Can't hear the music in Ubuntu Hardy (8.04)

Submitted by AzizLight on Fri, 2008-10-03 18:53

Forums:

Hi everybody,
I just installed Ubuntu 8.04 on a new pc, and the first program I installed is MOC players. I tried to play some music, it worked but I couldn't hear the music; I see the music play, I see the time advancing, but I can't hear the music. I didn't get errors when I installed it or when I tried to play music (I didn't get any errors). I checked the volume from the panel but it didn't work. I tried to install the ffmpeg plugin but it didn't work either. In the meantime, I also tried to play music with Totem, and it asked me to install the proprietary codecs package (which I did) and I was able to play music...but it still doesn't work in moc. I tried to restart my pc but it didn't work either...
I tried to type lspci in a terminal to check what soundcard I have (no I don't know what sound card I have):
Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS

To summerize the situation: I can play music using both totem and moc but I only can hear the music with totem...

Does anybody know how to fix that please?

AzizLight

Fri, 2008-10-03 19:04

Sorry for the double post, I think I posted the wrong soundcard info, here's the right one (I think):
Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

smr

Wed, 2009-02-25 18:04

Ok, the problem in my box was that I had motherboard's built-in (non-working) sound card set as alsa default.

I fixed it with

$ asoundconf list
$ asoundconf set-default-card [name of actual working card]

daper

Sat, 2008-10-04 12:32

I've never seen such issue, but try running alsamixer and increasing various volume bars.

stekker

Wed, 2008-10-29 16:04

Hi Azizlight,

Hardy uses PulseAudio on top of Alsa and pulseaudio is real pain in the **** !!
if it works is it works but most of the time it can behave quite unstable, this is how it works:

Pulse is an audio daemon designed to replace ESD. The function of this audio daemon is to mix several audiostreams from different programs into one stream that can be processed by your soundcard driver.

One drawback: pulseaudio claims the soundcard thus prohibiting every other program to have access at it. Other way around: if your program (like moc) sends audio to the soundcard and succeeds then pulseaudio can't access the soundcard anymore and your systemsounds (and other apps) can't give you any sound.

open a terminal and try this:
$ padsp mocp

it will put a pulseaudiowrapper around the OSS output of moc.
you will have to set the output of moc to OSS in the config file.
if that doesn't work the try to suspend pulseaudio during the use of mocp.

$ pasuspender mocp

and if that doesn't work; kill the basterd:

$ sudo killall pulseaudio
$ mocp

Let us know if it helped you one way or another
(oh, btw, don't type the $ signs - they are already there, your prompts)

smr

Tue, 2009-02-24 20:53

Hi,

I have exactly the same problem in exactly the same OS. I can play audio through any program in the GUI (vlc, totem etc..), but moc thinks it plays music (the progress bar runs smoothly), while nothing can be heard. A line from my lspci:

01:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB0400 Audigy2 Value

Stekker, your suggestions didn't help, me at least. I have gotten moc to run properly a few times, these times PCM volume showed 00% and it could not be adjusted. When it plays, but I can't hear audio, PCM volume can be adjusted. I'm baffled. :E

AcidAndroid

Sun, 2009-03-29 18:33

hello
I have the same problem but my ubuntu version is 8.04 server and Installed alsa and alsautils, when i tried to use the comands you recoment i get the errors saying that i have not installed pulseuadio, I alta tried eh comands
$ asoundconf list
(the resulta was
CK804
UART)
$ asoundconf set-default-card (I tried both cards)

but i still doesn't work. Should i tried to install pulseaudio??
Thanks for your time