Lost sound for Skype and notifications

[pwabrahams]

A couple of days ago I had Skype working correctly, But today, when I make a test call (or any other call) I hear nothing. I also get no sound from the various system notifications such as login/logout. Yet the Skype test sound works, as do the music-playing applications such as Clementine.

What's going on here? And what can I do about it? I keep my system pretty up-to-date, so I assume I've been done in by some recent update.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Lost sound for Skype and notifications

When you press [Alt]+[F2] and enter phonon, do you see an image like this, where only the PulseAudio sound server is shown?

[img width=400 height=284]http://pulseaudio.org/raw-attachment/wiki/KDE/phonon-pulse-working-half.png[/img]

[pwabrahams]

phonon music setting

Not quite. Phonon shows "internal audio analog stereo", which is also what the pulseaudio volume control indicates. But see the attachment for another clue. I don't know how to interpret that at all.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Lost sound for Skype and notifications

I've seen that for removable sound devices (my Jabra headset causes that to happen all the time), but not for on-board sound. Hm. I'm not a Skype user. Have you checked the Ubuntu wiki for ideas on sound and Skype? From what I understand, it can be problematic at times.

[dibl]

Re: Lost sound for Skype and notifications

I'm using Skype on KDE 4.7.2 on Debian. It's working fine for me, for the most part. What is the problem -- microphone/input?

[pwabrahams]

Problem is the output

The problem is on the output side at least -- when I make a test call, I hear nothing at all, not even the ringing. There might also be a problem on the input side, but I can't determine that until I've solved the output problem.
It's likely that this misbehavior is system- and version- dependent, since my calls were working just fine a week ago. So I'm not too surprised that Skype doesn't currently have this problem under Debian.

[dibl]

Re: Lost sound for Skype and notifications

Does your sound system seem to work correctly for everything else -- can you play music files, flash videos, etc? If so, the problem would seem to be limited to skype.

[pwabrahams]

Pulseaudio volume control / playback tab

I've solved the problem at last. You should bring up the Pulseaudio Volume Control, either directly or via Skype (it doesn't matter which). Then go to the Playback tab and initiate a Skype call. At that point a line for Skype appears on the Playback tab, and that line enables you to unmute the volume.