Sound Doesn’t Work After Running VLC – Fix

alsapulseaudiosoundvlc

I just recently installed Ubuntu 14.04 and now, after I ran VLC for the first time, the audio doesn't work anymore. Before, everything worked just fine, but as soon as I opened a mkv-Video in VLC, the audio for the whole system stopped working.

After that I removed VLC and any plugins that have been installed with it, rebooted, but nothing changed.

Neither my monitor speakers nor my headset is working anymore, so I think it might be a problem with pulseaudio.

EDIT

Here is a screenshot of my sound settings. Also to mention, my monitor speakers are hooked up to my nvidia graphics card via HDMI. (Newest graphics drivers are installed).

Sound Settings (GUI is German)

ANOTHER EDIT

I just noticed that YouTube videos also won't play anymore, neither video nor sound. It just freezes at the first frame, continues buffering but doesn't play.

I recently installed flashplayer, but removed it again because it was causing problems. So I'm using the native HTML5-Player of YouTube. I tried both Firefox and Chrome.

Best Answer

I just solved the problem by myself.

I once edited /etc/pulse/default.pa to disable the module-suspend-on-idle, because the first 0.5-1 second of each sound output was cut off. Guess I rather accept that than no sound.

As it turned out, I did this just before I launched VLC for the first time. Sorry for blaming you VLC ;)

YouTube now works again as well.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Audio applications not playing on 14.04

Try in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo killall pulseaudio

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install --reinstall pulseaudio

sudo service lightdm restart

or if didn't help

sudo shutdown -r now

Ubuntu – No sound with bluetooth headset, and media freezes

I have a Divoom Voombox-outdoor, and I had similar issues. Everything playing would stop/freeze and it would not work after I connected it.

After I have searched on the internet, I have found a procedure to do when connecting and removing it. On a initial connection (and unique if the procedures after this one are always made):

connect the bluetooth speaker/headset (may be using blueman or bluetoothctl or another equivalent);
with pavucontrol or blueman (or equivalent), turn off the bluetooth device;
disconnect the device.

Then connecting it (this time to work):

connect the bluetooth speaker/headset (may be using blueman or bluetoothctl or another equivalent);
with pavucontrol or blueman (or equivalent), choose the option High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink).

It would need to turn off the internal sound to make all programs use the bluetooth sink.

When disconnecting it:

with pavucontrol or blueman (or equivalent), turn off the sound device;
disconnect the bluetooth speaker/headset (may be using blueman or bluetoothctl or another equivalent).

The three procedures can be done using only blueman, as on it there are options to change the audio configuration.

What may happen is forgetting to turn the device off on pavucontrol before disconnecting, which will require to do again the first procedure. This is curious, because the speaker, sometimes, turn off when that is done, as if its firmware had crashed (this is still better than Windows 10, which asks to reboot).

I use Xubuntu 16.04, so there may be differences between the programs used, but the idea is to always turn off the sink of the device from pulseaudio before disconnecting it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Audio applications not playing on 14.04

Ubuntu – No sound with bluetooth headset, and media freezes

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