Sound Problems with pulseaudio

Question

The overall question that my whole problem is kind of based on is regarding sound in linux. Should I be using alsa or pulse or what? I'm using pulse at the moment and this is my problem: I was in the midst of configuring awesome and playing some music at same time when I restarted awesome and found sound no long functioned. After debugging and frustration I restarted and sound still doesn't work. When run in super verbose mode pulseaudio gives much output (see bottom of post) but I think the key line is this:

D: cli-command.c: Checking for existance of '/usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules/module-udev-detect.so': success
D: module-udev-detect.c: /dev/snd/controlC0 is accessible: no
D: module-udev-detect.c: /dev/snd/controlC29 is accessible: no

Any guesses?

---

Full log:

rob@lennyubuntu:~$ pulseaudio -vvvv
I: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
I: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
D: core-rtclock.c: Timer slack is set to 50 us.
D: core-util.c: RealtimeKit worked.
I: core-util.c: Successfully gained nice level -11.
I: main.c: This is PulseAudio 0.9.21-63-gd3efa-dirty
D: main.c: Compilation host: i486-pc-linux-gnu
D: main.c: Compilation CFLAGS: -g -O2 -g -Wall -O3 -Wall -W -Wextra -pipe -Wno-long-long -Winline -Wvla -Wno-overlength-strings -Wunsafe-loop-optimizations -Wundef -Wformat=2 -Wlogical-op -Wsign-compare -Wformat-security -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wformat-nonliteral -Wold-style-definition -Wpointer-arith -Winit-self -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wfloat-equal -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes -Wredundant-decls -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-noreturn -Wshadow -Wendif-labels -Wcast-align -Wstrict-aliasing=2 -Wwrite-strings -Wno-unused-parameter -ffast-math -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fno-common -fdiagnostics-show-option
D: main.c: Running on host: Linux i686 2.6.32-24-generic-pae #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 20 15:37:22 UTC 2010
D: main.c: Found 2 CPUs.
I: main.c: Page size is 4096 bytes
D: main.c: Compiled with Valgrind support: no
D: main.c: Running in valgrind mode: no
D: main.c: Running in VM: no
D: main.c: Optimized build: yes
D: main.c: All asserts enabled.
I: main.c: Machine ID is 37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393.
I: main.c: Session ID is 37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-1284741785.538707-879649589.
I: main.c: Using runtime directory /home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-runtime.
I: main.c: Using state directory /home/rob/.pulse.
I: main.c: Using modules directory /usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules.
I: main.c: Running in system mode: no
I: main.c: Fresh high-resolution timers available! Bon appetit!
I: cpu-x86.c: CPU flags: CMOV MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4_1 
I: svolume_mmx.c: Initialising MMX optimized functions.
I: remap_mmx.c: Initialising MMX optimized remappers.
I: svolume_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized functions.
I: remap_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized remappers.
I: sconv_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized conversions.
D: memblock.c: Using shared memory pool with 1024 slots of size 64.0 KiB each, total size is 64.0 MiB, maximum usable slot size is 65496
D: database-tdb.c: Opened TDB database '/home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-device-volumes.tdb'
I: module-device-restore.c: Sucessfully opened database file '/home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-device-volumes'.
I: module.c: Loaded "module-device-restore" (index: #0; argument: "").
D: database-tdb.c: Opened TDB database '/home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-stream-volumes.tdb'
I: module-stream-restore.c: Sucessfully opened database file '/home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-stream-volumes'.
I: module.c: Loaded "module-stream-restore" (index: #1; argument: "").
D: database-tdb.c: Opened TDB database '/home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-card-database.tdb'
I: module-card-restore.c: Sucessfully opened database file '/home/rob/.pulse/37b1a2935e121fd776c640534c92c393-card-database'.
I: module.c: Loaded "module-card-restore" (index: #2; argument: "").
I: module.c: Loaded "module-augment-properties" (index: #3; argument: "").
D: cli-command.c: Checking for existance of '/usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules/module-udev-detect.so': success
D: module-udev-detect.c: /dev/snd/controlC0 is accessible: no
D: module-udev-detect.c: /dev/snd/controlC29 is accessible: no
I: module-udev-detect.c: Found 2 cards.
I: module.c: Loaded "module-udev-detect" (index: #4; argument: "").
D: cli-command.c: Checking for existance of '/usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules/module-bluetooth-discover.so': failure
D: cli-command.c: Checking for existance of '/usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules/module-esound-protocol-unix.so': success
I: module.c: Loaded "module-esound-protocol-unix" (index: #5; argument: "").
I: module.c: Loaded "module-native-protocol-unix" (index: #6; argument: "").
D: cli-command.c: Checking for existance of '/usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules/module-gconf.so': failure
I: module-default-device-restore.c: Saved default sink 'auto_null' not existant, not restoring default sink setting.
I: module-default-device-restore.c: Saved default source 'auto_null.monitor' not existant, not restoring default source setting.
I: module.c: Loaded "module-default-device-restore" (index: #7; argument: "").
I: module.c: Loaded "module-rescue-streams" (index: #8; argument: "").
D: module-always-sink.c: Autoloading null-sink as no other sinks detected.
I: sink.c: Created sink 0 "auto_null" with sample spec s16le 2ch 44100Hz and channel map front-left,front-right
I: sink.c:     device.description = "Dummy Output"
I: sink.c:     device.class = "abstract"
I: sink.c:     device.icon_name = "audio-card"
D: core-subscribe.c: Dropped redundant event due to change event.
I: source.c: Created source 0 "auto_null.monitor" with sample spec s16le 2ch 44100Hz and channel map front-left,front-right
I: source.c:     device.description = "Monitor of Dummy Output"
I: source.c:     device.class = "monitor"
I: source.c:     device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone"
D: module-null-sink.c: Thread starting up
I: module.c: Loaded "module-null-sink" (index: #9; argument: "sink_name=auto_null sink_properties='device.description="Dummy Output"'").
I: module.c: Loaded "module-always-sink" (index: #10; argument: "").
I: module.c: Loaded "module-intended-roles" (index: #11; argument: "").
D: module-suspend-on-idle.c: Sink auto_null becomes idle, timeout in 5 seconds.
I: module.c: Loaded "module-suspend-on-idle" (index: #12; argument: "").
D: dbus-util.c: Successfully connected to D-Bus system bus 37167102d347eef17e1632d54c939a90 as :1.19
I: client.c: Created 0 "ConsoleKit Session /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1"
D: module-console-kit.c: Added new session /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1
I: module.c: Loaded "module-console-kit" (index: #13; argument: "").
I: module.c: Loaded "module-position-event-sounds" (index: #14; argument: "").
D: dbus-util.c: Successfully connected to D-Bus session bus 72094675a23ec627dd2a6a7b4c939a9c as :1.8
D: main.c: Got org.pulseaudio.Server!
I: main.c: Daemon startup complete.
D: module-console-kit.c: dbus: interface=org.freedesktop.DBus, path=/org/freedesktop/DBus, member=NameAcquired

Answer 1

My guess (based on my solution to what I'm pretty sure is the same problem) is that some application is locking your sound device. Flash and Pidgin have both been culprits on my gentoo box. Try running fuser -v /dev/snd/*, and killing any processes listed there. This might be enough to get your sound working again.

(see also https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PulseAudio#Troubleshooting)

Answer 2

I see you are using Ubuntu. I have a similar issue on my work Laptop where sometimes for no apparent reason the sound devices die, a restart fixes the issue. What kind of soundcard are you using?

Answer 3

I also had problems getting audio to work on the latest ubuntu 13.10 - in fact, I could not access wireless, scanners etc either.

The pulseaudio symptoms were similar; I saw the following lines:

D: module-udev-detect.c: /dev/snd/controlC0 is accessible: no
D: module-udev-detect.c: /dev/snd/controlC1 is accessible: no

It turned out to be a PAM issue - I had made some small changes to some files in /etc/pam.d/ and then they had subsequently not gotten updated properly during distribution upgrade.

The following command restored /etc/pam.d/ files back to normal:

sudo pam-auth-update --force

For me, this made audio, wireless and scanners all work again.

Answer 4

This is a fresh LMDE install audio is erratic, stops to work after some time.

nothing helped

except this.

sudo pam-auth-update --force
pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload

What it does, and what it changed I have no idea.

Answer 5

I have similar problems with sound (/dev/snd/controlC0 is accessible: no) when I have several X sessions on a single machine. The first session uses KDE5 and pulseaudio/alsamixer/pavucontrol work OK inside it. I cannot start the pulseaudio daemon in the second session (fluxbox) despite I have stopped it in the first session and killed all the processes listed with fuser -v /dev/snd/*. In my case the solution is to add the user to audio group.