Bug#1001645: pulseaudio: My system has no sound at all, after upgrading

[Ray Dillinger]

I have the same issue.  Also caused by upgrade. Causes almost any 
program that attempts to play sound to freeze. I twigged that it was 
pulseaudio when a non-pulseaudio using video player was the only 
sound-playing thing on my system that DIDN'T freeze.


And I found a workaround.


When you are about to start an audio stream, open a terminal and enter 
the command:


pulseaudio -k


Then within a few seconds after that, go and start the audio stream. If 
you wait too long it doesn't work.

However, even when it's working you may not hear it, or you may hear it 
at an absurdly low volume, because it may start up with a randomized 
volume level.  I have a pulseaudio plugin named 'pavucontrol' on my 
taskbar. I open that plugin and set the pulseaudio output level to 100%.

"pulseaudio -k" is a command to kill the pulseaudio daemon. I suspect 
that when a new instance of the daemon starts up it's in a usable state 
for a few seconds but then somehow becomes unusable unless actually put 
to work. I have no idea what triggers the unusable state, but it seems 
to happen within fifteen seconds of non-use.

As long as there is continuous audio output after starting the audio 
stream, it works normally. Music players that start playing the next 
song immediately after the previous one ends don't have a problem. But 
if audio output ever completely stops, pulseaudio goes to the unusable 
blocking state within a few seconds.

I've been starting an audiobook with the volume at 0.1% and then 
minimizing the reader.  This keeps the audio channel open for days but 
is completely inaudible on my speakers.  So I can use youtube, play 
sound files on the web, use music players, play games with sound 
effects, etc, at normal volume without problems.


                 Bear