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No Sound In Internet Browsers? Easy Fix!

star treker

Sat May 25, 2019 5:56:32 pm

NOTE: I run my video and sound output digitally through HDMI, depending on your setup, you might be using the built in speakers on your notebook, or the analog speaker output jack. Change your setting as according to the setup you are using.

So, imagine my surprise when I wake in the morning and go to use my computer, oh no, there is no sound, what happened? Lots of times Linux changes my sound output from HDMI to the built in notebook speakers for no apparent reason. Its possible its due to the screensaver running, as this never seems to happen when I am using the computer. Normally, just going into the SOUND app under SETTINGS, and changing the OUTPUT back to HDMI fixes everything. However, this time, it did not!

I started realizing that there was no sound on my computer in general, even after changing the sound output back to HDMI. I confirmed by testing the sound output settings. I clicked on FRONT LEFT, and I heard through my headphones FRONT LEFT. Then I clicked on FRONT RIGHT, and I heard through my headphones FRONT RIGHT. So that confirmed that my sound selection was correct and that the audio driver was functioning, but why still no sound?

I remembered that VLC has an audio output selector within the app, so I decided to check it, sure enough, it had built in speakers selected. So I changed it to HDMI output, and walla, I am hearing sound through one of my video's playing through the VLC player! So I go back to my internet browser, chrome, no sound playing in Youtube video's. So I loaded Firefox, same issue. At first I thought it was a Chrome specific issue cause I've switched to using Chrome primarily due to it being a better browser. I was looking up all these things to try to do in Chrome to fix to no avail.

So while searching through the intertubes, I discovered this web page...
https://askubuntu.com/questions/799899/ ... e-internet

A guy on there was talking about how he fixed his sound issues by installing and running pavcontrol. I thought, what the heck, why not. So I installed it and ran it for the first time. I immediately noticed how much of a better APP it is over the default SOUND app in Zorin. I made a few settings changes to suit my setup, nothing really major though. I then decided to play a Youtube video while pavcontrol was still loaded, as I wanted to gauge playback volumes. I didn't even get to check that because all the sudden the audio was working again, and I was able to hear sound playing from Youtube again.

I am not a Linux programmer or developer, so I can't really give you a conclusive answer as to what the heck happened to my system. But I can give you a guess...When the system switched itself to built in speakers ouput, and I changed it back to HDMI, something malfunctioned in the driver that prevented the change back to HDMI from taking 100%. By installing and loading pavcontrol, something about how that app works corrected the malfunction.

Hopefully this helps anyone who is having this issue. I didn't put it in one of the upper Zorin sections because I didn't feel that this was a Zorin specific issue, rather a Linux in general issue.

Swarfendor437

Sat May 25, 2019 6:25:22 pm

smithy

Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:17:19 am

I have had the same issue with both Chrome and Firefox audio.
When audio and video from a browser are toggled through settings>sound to played through HDMI as per this screenshot the sound works great.

Screenshot from 2019-06-18 20-14-25.png


When the HDMI cable is unplugged after being used for audio this causes no sound/audio from the computer.
The sound controls in Zorin 15 offer no solution as per the screenshot below:

Screenshot from 2019-06-18 20-15-20.png


Installing pavcontrol shows that in the background the computer is still trying to play sound through HDMI which why there was no sound coming from the internal speakers.
Pavcontrol allows you to toggle between the internal speaker and HDMI and is one solution to this issue.
I have uninstalled pavcontrol and still have the same issue.
I have found having the HDMI cable plugged in also allows me to toggle between HDMI and internal speaker outputs in settings>sound, it just means I have to remember to toggle back to internal speakers before unplugging the HDMI cable ;)

Is there any of getting the HDMI option to show in settings>sound without the HDMI cable being plugged in?
Or is the anyway of getting the system to automatically reset itself back to the internal speaker output when the HDMI cable is unplugged?

Doing a little research other ubuntu based OS's seem to have similar issues especially with the Chrome browser so I don't think this is specifically a Zorin issue?
I am really enjoying Zorin 15 apart from this minor issue :D