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user5950
Asked: 2018-10-20 00:57:29 +0800 CST

No sound after upgrade to 18.10, only a dummy device is shown

  • 772

After I updated to Ubuntu 18.10 my sound device isn't recognized anymore. Only a dummy device is shown.

I have an onboard Intel device:

lspci -nnk | grep -A2 Audio
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1e20] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:2036]
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

The command pacmd list-cards does not show any devices:

:~$ pacmd list-cards
0 card(s) available.

This message in /var/log/syslog might have to do something with the problem:

Oct 19 21:02:06 MyComputerName pulseaudio[14331]: E: [pulseaudio] 
backend-ofono.c: Failed to register as a handsfree audio agent with 
ofono: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.ofono 
was not provided by any .service files

Does anybody have the same issue? How can I fix this?

soundcard 18.10

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Try 

    sudo apt purge timidity-daemon

    and

    reboot
    • 18

  2. I turned out that the cause where old pulseaudio config files. I did remove them with:

    sudo apt purge alsa-base pulseaudio

    This will cause some dependencies to be purged as well. So the easiest way to reinstall everything is to do:

    sudo apt install ubuntu-gnome-desktop

    But this might bring you some packages back, you had intentionally removed before. So keep track of what is being installed.

    Another way to reinstall what was removed is to simply copy the list of uninstalled packages from the terminal:

    The following packages will be REMOVED:
   alsa-base* indicator-sound* libcanberra-pulse* paprefs* pulseaudio* 
   pulseaudio-equalizer* pulseaudio-esound-compat* pulseaudio-module-bluetooth* 
   pulseaudio-module-gsettings* pulseaudio-module-raop*
   pulseaudio-module-zeroconf* ubuntu-desktop* ubuntu-gnome-desktop*

    So for me this was:

    sudo apt install alsa-base indicator-sound libcanberra-pulse paprefs\
pulseaudio pulseaudio-equalizer pulseaudio-esound-compat\
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gsettings\
pulseaudio-module-raop pulseaudio-module-zeroconf ubuntu-desktop\
ubuntu-gnome-desktop

    After you have reinstalled everything you shout do:

    sudo alsa force-reload

    After this the sound device should work again.

    • 3

  3. this is what I did that got my 18.04 to recognize audio again:

    sudo apt install --reinstall alsa-base pulseaudio
sudo alsa force-reload

    your mileage may vary. but it worked for me. (tm)

    • 0

  4. Install pavucontrol using

    sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

    After the installation, open it by typing the command pavcontrol in terminal and select the output devices.

    • 0

  5. I just had a similar but slightly different experience after upgrading from 19.04 to 19.10. Everything was fine until I plugged my laptop into a DisplayLink hub then I lost all sound. I saw on another forum people talking about losing sound after plugging into an HDMI screen so this is similar.

    What I had was that all my devices showed up but I couldn't get any sound out of them. In the sound control panel I could choose a USB headset but when I click on test, there are no speakers to click on to perform the test. The simple fix for me was just to kill and restart pulseaudio

    pulseaudio --k

pulseaudio --start

    After that everything came back to life.

    • 0