Is there another way to restart the sound system if pulseaudio/ALSA don't work?












130














I was listening to music, and my sound suddenly went dead in all my applications. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, which uses pulseaudio, so I tried sudo /etc/init.d/pulseaudio restart, but nothing happened. According to lsof | grep pcm, nothing is using the soundcard at the moment, although I'm not entirely sure if my source for that command is applicable.



Is there a way another way to restart Ubuntu 12.04's sound system from the command line without rebooting the system?










share|improve this question
























  • This answer worked for me. askubuntu.com/questions/15223/…
    – rickfoosusa
    Aug 25 '14 at 23:58
















130














I was listening to music, and my sound suddenly went dead in all my applications. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, which uses pulseaudio, so I tried sudo /etc/init.d/pulseaudio restart, but nothing happened. According to lsof | grep pcm, nothing is using the soundcard at the moment, although I'm not entirely sure if my source for that command is applicable.



Is there a way another way to restart Ubuntu 12.04's sound system from the command line without rebooting the system?










share|improve this question
























  • This answer worked for me. askubuntu.com/questions/15223/…
    – rickfoosusa
    Aug 25 '14 at 23:58














130












130








130


63





I was listening to music, and my sound suddenly went dead in all my applications. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, which uses pulseaudio, so I tried sudo /etc/init.d/pulseaudio restart, but nothing happened. According to lsof | grep pcm, nothing is using the soundcard at the moment, although I'm not entirely sure if my source for that command is applicable.



Is there a way another way to restart Ubuntu 12.04's sound system from the command line without rebooting the system?










share|improve this question















I was listening to music, and my sound suddenly went dead in all my applications. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, which uses pulseaudio, so I tried sudo /etc/init.d/pulseaudio restart, but nothing happened. According to lsof | grep pcm, nothing is using the soundcard at the moment, although I'm not entirely sure if my source for that command is applicable.



Is there a way another way to restart Ubuntu 12.04's sound system from the command line without rebooting the system?







pulseaudio alsa






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18









Community

1




1










asked Dec 20 '12 at 5:08









Ricardo AltamiranoRicardo Altamirano

8742816




8742816












  • This answer worked for me. askubuntu.com/questions/15223/…
    – rickfoosusa
    Aug 25 '14 at 23:58


















  • This answer worked for me. askubuntu.com/questions/15223/…
    – rickfoosusa
    Aug 25 '14 at 23:58
















This answer worked for me. askubuntu.com/questions/15223/…
– rickfoosusa
Aug 25 '14 at 23:58




This answer worked for me. askubuntu.com/questions/15223/…
– rickfoosusa
Aug 25 '14 at 23:58










5 Answers
5






active

oldest

votes


















249














I've used pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a couple of times, and it worked well. The first part kills pulseaudio, the second reloads ALSA. You don't need to restart pulseaudio, because it auto-restarts.






share|improve this answer

















  • 8




    This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
    – khustochka
    Aug 31 '13 at 19:19










  • Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
    – Matt Fletcher
    Nov 28 '13 at 14:19






  • 1




    Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
    – Radu Maris
    Sep 23 '14 at 11:33






  • 1




    It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
    – Felipe
    Oct 20 '14 at 22:47






  • 1




    pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
    – Aitch
    Apr 10 '18 at 21:15



















32














What I do when my sound doesn't work is



killall pulseaudio


and then I press Alt + F2 and type in pulseaudio. It usually works for me.






share|improve this answer































    16














    In my case there were nasty messages in kern.log / dmesg:



    sound hdaudioC0D2: HDMI: invalid ELD buf size -1


    The solution was simply to suspend and resume the machine!



    $ sudo pm-suspend





    share|improve this answer

















    • 1




      i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
      – vlad-ardelean
      Aug 11 '16 at 10:33






    • 1




      Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
      – iLikeBreakfast
      Jan 9 '17 at 5:33










    • Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
      – axel22
      Aug 24 '17 at 16:29



















    0














    Have you looked inside the folder to see if pulseaudio was available in init.d, try replacing pulse audio with alsa-utils






    share|improve this answer































      -2














      FINALLY! This worked for me, and has worked repeatedly: https://askubuntu.com/a/221922



      "Go in to the Preferences and switch the Output Module to ALSA audio output. Quit VLC & relaunch. It worked ok to me"






      share|improve this answer























        Your Answer








        StackExchange.ready(function() {
        var channelOptions = {
        tags: "".split(" "),
        id: "89"
        };
        initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

        StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
        // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
        if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
        StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
        createEditor();
        });
        }
        else {
        createEditor();
        }
        });

        function createEditor() {
        StackExchange.prepareEditor({
        heartbeatType: 'answer',
        autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
        convertImagesToLinks: true,
        noModals: true,
        showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
        reputationToPostImages: 10,
        bindNavPrevention: true,
        postfix: "",
        imageUploader: {
        brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
        contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
        allowUrls: true
        },
        onDemand: true,
        discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
        ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
        });


        }
        });














        draft saved

        draft discarded


















        StackExchange.ready(
        function () {
        StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f230888%2fis-there-another-way-to-restart-the-sound-system-if-pulseaudio-alsa-dont-work%23new-answer', 'question_page');
        }
        );

        Post as a guest















        Required, but never shown

























        5 Answers
        5






        active

        oldest

        votes








        5 Answers
        5






        active

        oldest

        votes









        active

        oldest

        votes






        active

        oldest

        votes









        249














        I've used pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a couple of times, and it worked well. The first part kills pulseaudio, the second reloads ALSA. You don't need to restart pulseaudio, because it auto-restarts.






        share|improve this answer

















        • 8




          This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
          – khustochka
          Aug 31 '13 at 19:19










        • Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
          – Matt Fletcher
          Nov 28 '13 at 14:19






        • 1




          Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
          – Radu Maris
          Sep 23 '14 at 11:33






        • 1




          It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
          – Felipe
          Oct 20 '14 at 22:47






        • 1




          pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
          – Aitch
          Apr 10 '18 at 21:15
















        249














        I've used pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a couple of times, and it worked well. The first part kills pulseaudio, the second reloads ALSA. You don't need to restart pulseaudio, because it auto-restarts.






        share|improve this answer

















        • 8




          This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
          – khustochka
          Aug 31 '13 at 19:19










        • Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
          – Matt Fletcher
          Nov 28 '13 at 14:19






        • 1




          Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
          – Radu Maris
          Sep 23 '14 at 11:33






        • 1




          It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
          – Felipe
          Oct 20 '14 at 22:47






        • 1




          pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
          – Aitch
          Apr 10 '18 at 21:15














        249












        249








        249






        I've used pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a couple of times, and it worked well. The first part kills pulseaudio, the second reloads ALSA. You don't need to restart pulseaudio, because it auto-restarts.






        share|improve this answer












        I've used pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a couple of times, and it worked well. The first part kills pulseaudio, the second reloads ALSA. You don't need to restart pulseaudio, because it auto-restarts.







        share|improve this answer












        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer










        answered Dec 20 '12 at 5:18









        mikewhatevermikewhatever

        23.6k76785




        23.6k76785








        • 8




          This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
          – khustochka
          Aug 31 '13 at 19:19










        • Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
          – Matt Fletcher
          Nov 28 '13 at 14:19






        • 1




          Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
          – Radu Maris
          Sep 23 '14 at 11:33






        • 1




          It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
          – Felipe
          Oct 20 '14 at 22:47






        • 1




          pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
          – Aitch
          Apr 10 '18 at 21:15














        • 8




          This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
          – khustochka
          Aug 31 '13 at 19:19










        • Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
          – Matt Fletcher
          Nov 28 '13 at 14:19






        • 1




          Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
          – Radu Maris
          Sep 23 '14 at 11:33






        • 1




          It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
          – Felipe
          Oct 20 '14 at 22:47






        • 1




          pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
          – Aitch
          Apr 10 '18 at 21:15








        8




        8




        This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
        – khustochka
        Aug 31 '13 at 19:19




        This helped to me to fix the issue 'no sound after suspend' I have suffered from for don't remember how long.
        – khustochka
        Aug 31 '13 at 19:19












        Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
        – Matt Fletcher
        Nov 28 '13 at 14:19




        Ubuntu sometimes freezes for me and goes mental for about 10 minutes, after which it "wakes up" in a bit of a daze, including the sound not working. This fixed it!
        – Matt Fletcher
        Nov 28 '13 at 14:19




        1




        1




        Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
        – Radu Maris
        Sep 23 '14 at 11:33




        Sometimes you might need to clear pulse config with "rm -R ~/.pulse*" before issuing any restart.
        – Radu Maris
        Sep 23 '14 at 11:33




        1




        1




        It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
        – Felipe
        Oct 20 '14 at 22:47




        It works for me after my USB headphone stop to work.
        – Felipe
        Oct 20 '14 at 22:47




        1




        1




        pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
        – Aitch
        Apr 10 '18 at 21:15




        pulseaudio -k saved my life ! no sudo needed
        – Aitch
        Apr 10 '18 at 21:15













        32














        What I do when my sound doesn't work is



        killall pulseaudio


        and then I press Alt + F2 and type in pulseaudio. It usually works for me.






        share|improve this answer




























          32














          What I do when my sound doesn't work is



          killall pulseaudio


          and then I press Alt + F2 and type in pulseaudio. It usually works for me.






          share|improve this answer


























            32












            32








            32






            What I do when my sound doesn't work is



            killall pulseaudio


            and then I press Alt + F2 and type in pulseaudio. It usually works for me.






            share|improve this answer














            What I do when my sound doesn't work is



            killall pulseaudio


            and then I press Alt + F2 and type in pulseaudio. It usually works for me.







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Jan 6 at 5:36









            Pablo Bianchi

            2,4151529




            2,4151529










            answered Dec 20 '12 at 5:16









            tofuratortofurator

            714611




            714611























                16














                In my case there were nasty messages in kern.log / dmesg:



                sound hdaudioC0D2: HDMI: invalid ELD buf size -1


                The solution was simply to suspend and resume the machine!



                $ sudo pm-suspend





                share|improve this answer

















                • 1




                  i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
                  – vlad-ardelean
                  Aug 11 '16 at 10:33






                • 1




                  Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
                  – iLikeBreakfast
                  Jan 9 '17 at 5:33










                • Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
                  – axel22
                  Aug 24 '17 at 16:29
















                16














                In my case there were nasty messages in kern.log / dmesg:



                sound hdaudioC0D2: HDMI: invalid ELD buf size -1


                The solution was simply to suspend and resume the machine!



                $ sudo pm-suspend





                share|improve this answer

















                • 1




                  i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
                  – vlad-ardelean
                  Aug 11 '16 at 10:33






                • 1




                  Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
                  – iLikeBreakfast
                  Jan 9 '17 at 5:33










                • Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
                  – axel22
                  Aug 24 '17 at 16:29














                16












                16








                16






                In my case there were nasty messages in kern.log / dmesg:



                sound hdaudioC0D2: HDMI: invalid ELD buf size -1


                The solution was simply to suspend and resume the machine!



                $ sudo pm-suspend





                share|improve this answer












                In my case there were nasty messages in kern.log / dmesg:



                sound hdaudioC0D2: HDMI: invalid ELD buf size -1


                The solution was simply to suspend and resume the machine!



                $ sudo pm-suspend






                share|improve this answer












                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer










                answered Dec 23 '15 at 17:51









                joeytwiddlejoeytwiddle

                8991020




                8991020








                • 1




                  i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
                  – vlad-ardelean
                  Aug 11 '16 at 10:33






                • 1




                  Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
                  – iLikeBreakfast
                  Jan 9 '17 at 5:33










                • Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
                  – axel22
                  Aug 24 '17 at 16:29














                • 1




                  i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
                  – vlad-ardelean
                  Aug 11 '16 at 10:33






                • 1




                  Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
                  – iLikeBreakfast
                  Jan 9 '17 at 5:33










                • Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
                  – axel22
                  Aug 24 '17 at 16:29








                1




                1




                i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
                – vlad-ardelean
                Aug 11 '16 at 10:33




                i don't know what was going on, I also had a mike problem, reinstalled pulseaudio and alsa packages, but the sudo pm-suspend trick did it....
                – vlad-ardelean
                Aug 11 '16 at 10:33




                1




                1




                Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
                – iLikeBreakfast
                Jan 9 '17 at 5:33




                Battery died on my Dell, did all the above, tried this as a last resort and it worked! Thanks!
                – iLikeBreakfast
                Jan 9 '17 at 5:33












                Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
                – axel22
                Aug 24 '17 at 16:29




                Same thing happened here - after battery died, headphones did not work after next boot. pm-suspend fixed it.
                – axel22
                Aug 24 '17 at 16:29











                0














                Have you looked inside the folder to see if pulseaudio was available in init.d, try replacing pulse audio with alsa-utils






                share|improve this answer




























                  0














                  Have you looked inside the folder to see if pulseaudio was available in init.d, try replacing pulse audio with alsa-utils






                  share|improve this answer


























                    0












                    0








                    0






                    Have you looked inside the folder to see if pulseaudio was available in init.d, try replacing pulse audio with alsa-utils






                    share|improve this answer














                    Have you looked inside the folder to see if pulseaudio was available in init.d, try replacing pulse audio with alsa-utils







                    share|improve this answer














                    share|improve this answer



                    share|improve this answer








                    edited Jul 29 '18 at 10:00

























                    answered May 14 '17 at 7:24









                    hello motohello moto

                    4431616




                    4431616























                        -2














                        FINALLY! This worked for me, and has worked repeatedly: https://askubuntu.com/a/221922



                        "Go in to the Preferences and switch the Output Module to ALSA audio output. Quit VLC & relaunch. It worked ok to me"






                        share|improve this answer




























                          -2














                          FINALLY! This worked for me, and has worked repeatedly: https://askubuntu.com/a/221922



                          "Go in to the Preferences and switch the Output Module to ALSA audio output. Quit VLC & relaunch. It worked ok to me"






                          share|improve this answer


























                            -2












                            -2








                            -2






                            FINALLY! This worked for me, and has worked repeatedly: https://askubuntu.com/a/221922



                            "Go in to the Preferences and switch the Output Module to ALSA audio output. Quit VLC & relaunch. It worked ok to me"






                            share|improve this answer














                            FINALLY! This worked for me, and has worked repeatedly: https://askubuntu.com/a/221922



                            "Go in to the Preferences and switch the Output Module to ALSA audio output. Quit VLC & relaunch. It worked ok to me"







                            share|improve this answer














                            share|improve this answer



                            share|improve this answer








                            edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24









                            Community

                            1




                            1










                            answered May 30 '15 at 6:30









                            user3171081user3171081

                            1




                            1






























                                draft saved

                                draft discarded




















































                                Thanks for contributing an answer to Ask Ubuntu!


                                • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

                                But avoid



                                • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

                                • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


                                To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.





                                Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.


                                Please pay close attention to the following guidance:


                                • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

                                But avoid



                                • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

                                • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


                                To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




                                draft saved


                                draft discarded














                                StackExchange.ready(
                                function () {
                                StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f230888%2fis-there-another-way-to-restart-the-sound-system-if-pulseaudio-alsa-dont-work%23new-answer', 'question_page');
                                }
                                );

                                Post as a guest















                                Required, but never shown





















































                                Required, but never shown














                                Required, but never shown












                                Required, but never shown







                                Required, but never shown

































                                Required, but never shown














                                Required, but never shown












                                Required, but never shown







                                Required, but never shown







                                Popular posts from this blog

                                數位音樂下載

                                When can things happen in Etherscan, such as the picture below?

                                格利澤436b