Ubuntu phone / Aquaris E5: no ringtones when receiving calls, no sound when receiving messages; no sound on speakers

[M.K.]

Aquaris E5 HD, Ubuntu Edition; Ubuntu 15.04, OTA-8.5

My phone does not ring / play sound on speakers. No problems to answer calls, when having notice by vibrating / display notification; Have phone for some weeks now - at very beginning it worked; short after it stopped playing sounds; swithched sound on in pathwind & uninstalled pathwind - no difference; sometimes it plays ringtones - but have no idea under which circumstances; even when it rang for one time it does not anymore one call later, although I did not make any changes in settings between the calls; does not play sounds / ringtones when selecting them in settings (no difference which ringtone).

Today I made full reset on phone (by Settings) - still no sounds.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1533251/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[M.K. (kkmichi)]

I found the hardware testing modus of the phone today; it might be a hardware bug, as the tests for the speakers are negative (no sound). Is the testing modus of the phone independent of the operating system (ubuntu touch)??

[A. Martos (al3xarm)]

Same bug here since the 8/01. No sound through main speaker (ie. no ringtones, no sound from games or videos), just stopped working and no sound since. Pathwind bug tested too, plus 2 factory resets. Updated to OTA-8.5 since early december (when I received the phone) and it worked fine until early january. All other in/out work (microphone, jack & ear speaker).

I didn't use the testing modus though.

I sent back the phone to BQ (also thinking it was hardware-linked), for now they were unable to reproduce my problem -- but they reinstalled the software. I'm waiting for more details, I'll post them here.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[M.K. (kkmichi)]

Got new phone this week; till now everything works. Made update to OTA-9. Maybe it was the hardware, but last time it also stopped some time without any apparent reason.

[A. Martos (al3xarm)]

Received phone back from BQ yesterday. Updated to OTA 9 since, and have reinstalled apps and configured them (although I didn't use all of them yet). I could'nt reproduce the bug I had before sending it to BQ's repair dep'.

Only thing they did : "reinstall the software".

[Xavi Garcia (xavi-garcia-mena)]

This doesn't sound related to the indicator-sound, that is, as its name points out: an indicator. It does not manage the full audio system.

I don't know which should be the project to be assigned, but I'm marking this as invalid for the indicator to tidy up the bug list.

[Xavi Garcia (xavi-garcia-mena)]

Assigning to pulseaudio to see if we can keep track of this from a deeper perspective

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Silvio-frischi (silvio-frischi)]

I think I have the same but though my phone's sound works just occasionally sometimes garbled.

Whenever there is no jack plugged in and I start playing something dmesg prints
[ 416.722213] lipeng debug|[Sound_Speaker_Turnon] Speaker_Volume: 0

I also appended a version of 'pacmd info' when it's working and when it's not working, but I can't see a significant difference. So I think the problem is lower.

[Ian (i-hasman)]

I had the same problem (phone not audibly ringing) on an Aquaris E5 running Ubuntu 15.04 OTA 11.

I also had another 'irritation' in that some websites overrode my volume settings. Turn the volume right down, so as not to disturb others while watching video clips, then open up YouTube in the browser and start watching video. Despite the volume being right down audio blares out at full volume and you have to turn it down again.

It turned out that the two were connected. If you leave the webpage with audio turned down then you loose audio on the phone's ringer. To get audio back open the web page up again, turn up the volume so you can hear things and then close the tab for the site. The phone then rings as normal.

It looks like the website is forcing full audio and if you leave the page having turned the audio down then you are stuck with no ringer volume. I know it sounds weird but try it. At least it is a possible workaround and the 'mechanism' could be the root cause of the problem.

[Ian (i-hasman)]

Has anyone tried replicating #12?

[alcars (alcars)]

I tried replicating #12 with little success on my Aquaris E5. I too have no ring tone, dial tone or "bleep" when changing the volume, but headphones work just fine. I unmuted pathwind and made a factory reset to no avail.

But I noticed that when watching videos with the standard browser I get barely audible sound when turning up the volume. Unfortunately, changing the volume here has no effect on the ring tone etc. If the solution really is to find the exact web page or app that caused the problem, I am at a loss. For all I know, this could be a defunct app I immediately uninstalled and forgot all about, or a ad played by some news site.

Is there a tool similar to alsamixer for pulseaudio for independently controlling speaker volume an headphones volume? I tried (re)moving ~/.config/pulse, but that had no effect.

[Andrea Simonetti (simox)]

I can not replicate it . It seems like some times the phone come to a loop and until it is not finished , it wont turn on the big speaker.
Can this be helpful?

[Hrafn Malmquist (jabbi)]

I have a phone I've only owned for a couple of weeks. First off had 15.04 OTA-12, then upgraded to OTA-13 which solved a Wifi issue I had.

Sometime in the meantime audio disappeared all of a sudden without me giving it much attention first off.

Can not get external sounds currently. Tried checking volume controls on YouTube but no sound. Answering phone works well when going by vibrator. Sent an email to BQ support but haven't received an answer.

[Hrafn Malmquist (jabbi)]

Extraordinarily, my phone ran out of battery. I held the power button to try to turn it on, before I realised it had run out of battery, and the screen's edges briefly flashed.

When I turned the phone back on after having recharged the sound worked.

No idea if it'll go again.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Ubuntu Touch is no longer supported.