[twizzle]

I was using XBMC on Ubuntu 8.10 and had installed it previously using one of the minimal install guides. I remember having a fehttp://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMCbuntuw issues with sound then but stupidly did not make a note of what I did.

Any way, a couple of days ago my install started to play up so I thought I would do a fresh one based on Ubuntu 9.10. Everything seems to have gone fine and XBMC starts automatically as expected but I have no sound.

My system is based on a ASUSTek Motherboard M3N78-VM and connects to the TV with a HDMI cable. The guide I followed was this one - http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMCbuntu

I have done a minimal install so can not play with settings in Gnome etc, however I can run:

speaker-test -twav -c6 -Dplug:hdmi

and hear sound (I only get front left and front right).

If I go into XBMC and select a video, all I get is white noise, If I play around with the audio settings in XBMC the white noise stops and I get nothing else.

It is driving me mad and I am sure it is a simple setting somewhere!

[paularms]

You're having the usual PulseAudio issues

There are quite a few solutions in that forum topic.

[dandirk]

If you have a pretty much dedicated HTPC and use spdif... (aka not a workstation + htpc)...

This is what I did to get sound working in xbmc...

Remove PulseAudio

Terminal: sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio

This will get spdif working for movies in xbmc but you will probably have issues with non-pass through audio aka mp3 and internal sound in ubuntu.

To fix this...

Terminal: sudo alsamixer

Find and unmute all iec958 outputs, you can unmute by pressing < or > should turn from MM to 00 (and green)