No sound from Rhythmbox

Can you check whether the volume levels are set properly in Ubuntu? Double click the speaker icon on the upper-right corner of the screen to launch the volume control applet.

Also, if your computer has built-in soundcard apart from the SoundBlaster, make sure you disable that from the BIOS. Otherwise the audio might be going to that instead of your SB card.

Volume level is set to 100% and onboard audio is disabled in bios. Cds and music on HD play fine in windows XP media player but not in Totem.

Hi!

Do you get any sound from the system, i.e. when you log in? Did ubuntu recognize your SB card properly?

I doget sound when I boot into Ubuntu both at sign in and when the desktop loads so I think my sound card is properly recognized. What next?

Hmmm...have you checked the volume within Totem or Rythmbox? They have their own volume control, so maybe is at the lowest and that's why it seems music is playing but there's no sound. Look for a small speaker icon next to the "Sidebar" button at the bottom in Totem, and at the top right corner in Rythmbox.
Additionally, in Totem, you can check that the proper audio output configuration is enabled, by clicking "Edit"---Preferences---"Audio" tab and select your audio output type (probably just stereo).

Hope this helps :)

Volume level in Rythmbox set to highest level and still no sound!

you need to change the device in volume mixer to alsa and set the pcm volume. Or use alsamiser from a command line

That sound good,tv but I do not know how to get to the volume mixer in Rythmbox nor do I know how to enter the command alsamiser in the terminal. Is there a "Ubuntu for Dummies" out there somewhere?

method 1
- double click the volume icon top right
- file > change device > whatever says alsa
- slide the pcm volume way up (play with the rest of the sliders too)

method 2
- start a gnome-terminal (applications > accessories > terminal)
- type alsamixer
- slide pcm all the way up (play with the rest of the sliders too)

Sorry for maybe adding more newbie question to the issue, but I am having the exact same problems as described by Homer :(

I've tried your solution Method2, tv, but it doesn't work.
I'm not sure if I fully understand your method 2, but it seems to be
the exact same operation, only through a GUI, right?

I DO have sound on when linux (Ubuntu) boots up
I DO have sound in Audacity that seems to be using the PCM mode,
but STILL Rythmbox keeps annoying silent :(

Anyone else with experience within this area (or knows how the Python Console
in Rythmbox might be helpful in solving this irritating issue) as Rythmbox seems
to have a lot of nice features?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks tv, that solved my question.

I get music from the HD now after setting the rythmbox volume to highest setting. However I was never able to change the sliders in alsamixer when I entered in terminal! Thanks for all of your help.

tv, my issue is that I do have boot sound, I do have sound in Audacity, but still no sound in Rhythmbox.

I played around with the two methods you kindly suggested, but for Rhythmbox unfortunately all in vein :(

I HAVE noticed one thing, however: I have to start Rythmbox twice, always, when selecting it
through the GUI (the menus). I see some harddisk activity first time, but nothing appears on
the screen. I think a process has already started:

   Linux-Laptop:~$ ps -ef | grep rhythmbox
   Deccard 14529 1 0 01:20 ? 00:00:02 rhythmbox

Then when I restart it, it appears. So, maybe the first session locks the sound
device already?

Though, when I start it the second time, I see no new processes started???

  Linux-Laptop:~$ ps -ef | grep rhythmbox
  Deccard 14529 1 0 01:20 ? 00:00:02 rhythmbox
  Deccard 15404 15222 0 01:38 pts/0 00:00:00 grep rhythmbox

Very strange.

Since I'm fairly new to Ubuntu I'll have to ask you how to start the application from the cmd prompt? ;-)

T.I.A.

just type rhythmbox when you see
Linux-Laptop:~$

Still no sound in Rhythmbox, I'm just saw... :(

Thanks anyway for helping so far, tvrg ;)

Further investigation on the cmd promt shows however a missing socket:

  Deccard@Linux-Laptop:~$ which rhythmbox
  /usr/bin/rhythmbox
  Deccard@Linux-Laptop:~$ rhythmbox
  Rhythmbox: could not connect to socket <--------------!
  Rhythmbox: No such file or directory

Can it be a config someplace that's wrong or missing?

Anyone?

Deccard: are you using third party repositories for anything? I suspect your setup is broken somehow.

maybe you could try this:
GST_DEBUG_NO_COLOR=1 GST_DEBUG=5 rhythmbox &>log

and then you will have a log file in the directory you started the command from.
Maybe that will give some clues

Hmmm... not much to tell from the log file really, far as I can see:

0:00:00.000391000 23783 0x80f4028 INFO GST_INIT gst.c:578:init_pre: Initializing GStreamer Core Library version 0.10.12
0:00:00.000855000 23783 0x80f4028 INFO GST_INIT gst.c:579:init_pre: Using library installed in /usr/lib
0:00:00.000943000 23783 0x80f4028 INFO GST_INIT gst.c:589:init_pre: Linux Linux-Laptop 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Thu Jun 7 20:19:32 UTC 2007 i686
0:00:00.001553000 23783 0x80f4028 INFO GST_INIT gstquery.c:101:_gst_query_initialize: init queries
0:00:00.002377000 23783 0x80f4028 INFO GST_INIT gstmessage.c:72:_gst_message_initialize: init messages
0:00:00.003493000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_PLUGIN_LOADING gstplugin.c:172:_gst_plugin_register_static: queueing static plugin "staticelements" for loading later on
0:00:00.003710000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_PLUGIN_LOADING gstplugin.c:178:_gst_plugin_register_static: attempting to load static plugin "staticelements" now...
0:00:00.004074000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:293:gst_object_init:<GstObject@0x8116810> 0x8116810 new
0:00:00.004296000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_PLUGIN_LOADING gstplugin.c:255:gst_plugin_register_func: plugin "(NULL)" looks good
0:00:00.004421000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:293:gst_object_init:<GstObject@0x8117000> 0x8117000 new
0:00:00.004507000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_ELEMENT_FACTORY gstelementfactory.c:271:gst_element_register:<bin> Created new elementfactory for type GstBin
0:00:00.004821000 23783 0x80f4028 DEBUG bin gstbin.c:398:gst_bin_class_init: creating bin thread pool
0:00:00.005084000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:293:gst_object_init:<GstObject@0x8118838> 0x8118838 new
0:00:00.005188000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:325:gst_object_ref:<registry0> 0x8118838 ref 1->2
0:00:00.005246000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:379:gst_object_sink:<registry0> sink
0:00:00.005273000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:383:gst_object_sink:<registry0> clear floating flag
0:00:00.005307000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:352:gst_object_unref:<registry0> 0x8118838 unref 2->1
0:00:00.005359000 23783 0x80f4028 DEBUG GST_REGISTRY gstregistry.c:450:gst_registry_add_feature:<registry0> adding feature 0x8117000 (bin)
0:00:00.005386000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:325:gst_object_ref:<bin> 0x8117000 ref 1->2
0:00:00.005408000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:379:gst_object_sink:<bin> sink
0:00:00.005429000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:383:gst_object_sink:<bin> clear floating flag
0:00:00.005449000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REFCOUNTING gstobject.c:352:gst_object_unref:<bin> 0x8117000 unref 2->1
0:00:00.005470000 23783 0x80f4028 LOG GST_REGISTRY gstregistry.c:458:gst_registry_add_feature:<registry0> emitting feature-added for bin

BTW, I noticed that also VLC is "completely silent" when play music files and video with audio included.

This is over my head, I must say.

mine too, if you only have ubuntu official packages installed I would file a bug report.

I think you are right. I'll drop the issue.

But thanks anyway for your efforts here :)

Here is how I solved the problem.

System> Preferences> Sound.

Then in the movies and music section switch the "auto detect" to whatever works, for me it was ALSA. You might need to adjust these settings for other applications such as Skype.

Maxster's suggestion solved it for me too.

Thanks!

Master, you're my hero! Thanks!

Hi, just a suggest, try to close ALL apps. (specialy the Firefox) then open the Rhythmbox and try to play. When i did have a similar case, was that the Flash Player, in the FireFox was using the audio card, and don't le play any sound.

@ Rolando F.Blanco C.

Please don't append a new question on a already answered or marked as solved question.
Please make new question from here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion
you will get better chance to get right answer on a fresh tagged "open" question.
Solved question are usually not read from answering people.

Thank you

Masters solution worked for me also when nothing else would. Thanks

Maxster's suggestion solved my problem also, except that now , my computer shuts off automatically in midst while CD is playing.
If you could help.
David-

I want to thank Maxter for his suggestion that solved my audio problem.
Meanwhile I managed to fix the unexpected shut-offs through power managment,apparently, two different issues.
David-

Thank Maxter