Pulseaudio Comanded To, "Silence"

[Bill vance]

Howdy folks;

Since I re-did my Lucid system a couple weeks ago, I've been having a real
nightmare getting Pulseaudio working again.  Nothing I've gotten from the
archives has worked, including pavucontrol, which fixed it last time.
Pavucontrol
did inadvertantly give me a clue though.  In the input and output
device windows,
the volume slider bars are lacking a slider, and on the left, just
below each empty
slider bar, is the word, "silence".  I have been unable to find this documented,
anywhere, in, "man pavucontrol", nor have I found it documented anywhere else.

Help!!!

Bill