition nach extern verlegt?
Gruss
Jowi

[DirkCYF]

Mr Een I was hoping for the best, after reboot I tried again:

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dirk@Dirk-T:~$ pulseaudio -k
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such process
dirk@Dirk-T:~$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

eish!

[DirkCYF]

Hallo Dirk, Du hast wohl das gleiche Problem wie ich.
Frage: Hast Du auch die Home Partition nach extern verlegt?
Gruss
Jowi

No sorry I did not move home. This is a clean install with all default settings and no extra partitions.

[JowiKrause]

Well, anyway, I am grateful that the suggestion about "sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER" worked for me, so at least my pavucontrol gets started.
From there, it will be another issue to get my JBL bluetooth speaker working ...
Thanks and good luck!
Jowi

[DirkCYF]

Well, anyway, I am grateful that the suggestion about "sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER" worked for me, so at least my pavucontrol gets started.
From there, it will be another issue to get my JBL bluetooth speaker working ...
Thanks and good luck!
Jowi

I am glad you are making progress Jowi. I am still stuck and can't even get pavucontrol to start, and seems like this daemon is the one that needs to start but fails everytime.

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pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.