gnome-volume-control freezes with "Waiting for sound system to respond"

[msp3k]

Binary package hint: gnome-media

Cannot change the volume, clicking on "Sound Preferences..." or running gnome-volume-control from the command line both result in a "Waiting for sound system to respond" window. The program will wait forever and never continue beyond this point.

Playing sounds from the command line works fine with the following example:
$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/purple/alert.wav

And alsamixer works from the command line.

Some more information:

# dmidecode | grep Product
 Product Name: iMac9,1
 Product Name: Mac-F2218FA9

# lspci | grep Audio
00:08.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP79 High Definition Audio (rev b1)

# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC889A Analog [ALC889A Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: ALC889A Digital [ALC889A Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

# uname -a
Linux canis 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:24 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

For this particular sound card, several reports have been seen where users have had to add a specific options command to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. Each of the following options have been tried in turn:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
options snd-hda-intel model=mb5
options snd-hda-intel model=mbp5
options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3
options snd-hda-intel model=mac24
options snd-hda-intel model=imac24

(The only result of the above module options have been to switch audio output from headphones to speakers, or to break sound all together.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: gnome-media 2.32.0-0ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Apr 29 08:43:11 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta amd64+mac (20110411.2)
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
SourcePackage: gnome-media
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Damian Nadales (dnadales)]

I'm having the same problem. The failures seem to be random. Sometimes the volume control works without problems, and sometimes it just does not respond.

[msp3k (peek-nimbios)]

Update: The problem (for me at least) appears to be that pulseaudio was
not starting on login. When starting it by hand from a terminal window,
the volume and Sound Preferences magically start to work again.

Michael

On 05/02/2011 04:46 AM, Damian Only wrote:
> I'm having the same problem. The failures seem to be random. Sometimes
> the volume control works without problems, and sometimes it just does
> not respond.
>

[Damian Nadales (dnadales)]

Indeed, sometimes pulseaudio do not start at login (although it is set up as one of the startup applications). If I run pulseaudio I can open the sound preferences, but I cannot change the volume since the only visible output is "Dummy output".

[David Gomes (davidgomes)]

"I'm having the same problem. The failures seem to be random. Sometimes the volume control works without problems, and sometimes it just does not respond."

It is completely random for me too.

[William Spears (williammspears)]

Having the same problem with Ubuntu 11.04, as of Nov 4, 2011. But, until today I've never had a problem. Interestingly, the small icon on my toolbar changed today also. Was there an update that has broken things? In fact, it causes *everything* to respond very very slowly...