PulseAudio not detecting any devices

Question

While using my laptop, at some point I noticed that my internal laptop microphone wouldn't work (but it was listed in Sound Settings -> Input) so I restarted my machine and then poof - PulseAudio detects no Output and no Input devices:

I have no idea what caused this. I fail to remember doing anything abnormal prior to devices not being detected anymore.

How can I fix this? aplay -l output:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Solution 1

In my case, pulseaudio only showed dummy devices, it stop showing my Intel audio devices after installing some packages.

So I followed these steps: The only device shown is "dummy output" or newly connected cards are not detected

To see which application is responsible for direct access to the sound card through alsa, run the following command:

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*

In my case it was timidity-daemon:

                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0:  root        659 f.... alsactl
                     timidity    762 F.... timidity
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p:   timidity    762 F...m timidity
/dev/snd/seq:        timidity    762 F.... timidity
/dev/snd/timer:      timidity    762 f.... timidity

So i just uninstall the conflicting package and thats it.

Solution 2

You may have installed some (seemingly) innocuous audio program/daemon that takes control of the hardware before the user-space subsys is initialized. Had a similar issue after installing the 'sqeezelite' package but others can probably do the same thing or something equally troublesome; like using a different sound server target in their .conf or startup script.

These scenarios derive from
- installing mixed gstreamer 0.10 & 1.00 libraries (recommend 0.10)
- installing multiple sound server backends (such as PortAudio which has 'pa*' and '*-pa' named subsystems just like PulseAudio)
- customized port-mappings in alsa (aconnectgui, hdajackretask, auto-configured, etc.)
- zealous power-management settings
- device proxies for virtual machine host pass-through devices
- misconfigured 'media-key(s)' or other hardware issue

These are just some possible causes; your question gave little information (specifically, 'alsa' is installed and running) to for anyone to offer a specific solution. The information provided is based mostly on experience and just a bit of speculation (power management & media key issues). The screen caps don't mean much for folks using other X desktops or distros. The command 'aplay -l' does show that alsa is running but doesn't give the detail of:

aplay -L

default Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) pulse PulseAudio Sound Server sysdefault:CARD=Intel HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Default Audio Device front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Front speakers surround21:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Digital IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output dmix:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Direct sample mixing device dmix:CARD=Intel,DEV=1 HDA Intel, ALC889 Digital Direct sample mixing device dsnoop:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Direct sample snooping device dsnoop:CARD=Intel,DEV=1 HDA Intel, ALC889 Digital Direct sample snooping device hw:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Direct hardware device without any conversions hw:CARD=Intel,DEV=1 HDA Intel, ALC889 Digital Direct hardware device without any conversions plughw:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Hardware device with all software conversions plughw:CARD=Intel,DEV=1 HDA Intel, ALC889 Digital Hardware device with all software conversions -and-

lspci -b -vv

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd GA-EP45-UD3R Motherboard Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 4 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10 Region 0: Memory at fdff8000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=55mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+) Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+ Address: 00000000fee0300c Data: 4172 Capabilities: [70] Express (v1) Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00 DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0 ExtTag- RBE- DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported- RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+ MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 128 bytes DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr+ TransPend- Capabilities: [100 v1] Virtual Channel Caps: LPEVC=0 RefClk=100ns PATEntryBits=1 Arb: Fixed- WRR32- WRR64- WRR128- Ctrl: ArbSelect=Fixed Status: InProgress- VC0: Caps: PATOffset=00 MaxTimeSlots=1 RejSnoopTrans- Arb: Fixed- WRR32- WRR64- WRR128- TWRR128- WRR256- Ctrl: Enable+ ID=0 ArbSelect=Fixed TC/VC=01 Status: NegoPending- InProgress- VC1: Caps: PATOffset=00 MaxTimeSlots=1 RejSnoopTrans- Arb: Fixed- WRR32- WRR64- WRR128- TWRR128- WRR256- Ctrl: Enable+ ID=1 ArbSelect=Fixed TC/VC=80 Status: NegoPending- InProgress- Capabilities: [130 v1] Root Complex Link Desc: PortNumber=0f ComponentID=02 EltType=Config Link0: Desc: TargetPort=00 TargetComponent=02 AssocRCRB- LinkType=MemMapped LinkValid+ Addr: 00000000fed1c000 Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

A very nice pulseaudio troubleshooting guide here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting

Comments

[user2394156]

I'm using Ubuntu 16 btw.

[Videonauth]

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! While this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.

[kometonja]

This helped me after upgrading to (K)Ubuntu 20.04

[Guillaume Cisco]

You made my day, I spent hours debugging this issue, and after all I simply removed timidity and it works as before

[Trendfischer]

Upgrading to 20.04 caused it for me too, thanks for the help, the command sudo apt install timidity-daemon solved it.