[Solved] Audio dead after system update

Question

I was having a difficult time with network issues so I did a system update last night, and while it cured my network woes something broke my sound which was working fine before. I use MPD and Ario to play music and VLC to play video and both have no sound. I tried everything in the wiki to no avail, and searched the BBS for ideas (I always use startx).
I did several lsmod, aplay -l, aplay -L, etc commands and everything looks just the same as before the update. I checked audio levels in alsamixer, and even tried to install pulseaudio on top of several reboots and adding myself to audio. The only thing else that might help is I hear a pop from my speakers every so often. I don't know what else to provide that could help. It's hard for me to figure out because everything looks normal, and the cards are even being initialized as far as I can tell.
Last edited by zerologik (2013-03-05 04:56:29)

Answer 1

lsmod |grep "snd"
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 27561 1
snd_hda_codec_realtek 61729 1
snd_hda_intel 27668 11
snd_hda_codec 100743 3 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 6429 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 77827 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
snd_page_alloc 7427 2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer 18935 1 snd_pcm
snd 60157 29 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
soundcore 5443 1 snd
aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC888-VD Analog [ALC888-VD Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC888-VD Digital [ALC888-VD Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
aplay -L
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
PulseAudio Sound Server
default:CARD=SB
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=SB
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, ALC888-VD Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1
HDA NVidia, HDMI 1
HDMI Audio Output
Everything looks normal to me, unless I'm missing some crucial detail somewhere.
*EDIT: I went ahead and tried a few more things and reread the PulseAudio entry in the wiki and used pavucontrol as a last ditched effort and found that after the update it seems the soundcard became muted somehow even though I never had pulse installed before on this machine.
I should have tried that first, sorry for anyone who wasted their time on this thread and a good lesson for fellow newbies is to always try control packages first before moving onto other means/making a thread. Marking this as solved.
Last edited by zerologik (2013-03-05 04:56:06)