Sound suddenly not working on Debian 9

Question

I'm using "pure" Debian 9 alongside with DWM (no desktop-environment) on my laptop. After the installation, I had to install pulseaudio package in order to make the sound work. It worked well but suddenly the sound doesn't play anymore. I'm not sure what action caused this (whether it was upgrading some package or something else).

I don't see any errors anywhere; it just doesn't play. I've checked on Windows that the speakers work, so it's not a hardware problem.

When I issue pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog and look to the syslog, there are no errors there.

Can anyone help me how to solve this problem? Write in the comments what logs or configs should I paste there.

Solution 1

With help of my friend I installed the pavucontrol package and found out that the sound has been muted. I don't know how it got itself to this state, but simple clicking the button solved my problem.

Solution 2

pulseaudio --kill

pulseaudio --start

Comments

[Mike Waters]

Another way is to open a terminal and run alsamixer.

[Martin Heralecký]

I'd tried that, but it didn't work. Or maybe I just didn't find the controll which is responsible for muting.

[spinkus]

@MartinHeralecký you press m key when the given volume control is active to mute/unmute that device I believe.