Thursday, April 15, 2021

HDMI Audio not showing as an option

Ran a update today (4-15-2021) on my Ubuntu 20.04.1.  The update asked for a reset and I think I saw something about kernel 5.4 before the update started (after the update my kernel is 5.4.0-72-generic according to the uname -r command).  

After the reboot I had no audio (I use the HDMI Output to my monitors built-in speakers).  I checked my Sound Setting as some kernel updates in the past have flipped my sound output to Digital Output Built-in Sound.  I checked and sure enough it was flipped.  When I went to change it back there was only one sound output option (Digital Output Built-in), no HDMI to be found.  After some Googling I found this solution that worked for me:

Step 1

Open a terminal and run the following command:

pulseaudio -k

This kills the running sound process

Step 2

Physically unconnect then reconnect your monitor from the HDMI port while Ubuntu is running.

Step 3

Open Sound Settings and you should see the option of HDMI in the Output tab:


Hopefully this written howto will help someone who loses their sound after an update.  When Googling for help on this problem I ran across several videos with solutions but without sound they were not very helpful. 


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