Pulseaudio fails to detect card after recent update

[seanlano]

For months, audio has been working fine on this Dell XPS13 laptop. It is a fresh install of 16.04, from around the time it was released.
There were some pulseaudio updates installed on my machine today (see the attached apt term.log output). Since then, audio output has been unreliable.
I've discussed this a small amount on AskUbuntu http://askubuntu.com/a/852277/237387
I found that running this command to reinstall the updated packages would sometimes bring back audio output - sometimes for a while, but sometimes only for a few seconds after a reboot.

    sudo apt install --reinstall pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-x11 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 libpulse0 libpulsedsp

I can see Launchpad has several almost identical sounding bugs, from many years ago. #461258, #926840, #926840, #995961, #1132982. None of those were ever resolved. I hope this does not end the same way.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:8.0-0ubuntu3.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-47.68-generic 4.4.24
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-47-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse: Error: command ['fuser', '-v', '/dev/snd/by-path', '/dev/snd/hwC0D3', '/dev/snd/hwC0D0', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D3p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p', '/dev/snd/controlC0', '/dev/snd/seq', '/dev/snd/timer'] failed with exit code 1:
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Tue Nov 22 23:13:26 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-05-17 (189 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Symptom: audio
Symptom_Card: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
Symptom_Jack: Speaker, Internal
Title: [Dell System XPS L322X, Realtek ALC3260, Speaker, Internal] Pulseaudio fails to detect card
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 04/18/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A08
dmi.board.name: 0WW7PG
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: 0.1
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA08:bd04/18/2013:svnDellInc.:pnDellSystemXPSL322X:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0WW7PG:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr0.1:
dmi.product.name: Dell System XPS L322X
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[seanlano (seanlano)]

This is the Sound configuration options. Only "Dummy Output" shows up.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[seanlano (seanlano)]

OK, I've just started seeing this on my Toshiba W50X laptop, with Ubuntu 14.04 on it. It now shows no selectable outputs in the Sound Preferences window. I also have a desktop with an ASRock Z77 motherboard and Ubuntu 16.04 seeing the same thing!
What other info should I be gathering? It doesn't seem to be kernel related, I tried installing an older kernel on the affected desktop and it didn't help at all.

[seanlano (seanlano)]

OK, the problem on the 14.04 Toshiba laptop was resolved by removing the squeezelite package. I will test this on the Dell 16.04 laptop as well.

[seanlano (seanlano)]

Also fixed on the Dell laptop. Seems to be a problem with the `squeezelite` package.
See https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1636253

I think this specific bug can be closed, my initial problem is resolved.

[seanlano (seanlano)]

Found to be related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1636253