Sound stops working after a while

[Ariel Vardi]

Hi all,

Since upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10, sound stops working after a while. The issue was not present in 8.04.

Steps to reproduce for me are:
1) Boot Ubuntu
2) Open rhythmbox and play some mp3s - everything works fine
3) Stop music
4) Go to work :)
5) Come back home, press the play button on rhythmbox and the application freezes completely.
6) Watching Youtube videos have no sound either, and the videos hang after 2 seconds.
7) Going to System>Preferences>Sound and clicking on Sound Playback "Test" hangs for a while and then shows "audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink: Failed to connect: Timeout"

Notes:
I have never seen the sound stop working while I was using the computer, so maybe it is related to the screensaver or some power management process. I haven't found any workaround to fix the issue, besides rebooting the computer.

Please find below some information that I hope could help resolve the issue. Please let me know if you need anything else.

Thanks!

ariel@eilat:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10

ariel@eilat:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HH (ICH8DH) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72 [GeForce 7300 LE] (rev a1)
04:03.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

ariel@eilat:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
wlan_wep 14080 1
af_packet 25728 4
binfmt_misc 16904 1
rfcomm 44432 0
bridge 56980 0
stp 10628 1 bridge
bnep 20480 2
sco 18308 2
l2cap 30464 6 rfcomm,bnep
bluetooth 61924 6 rfcomm,bnep,sco,l2cap
ipv6 263972 26
ppdev 15620 0
cpufreq_userspace 11396 0
cpufreq_stats 13188 0
cpufreq_powersave 9856 0
cpufreq_ondemand 14988 0
freq_table 12672 2 cpufreq_stats,cpufreq_ondemand
cpufreq_conservative 14600 0
wmi 14504 0
video 25104 0
output 11008 1 video
sbs 19464 0
sbshc 13440 1 sbs
pci_slot 12552 0
container 11520 0
battery 18436 0
iptable_filter 10752 0
ip_tables 19600 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 22916 1 ip_tables
nls_iso8859_1 12032 2
nls_cp437 13696 2
vfat 18816 2
fat 57376 1 vfat
ac 12292 0
parport_pc 39204 0
lp 17156 0
parport 42604 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
snd_hda_intel 381616 5
snd_pcm_oss 46848 0
dcdbas 15008 0
snd_mixer_oss 22784 2 snd_pcm_oss
wlan_scan_sta 20608 1
evdev 17696 6
snd_pcm 83204 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
ath_rate_sample 19968 1
nvidia 6900560 36
pcspkr 10624 0
snd_seq_dummy 10884 0
psmouse 45200 0
serio_raw 13444 0
snd_seq_oss 38528 0
i2c_core 31892 1 nvidia
ath_pci 99096 0
snd_seq_midi 14336 0
wlan 211952 5 wlan_wep,wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
snd_rawmidi 29824 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 15232 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
ath_hal 198864 3 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
snd_seq 57776 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 29960 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 15116 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
button 14224 0
snd 63268 16 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
intel_agp 33724 0
agpgart 42184 2 nvidia,intel_agp
shpchp 37908 0
pci_hotplug 35236 1 shpchp
iTCO_wdt 18596 0
iTCO_vendor_support 11652 1 iTCO_wdt
soundcore 15328 2 snd
snd_page_alloc 16136 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
ext3 133384 1
jbd 55444 1 ext3
mbcache 16004 1 ext3
sr_mod 22212 0
sd_mod 42264 6
crc_t10dif 9984 1 sd_mod
cdrom 43168 1 sr_mod
usbhid 35840 0
hid 50560 1 usbhid
sg 39732 0
ahci 37132 5
libata 177312 1 ahci
scsi_mod 155212 4 sr_mod,sd_mod,sg,libata
dock 16656 1 libata
uhci_hcd 30736 0
ehci_hcd 43404 0
usbcore 149104 5 usbhid,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
e1000e 112680 0
raid10 30592 0
raid456 135184 0
async_xor 11392 1 raid456
async_memcpy 10112 1 raid456
async_tx 15312 3 raid456,async_xor,async_memcpy
xor 23688 2 raid456,async_xor
raid1 30080 0
raid0 15488 0
multipath 15104 0
linear 13568 0
md_mod 93724 6 raid10,raid456,raid1,raid0,multipath,linear
dm_mirror 26880 0
dm_log 17924 1 dm_mirror
dm_snapshot 26276 0
dm_mod 63432 3 dm_mirror,dm_log,dm_snapshot
thermal 23708 0
processor 42156 1 thermal
fan 12548 0
fbcon 47648 0
tileblit 10880 1 fbcon
font 16512 1 fbcon
bitblit 13824 1 fbcon
softcursor 9984 1 bitblit
fuse 60828 3

[Ariel Vardi (ariel-vardi)]

Killing pulseaudio daemon and restarting it fixes the issue.
Note that pulseaudio needs a SIGKILL to be killed. Regular kills are ignored.

[Atilas (marko-ramsak)]

I have the same problem!

[seanmc (seanmcc)]

I have the exact same problem. This is my temporary work around.

/etc/init.d/pulseaudio stop
ps aux | grep pulseaudio

>> for each PID found associated with pulsaudio
kill -9 <PID>

/etc/init.d/pulseaudio start

This is an ugly work around, but at least I do not have to reboot my computer each time I lose sound. I know other people this happens to. This problem needs to be fixed.