Ubuntu – ALSA does not see sound cards after restoring previous HOME

I have trouble with sound on a fresh installation of 12.04. I have just installed a new graphics card and with that, I decided to install 12.04 from scratch. Previously, the computer ran 11.04 and I reused the old /home partition. In 11.04 there were no issues.

I have an Audigy 2 card, which is also reflected nicely by alsa:

xerxes@xerxes:/proc/asound$ cat cards
 0 [Audigy2        ]: Audigy2 - SB Audigy 2 Platinum [SB0240P]
                      SB Audigy 2 Platinum [SB0240P] (rev.4, serial:0x10021102) at 0xec00, irq 16
 1 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xfe89c000 irq 45

However, I have no sound. If I click the sound icon in the top bar, an empty menu opens, as in this picture:

When I try to enter the sound settings (via System Settings -> Sound), the System Settings window crashes. When I try to enter the audio settings in VLC Player (via Tools -> Preferences -> Audio), VLC Player crashes. When I try to simply play music in Rhythmbox, it crashes. I cannot open pavucontrol. Alsamixer runs fine in the terminal and shows the Audigy card.

aplay -l outputs nothing, but sudo aplay -l outputs:

xerxes@xerxes:/proc/asound$ aplay -l
Home directory /home/xerxes not ours.
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 Platinum [SB0240P]], device 0: emu10k1 [ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback]
  Subdevices: 32/32
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
  Subdevice #8: subdevice #8
  Subdevice #9: subdevice #9
  Subdevice #10: subdevice #10
  Subdevice #11: subdevice #11
  Subdevice #12: subdevice #12
  Subdevice #13: subdevice #13
  Subdevice #14: subdevice #14
  Subdevice #15: subdevice #15
  Subdevice #16: subdevice #16
  Subdevice #17: subdevice #17
  Subdevice #18: subdevice #18
  Subdevice #19: subdevice #19
  Subdevice #20: subdevice #20
  Subdevice #21: subdevice #21
  Subdevice #22: subdevice #22
  Subdevice #23: subdevice #23
  Subdevice #24: subdevice #24
  Subdevice #25: subdevice #25
  Subdevice #26: subdevice #26
  Subdevice #27: subdevice #27
  Subdevice #28: subdevice #28
  Subdevice #29: subdevice #29
  Subdevice #30: subdevice #30
  Subdevice #31: subdevice #31
card 0: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 Platinum [SB0240P]], device 2: emu10k1 efx [Multichannel Capture/PT Playback]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 Platinum [SB0240P]], device 3: emu10k1 [Multichannel Playback]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 Platinum [SB0240P]], device 4: p16v [p16v]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Any ideas are much appreciated 🙂