Audacity playback: No sound

[H.S.]

Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
> Ubuntu 8.04
> 
> Audacity ® 1.3.4-beta (Unicode)
> 
> Packard Bell Easy Note laptop: 1,6 GHz (dual core), 2 GB.
> 
> Procedure:
> 
> Open File (doesn't matter which one, as long as it is a supported file 
> format)
> 
> Click Play
> 
> Project plays but no sound can be heard. The output level meters 
> however, move as they should.
> 
> Ctrl+p
> 
> Nothing happens for about 15-20 seconds (very frustrating)
> 
> A dialogue window appears.
> 
> Playback device is set to ALSA: HDA Intel: AD198x Digital (hw: 0,1)
> 
> Change it to ALSA: HDA Intel: AD198x Analog(hw: 0,0)
> 
> Nothing happens for about 30 seconds (extremely frustrating)
> 
> Klick Play
> 
> Nothing happens for about 8 seconds (not acceptable but not very 
> frustrating either)
> 
> An error box appears: "Error while opening sound device. Please check 
> the output device settings and the project sample rate."
> 
> The thing about the sample rate just has to be nonsense, because I never 
> use anything else than 44.1 kHz. Whereever I look, it is set to 44.1 kHz 
> and all my sound files are 44.1 kHz files.
> 
> I guess Pulse Audio is involved somehow, but I don't really understand 
> what it's for and what to do with it. All I want to do is to edit some 
> sound files and hear the result, which I could easily with Audacity on 
> Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 on the very same laptop.
> 
> Any hints about next step in the troubleshooting procedure?
> 
> Johnny Rosenberg
> 


er .. just to confirm, can you play any other audio file using any other 
application?

I use audacity a lot and it works fine on Ubuntu. The only things I have 
to deal with are:
1. The appropriate output device should be selected. The device number 
might change on reboots if you have multiple output devices.
2. The volume of the output device should be non-zero. On a command 
terminal, type alsamixer and press enter. The GUI shows the volumes of 
all devices. Press left/right arrow keys to move between devices, 
up/down keys to adjust volume, and ESC to quit that GUI.