18.04 - Need to purge and reload alsa and pulseaudio to get sound

[Rebecca Blundell]

When I start my computer (running Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS), there is no sound from the speakers plugged into the line-out jack.

In order to get sound, I need to run the following sequence of commands:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get remove --purge alsa-base pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install alsa-base pulseaudio pavucontrol
sudo alsa force-reload
reboot
sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
pulseaudio --start

My system is dual-boot with Windows 10, but it doesn't seem to need me to boot Windows 10 in order to lose the settings in Ubuntu.

This problem started on 19 March 2019 when I was trying to record some audio with audacity and I've just found the above fix to get things running, but sadly the problem reverts when I shutdown.

Related packages:

pulseaudio:
  Installed: 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.2
  Candidate: 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.2
  Version table:
 *** 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.2 500
        500 http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:11.1-1ubuntu7 500
        500 http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages

alsa-base:
  Installed: 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu5
  Candidate: 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu5
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu5 500
        500 http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

pavucontrol:
  Installed: 3.0-4
  Candidate: 3.0-4
  Version table:
 *** 3.0-4 500
        500 http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

March 2019 may mean the problem started with the released of:

  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/1:11.1-1ubuntu7.2

But maybe not. Some other package (like the kernel) might also have changed around then. To test this theory, please try installing the previous version *.deb files from:

  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/1:11.1-1ubuntu7.1/+build/14932424

You only need the .deb files and not the .ddeb files. And even then you only need to replace the ones already installed. To get a list of packages you need, just run:

  dpkg -l | grep 11.1-1ubuntu7.2 | awk '{print $2;}'

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]