I hope you’re all doing well! I’m new to this forum and also new to using Ubuntu, so please bear with me if I’ve missed something obvious.
I’ve been trying to resolve a sound issue on my Ubuntu 24.04 VPS when accessing it via remote desktop, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Installed PulseAudio and its related modules.
Configured PulseAudio to work with xRDP.
Restarted PulseAudio and other related services.
Added my user to the audio group.
Verified and set the correct sound devices.
Made sure the remote desktop client settings are configured to enable sound.
Checked logs to confirm that everything is set up properly.
Despite these steps, I still can’t get the sound to work on my local machine. Has anyone faced a similar issue or has any suggestions for troubleshooting this?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I’d really appreciate any help or advice you can share!
I am seeking help resolving a persistent issue where my Ubuntu VPS does not recognize any soundcards, either physical or virtual. Despite extensive troubleshooting, the problem remains unresolved. Below is a summary of the steps I have taken so far:
PulseAudio Installation and Configuration:
Installed and reinstalled PulseAudio.
Verified that the configuration file /etc/pulse/default.pa was missing, so I recreated it manually and added module-null-sink to enable a virtual audio device.
Restarted PulseAudio, but no soundcards were detected (aplay -l returned “no soundcards found”).
Kernel and Sound Module Checks:
Attempted to load the snd-dummy module using modprobe, but received the error: “module snd-dummy not found.”
Installed linux-modules-extra-$(uname -r) to ensure kernel modules were available.
Upgraded to the latest generic kernel and rebooted, but the issue persisted.
Audio Device and Permissions:
Checked /dev/snd/ for device nodes but found none, indicating no recognized sound devices.
Verified user permissions and added the user to the audio group.
Additional Debugging:
Inspected PulseAudio logs (pulseaudio -vvv) and kernel logs (dmesg | grep snd), but found no relevant errors.
Consulted documentation and forums, but no solution worked for this VPS environment.
Key Observations:
The VPS appears to lack physical or virtual sound hardware.
The snd-dummy module is unavailable, and no soundcards are detected.
The issue might stem from limitations in the VPS environment or kernel configuration.
Any advice on enabling sound functionality in this scenario would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and support!
Most VPS providers don’t include sound card hardware or virtualization by default, as VPS instances are typically used for server applications that don’t require audio.
There are a few approaches we can take depending on your actual needs:
If you need to process audio without playback:
You can use a “dummy” output device through ALSA’s snd-dummy driver or PulseAudio’s module-null-sink
Or use alternate libraries like PortAudio or Sox that can work without actual audio hardware
If you specifically need audio processing:
# Install ALSA utilities and dummy driver
sudo apt-get install alsa-utils linux-sound-base
# Load the dummy sound driver
sudo modprobe snd-dummy
# Create a basic ALSA config
echo "pcm.dummy {
type hw
card 0
}" | sudo tee /etc/asound.conf
For PulseAudio virtual devices:
# First ensure PulseAudio is installed
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio
# Create a virtual sink
pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=virtual_speaker
# List the available sinks
pactl list short sinks
However, the most important thing is understanding what you’re trying to achieve first. Are you:
Trying to process audio files?
Running an application that requires an audio device?
Trying to stream audio somewhere?
Each has different optimal solutions that may not require audio hardware. It would be helpful if you could clarify your end goal so we can suggest the most appropriate approach.
I’m in a similar situation as you in terms of sound issues. The only thing you can do to confirm whether it is the same as me is to submit hardware information about your setup. Since you are using PulseAudio you can submit the output from pacmd list-cards . You can also use hwinfo --sound , dmesg | grep audio and dmesg | grep snd. You can also try to post the output from inxi -FAxz
You could try to make sure you use the latest BIOS and firmware on the computer and if you are bold enough you can try to replace PulseAudio with PipeWire that one day may replace the PulseAudio stack. Instructions on how to update to PipeWire can be found here
If it can be established that you have the same issues as me, then you could support a bug report so that it shows up in the statistics that this is a wide-spread issue
By nature of what popey just wrote, I’d wager that these are quite distinct issues. A VPS is very different from a laptop, and he is using PulseAudio while I’m (atm) using PipeWire.
Thank you for your detailed recommendations. I carefully followed all the steps you provided to resolve the issue, but unfortunately, I still couldn’t achieve success. Below, I’ve detailed all the commands I ran along with their respective outputs for better clarity. I also reached out to my VPS service provider, and they confirmed that sound can be supported but left the configuration entirely to me.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
alsa-utils is already the newest version (1.2.9-1ubuntu5).
linux-sound-base is already the newest version (1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu7).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Result: Both utilities were already installed. No issues during this step.
Loading the Dummy Sound Driver
Command: sudo modprobe snd-dummy
Output: No error was displayed, indicating the command executed successfully. However, there were no noticeable changes or improvements.
PulseAudio Installation and Configuration
Command: sudo apt-get install pulseaudio
Output:
csharp
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
pulseaudio is already the newest version (1:16.1+dfsg1-2ubuntu10).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Issue: The module-null-sink command failed to execute, and I could not proceed further with this step.
Checking the JACK Audio Server
Command: When attempting to run JACK Audio Server (automatically or manually), the following error appeared:
vbnet
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
Error: Can't open display:
Result: The server failed to initialize.
Despite following your suggestions step by step, the issue remains unresolved. The major blockers were:
The pactl load-module module-null-sink command failing.
JACK Audio Server not running correctly, resulting in display errors.
Since the VPS service provider confirmed sound can be supported, but left the configuration to me, I would greatly appreciate any additional insights or suggestions. Could there be other dependencies or configurations required?
Thank you for your suggestions. I ran the commands you mentioned and here is the output specifically from the inxi -FAxz command regarding the audio section:
Audio:
Message: No device data found.
API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-51-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: off
Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 status: off
Additional Notes:
The output suggests that no audio device data is detected, which might indicate either a hardware or configuration issue.
Both PipeWire and PulseAudio are installed but currently in the “off” status.
The ALSA API seems to be active under the kernel.
I also tried the other commands you recommended, such as pacmd list-cards, hwinfo --sound, and dmesg | grep audio, but they either returned no relevant data or similar results indicating no audio devices.
Since I’m relatively new to Linux, I’d appreciate knowing the easiest and most beginner-friendly way to address this issue. Should I proceed with replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire as you suggested? Or is there another simpler approach I could take to troubleshoot and resolve this?
Additionally, I’ve confirmed with my VPS provider that audio can technically be supported, but the configuration is entirely up to me. Any further guidance or clarification would be greatly appreciated!
I don’t feel that I’m qualified enough to give advice on whether to uninstall PulseAudio and move on to PipeWire. What I can tell from your last post is that you don’t seem to have the same issues as I have.
From the inxi command it looks like you have both PipeWire and PulseAudio installed which may be an issue. At the same time there is no device whatsoever detected.
Maybe you can try to locate what audio hardware you have in the system with lspci or (lspci -vvv, the more 'v’s you stack on it, the more verbose it gets) and find out what driver you have for that hardware. Then you can try to dmesg grep for that driver to see if there are messages indicating that the driver failed to initialize that hardware. Also the command journalctl -b could reveal some more info about this.