Recently, I noticed this very strange issue with sound and video playback in Ubuntu 24.04 with kernel Linux 6.8.0-57-lowlatency #59.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC on a Dell XPS Laptop: When HDMI and earphones are not connected, it cannot output sound. I still can set the sound level in the top right corner, but it does not make any sound. In the system settings, Ubuntu lists "no output devices" in the playback category. Cable-bound earphones and HDMI do not show this issue.
Another, possibly related issue: Video playback on YouTube hangs after just a second indefinitely. It looks like it has to load the video, but the timeline already indicates that a good chunk of the video has been loaded. I can solve this problem temporarily by restarting the Pipewire service with systemctl --user restart pipewire, but it will re-appear later - either when starting another video or after waking up from standby. Strange: playback of mp4 files with mpv and vlc work fine.
Yet another, possibly related issue: When connecting my Bluetooth earphones, it shows them as "connected" for about a second, then immediately disconnects them again. The earphones don't notice a connection. Of course, no sound output. I already have had an issue with Bluetooth earphones and tried its solution, but to no avail.
These problems all have something to do with sound/media playback and I noticed them at around the same time, so I believe, they may be related. Except for regular updates, I haven't changed my audio stack on my system and I believe this problem started after having installed the video conferencing software WebEx.
Of course, I already applied the newest updates, tried to restart the computer, and uninstalled WebEx. Restarting Pipewire does not work, nor restarting pulseaudio, nor does reinstalling and reloading the bluetooth module of pulseaudio.
pactl load-module module-detect, as suggested here printed 23 and it gave me two sound devices: Built-in sound output device and Speakers, of which the first one is selected. When I select "Speakers", it re-activates the sound. However,
all sound works fine until I reboot again. I have to run the pactl command every time after a reboot.
is not very ideal. Something is still broken. It also does only solve the sound problem temporarily, not the video playback and bluetooth phones problem.
How to solve this issue?
Update: I found that pulseaudio and pipewire are installed and running on my computer and pipewire-pulseaudio was listed in apt as 'configuration required'. After uninstalling pulseaudio and re-installing pipewire-pulseaudio together with other packages, such as pipewire-audio and now, video playback works, but no sound output whatsoever - neither via cable earphones, speakers or HDMI. Also the bluetooth headphones continue to be automatically disconnected after a second.
Update 2: Since I couldn't find a better solution and limited available time, I decided to reset my system to an older state with TimeShift. Everything is working now.
