Fixing the Ubuntu 16.4 LTS startup sound

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scharfshutze009

2[H]4U
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May 22, 2010
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I recently upgraded one of my systems to Ubuntu 16.4 LTS, but the when the startup sound plays it literally sounds like someone farting. How do I fix this because it shows up here:


/usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg

and sound works fine otherwise.
 
scharfshutze009 said:
I recently upgraded one of my systems to Ubuntu 16.4 LTS, but the when the startup sound plays it literally sounds like someone farting. How do I fix this because it shows up here:


/usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg

and sound works fine otherwise.
Click to expand...

You sure that is not the way it is supposed to be? ;) It almost sounds like something is hanging up the sound but, what happens if you use a different sound file?
 
Replace system-ready.ogg with any sound file you like and that sound file will play on startup.
 
I have had the same problem in the past, something is not fully loaded when it starts to play the chime and it sounds totally distorted. I don't remember what fixed it.

I usually disable all system sounds anyway. I cringe when I see people use their computers and all those 'blingelibling, TADAA, whoooosh' annoyances play and people are just cool, clicking away while I'm gnawing my nails.
 
BulletDust said:
Replace system-ready.ogg with any sound file you like and that sound file will play on startup.
Click to expand...

Thanks I found the file in cmd, but how can I fix it or get a copy that isn't corrupted:

username@hostname:~$ ls -l /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 May 8 2016 /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg -> dialog-question.ogg
 
scharfshutze009 said:
Thanks I found the file in cmd, but how can I fix it or get a copy that isn't corrupted:

username@hostname:~$ ls -l /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 May 8 2016 /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg -> dialog-question.ogg
Click to expand...

I tried the cd, but the find command couldn't find it and I used the command pretty much as follows:

find /media/username/Ubuntu\ 16\.04\.2\ LTS\ amd64/ -iname "system-ready.ogg"

Looks like I'll have to take the file from my Dual Boot workstation.
 
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scharfshutze009 said:
I tried the cd, but the find command couldn't find it and I used the command pretty much as follows:

find /media/username/Ubuntu\ 16\.04\.2\ LTS\ amd64/ -iname "system-ready.ogg"

Looks like I'll have to take the file from my Dual Boot workstation.
Click to expand...

You don't always have to use terminal, sometimes firing up the GUI is actually easier in certain situations.

Using the terminal to change the startup sound is like killing a fly....With a cannon.
 
Scharfie I think that won't work, look at b00nie's response - it's a problem with the sound subsystem not being 100% ready at the moment the sound is played back.
 
michalrz said:
Scharfie I think that won't work, look at b00nie's response - it's a problem with the sound subsystem not being 100% ready at the moment the sound is played back.
Click to expand...

I thought we came to this conclusion ages ago? Not too sure why the thread was reopened?
 
BulletDust said:
You don't always have to use terminal, sometimes firing up the GUI is actually easier in certain situations.

Using the terminal to change the startup sound is like killing a fly....With a cannon.
Click to expand...

Yes, but I probably need to elevate to root to change it and elevating to root in the GUI probably won't work. Besides I know enough about how to use command line.
 
BulletDust said:
I thought we came to this conclusion ages ago? Not too sure why the thread was reopened?
Click to expand...

Not really because I still haven't fixed this issue. I forgot to get a copy of this sound from my desktop anyway, which is not at my apartment with me.
 
scharfshutze009 said:
Not really because I still haven't fixed this issue. I forgot to get a copy of this sound from my desktop anyway, which is not at my apartment with me.
Click to expand...

Can you try just any random sound instead just to make sure it'll work?
 
This doesn't sound like a messed up file. It sounds like your system is trying to play sounds before pulse audio is loaded completely.

Having said that most distros have systemd start pulseaudio only in user space. So if you are setup and using the root account instead of a user account as per normal. It is possible that when your system goes to play that sound the pulse audio system needs to be started at the same time... which I imagine could lead to playback garbling. For a user account systemd in most cases should start pulseaudio after its done start alsa but before it hands off to your login manager.... meaning garbled startup sounds shouldn't really be an issue unless its some strange hardware related problem.

If you are using a root account.... the fix would be to either change your systemd and have it start pulseaudio for the root. Or leave it be and just disable your start up sound completely. If you need the pulse audio system at any point software will load it. (more likely your DE will auto load pulse audio when it loads your volume/control applets)
 
Scharf do you have autologin enabled? That may affect it.
 
As far as I can tell, this isn't really an issue as such. It's just the order that systemd is starting services, with Pulseaudio obviously being of lower priority than is otherwise ideal.
 
BulletDust said:
As far as I can tell, this isn't really an issue as such. It's just the order that systemd is starting services, with Pulseaudio obviously being of lower priority than is otherwise ideal.
Click to expand...

Most likely it has to do with his default systemd setup. In arch and most distros pulseaudio.socket is found in /user... like this; /etc/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/pulseaudio.socket

My guess is considering some of the ops other posts he is logging in directly as root... which means pulse isn't starting at all until it is called on. Which is causing less then perfect playback while his IO is being slammed with other start jobs or something like that.

I shouldn't explain how to do this as it can cause other issues ... and you really shouldn't be using root like a user login... but here it is. This would start pulse audio on boot even for root.

Copy and paste this into; /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service
[Unit]
Description=PulseAudio Daemon

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=simple
PrivateTmp=true
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio –system –realtime –disallow-exit –no-cpu-limit

Then run
systemctl enable pulseaudio && systemctl start pulseaudio

I could be wrong and he is logging in with a user account... and he just has a corrupted audio file. :)
 
BulletDust said:
Driver issue perhaps?
Click to expand...

He did say in the first post that his sound works fine other wise. It just farts the first sound. lol

So either the file is corrupted which should be easy to check... or pulseaudio is loading to play the sound. (which should still work fine really) of course if its during start and his computer is busy loading other daemons and his IO is pretty maxed out I think that could end up making fart sounds. lol I really get the feeling he is doing something strange like logging in as root instead of as a user. I say that because almost every distro, I'm pretty sure ubuntu as well... don't start pulse audio for root. However most DEs will start it when an audio is played or pulse is requested by something like the pulseaudio volume control applet. In most distros system wide pulse settings are in /etc/pulse/client.conf you will find an option to autospawn that is normally set to yes. Its also possible I believe to override those settings per user copying said files to ~/.config/pulse .

So if he is logging in as root... systemd isn't starting pulse. His DE then loads and requests the audio which reads the autospawn config for pulse and starts pulse... and his system is busy maxing everything out starting up, so he gets fart fart fart instead of smooth playback. So either he wants to change systemd to auto start pulse first, stop using a root account instead of user (if that is the case) or... if that is the only thing that bothers him, just disable the silly start sound completely. (another stupid fix is to edit the audio and add 1-2s of silence before the sound. lmao hey its a simple fix, perhaps inelegant but simple.)
 
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ChadD said:
He did say in the first post that his sound works fine other wise. It just farts the first sound. lol

So either the file is corrupted which should be easy to check... or pulseaudio is loading to play the sound. (which should still work fine really) of course if its during start and his computer is busy loading other daemons and his IO is pretty maxed out I think that could end up making fart sounds. lol I really get the feeling he is doing something strange like logging in as root instead of as a user. I say that because almost every distro, I'm pretty sure ubuntu as well... don't start pulse audio for root. However most DEs will start it when an audio is played or pulse is requested by something like the pulseaudio volume control applet. In most distros system wide pulse settings are in /etc/pulse/client.conf you will find an option to autospawn that is normally set to yes. Its also possible I believe to override those settings per user copying said files to ~/.config/pulse .

So if he is logging in as root... systemd isn't starting pulse. His DE then loads and requests the audio which reads the autospawn config for pulse and starts pulse... and his system is busy maxing everything out starting up, so he gets fart fart fart instead of smooth playback. So either he wants to change systemd to auto start pulse first, stop using a root account instead of user (if that is the case) or... if that is the only thing that bothers him, just disable the silly start sound completely.
Click to expand...

I believe you're right. I don't even have a startup sound, I hate the startup 'chime' on my Mac (however that always sleeps, so I rarely hear it).
 
When you and your system are comfortable farting in front of one another, that means it's a mature relationship. Fifth base.
 
ChadD said:
Most likely it has to do with his default systemd setup. In arch and most distros pulseaudio.socket is found in /user... like this; /etc/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/pulseaudio.socket

My guess is considering some of the ops other posts he is logging in directly as root... which means pulse isn't starting at all until it is called on. Which is causing less then perfect playback while his IO is being slammed with other start jobs or something like that.

I shouldn't explain how to do this as it can cause other issues ... and you really shouldn't be using root like a user login... but here it is. This would start pulse audio on boot even for root.

Copy and paste this into; /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service
[Unit]
Description=PulseAudio Daemon

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=simple
PrivateTmp=true
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio –system –realtime –disallow-exit –no-cpu-limit

Then run
systemctl enable pulseaudio && systemctl start pulseaudio

I could be wrong and he is logging in with a user account... and he just has a corrupted audio file. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not logging in directly as root. I'm logging in as my standard user, which may have administrative priviledges to allow it to sudo to root in terminal or elevate to root in the GUI when it asks though. I'm sure though I'm not logging in as root though because I see my standard users username when logging in at startup and when the system locks the screen after putting the system on standby. Thanks though because this might help though.
 
ChadD said:
He did say in the first post that his sound works fine other wise. It just farts the first sound. lol

So either the file is corrupted which should be easy to check... or pulseaudio is loading to play the sound. (which should still work fine really) of course if its during start and his computer is busy loading other daemons and his IO is pretty maxed out I think that could end up making fart sounds. lol I really get the feeling he is doing something strange like logging in as root instead of as a user. I say that because almost every distro, I'm pretty sure ubuntu as well... don't start pulse audio for root. However most DEs will start it when an audio is played or pulse is requested by something like the pulseaudio volume control applet. In most distros system wide pulse settings are in /etc/pulse/client.conf you will find an option to autospawn that is normally set to yes. Its also possible I believe to override those settings per user copying said files to ~/.config/pulse .

So if he is logging in as root... systemd isn't starting pulse. His DE then loads and requests the audio which reads the autospawn config for pulse and starts pulse... and his system is busy maxing everything out starting up, so he gets fart fart fart instead of smooth playback. So either he wants to change systemd to auto start pulse first, stop using a root account instead of user (if that is the case) or... if that is the only thing that bothers him, just disable the silly start sound completely. (another stupid fix is to edit the audio and add 1-2s of silence before the sound. lmao hey its a simple fix, perhaps inelegant but simple.)
Click to expand...

Thanks this might help too, even it may not be as helpful as ChadD's reply. If I could find solutions to unusual problems, like this in the documentation, ASK Ubuntu, or Official Online Documentation and if I could get a response back from askUbuntu I wouldn't need to ask here. This is such an unusual problem because I've never had to fix corrupt, missing, or problems with the startup sound before. I gotta learn sometime though and hopefully remember how to fix it and that's if the solution doesn't change too.
 
BulletDust said:
Driver issue perhaps?
Click to expand...

Maybe, but how would I fix a default driver in Linux, because it's not like it's as easy as going to Windows Device Manager and possibly just clicking on reinstall driver or update driver if I using a valid example considering I rarely have problems like this in Windows. If I do they generally mean the hardware is faulty, like it was when I thought I fixed my cousins Compaq AMD Athlon 64x2 system that I can't remember the model name of and it turned out the onboard network card didn't work. Several people on here went to all kinds of trouble to help me figure out why my internet connection wasn't working on my server and it also turned out the be a faulty Ethernet controller.
 
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Honestly, though I just want to try replacing the startup sound with a known good one to see if it's corrupt, but I keep forgetting to copy it from my desktop that's still at my parents because I don't have room for it at my apartment. Thanks though for all the suggestions, because they might help and have helped me discover new solutions to this problem. I'm not sure what happened though and it's been like this ever since I upgraded from Ubuntu 14.4.x LTS to Ubuntu 16.4.2 LTS, which I'm not sure what I did wrong. I will try the other current solutions posted though in reply.
 
ChadD said:
Most likely it has to do with his default systemd setup. In arch and most distros pulseaudio.socket is found in /user... like this; /etc/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/pulseaudio.socket

My guess is considering some of the ops other posts he is logging in directly as root... which means pulse isn't starting at all until it is called on. Which is causing less then perfect playback while his IO is being slammed with other start jobs or something like that.

I shouldn't explain how to do this as it can cause other issues ... and you really shouldn't be using root like a user login... but here it is. This would start pulse audio on boot even for root.

Copy and paste this into; /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service
[Unit]
Description=PulseAudio Daemon

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=simple
PrivateTmp=true
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio –system –realtime –disallow-exit –no-cpu-limit

Then run
systemctl enable pulseaudio && systemctl start pulseaudio

I could be wrong and he is logging in with a user account... and he just has a corrupted audio file. :)
Click to expand...

What should I do if this file doesn't exist though, becuase it doesn't on my system and I get the following error when I try to do an ls -l on it:

username@hostname:~$ ls -l /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service
ls: cannot access '/etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service': No such file or directory
username@hostname:~$

Even the find command can't find it and I used it as follows:
username@hostname:~$ find / -iname "pulseaudio.service"
 
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scharfshutze009 said:
What should I do if this file doesn't exist though, becuase it doesn't on my system and I get the following error when I try to do an ls -l on it:

username@hostname:~$ ls -l /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service
ls: cannot access '/etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service': No such file or directory
username@hostname:~$

Even the find command can't find it and I used it as follows:
username@hostname:~$ find / -iname "pulseaudio.service"
Click to expand...

I am not sure what distro exactly you are running... was it ubuntu server ?

Are you sure pulseaudio is even installed... it isn't required in anyway, most desktop aimed distros do however default to using pulseaudio. I'm not sure about ubuntu server however. There are plenty of server first distros that don't bother with pulse/jack or any audio servers... and for any sound required just use the ALSA system direct.

Just type pulseaudio at your terminal prompt and see what it says. If you get something that says Daemon already running then pulse is starting at some point. If you get command not found... well then you don't have pulseaudio at all. If it starts up pulseaudio then its not configured to run at all.... or configured to start when called.... the way to test if its off or set to autospawn (turn on when the system tries to access the sound system) is to first ensure its off with the command "pulseaudio --kill" then open a music player or something and see if you have sound... then go back to your terminal and type pulseaudio again... if it says its running then it is set to autospawn.

For most distros Pulse is started in USER mode so you won't find it in /etc/systemd/system .... you will find it in /etc/systemd/user for some distros (anything arch based for sure) it would be in /etc/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/ However I honestly have no idea how Ubuntu has systemd setup as I rarely see ubuntu systems myself and for sure haven't messed with any type of sound on the handful of ubuntu servers I have seen.

Silly question but does your system play sound fine otherwise ? If so are you using pulse or alsa directly. ALSA is the linux sound system Pulseaudio is the most popular sound server. (think of how X runs on top of the kernel system)

If guess I am saying first ensure you are actually using pulse... make sure your systems sound is working at all... make sure the file you are playing at start up isn't really corrupted. If the sound is fine your sound works... and pulse is running when your sound is working. Then you can look at ways to either start pulse earlier in the chain if that seems to be the actual issue.

Also as Boonie mentions if you are using auto login (not having to type in your username/password) when you log in. That could be 90% of the issue. If you are using auto login... try changing your user profile and turning auto log in off. If you do that restart and the sound works fine that will tell you its a pulse service slow start issue... and to be completely 100% honest my advice would be to simply turn off the start up sound. :) If your sound is working fine after you started I don't think its worth messing with your pulseadio service. I did mention earlier in general I don't like to F to much with a distros systemd setup... odd things tend to happen down the road when you do.

Now if you read all that....
if you have pulseaudio its settings files are in 1-2 places....
~/.config/pulse
or
/etc/pulse

The etc/pulse location being system wide... where .confg is user space settings and most people don't put pulse config files here unless they really plan to have multiple sound setups for different users.

under /etc/pulse
you will find daemon.conf which you can open anyway you want nano vim gui text editor doesn't matter... its the settings file for the pulseaudio deamon. I guess if you wanted to experiment... make a backup first and then you could try changing the real time priority or just ensuring its set to autospawn ect.
 
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ChadD said:
I am not sure what distro exactly you are running... was it ubuntu server ?

Are you sure pulseaudio is even installed... it isn't required in anyway, most desktop aimed distros do however default to using pulseaudio. I'm not sure about ubuntu server however. There are plenty of server first distros that don't bother with pulse/jack or any audio servers... and for any sound required just use the ALSA system direct.

Just type pulseaudio at your terminal prompt and see what it says. If you get something that says Daemon already running then pulse is starting at some point. If you get command not found... well then you don't have pulseaudio at all. If it starts up pulseaudio then its not configured to run at all.... or configured to start when called.... the way to test if its off or set to autospawn (turn on when the system tries to access the sound system) is to first ensure its off with the command "pulseaudio --kill" then open a music player or something and see if you have sound... then go back to your terminal and type pulseaudio again... if it says its running then it is set to autospawn.

For most distros Pulse is started in USER mode so you won't find it in /etc/systemd/system .... you will find it in /etc/systemd/user for some distros (anything arch based for sure) it would be in /etc/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/ However I honestly have no idea how Ubuntu has systemd setup as I rarely see ubuntu systems myself and for sure haven't messed with any type of sound on the handful of ubuntu servers I have seen.

Silly question but does your system play sound fine otherwise ? If so are you using pulse or alsa directly. ALSA is the linux sound system Pulseaudio is the most popular sound server. (think of how X runs on top of the kernel system)

If guess I am saying first ensure you are actually using pulse... make sure your systems sound is working at all... make sure the file you are playing at start up isn't really corrupted. If the sound is fine your sound works... and pulse is running when your sound is working. Then you can look at ways to either start pulse earlier in the chain if that seems to be the actual issue.

Also as Boonie mentions if you are using auto login (not having to type in your username/password) when you log in. That could be 90% of the issue. If you are using auto login... try changing your user profile and turning auto log in off. If you do that restart and the sound works fine that will tell you its a pulse service slow start issue... and to be completely 100% honest my advice would be to simply turn off the start up sound. :) If your sound is working fine after you started I don't think its worth messing with your pulseadio service. I did mention earlier in general I don't like to F to much with a distros systemd setup... odd things tend to happen down the road when you do.

Now if you read all that....
if you have pulseaudio its settings files are in 1-2 places....
~/.config/pulse
or
/etc/pulse

The etc/pulse location being system wide... where .confg is user space settings and most people don't put pulse config files here unless they really plan to have multiple sound setups for different users.

under /etc/pulse
you will find daemon.conf which you can open anyway you want nano vim gui text editor doesn't matter... its the settings file for the pulseaudio deamon. I guess if you wanted to experiment... make a backup first and then you could try changing the real time priority or just ensuring its set to autospawn ect.
Click to expand...

No I'm not using Ubuntu Server or auto-login. I'm logging in normally and using Ubuntu Desktop. I guess I should just let this problem go because I can't find a solution, even from you ChadD and you are probably the closest to being right unless you know something else I haven't tried yet.
 
I tried copying the file I borrowed from my workstation at my parents to my laptop consider I live in an apartment near the Unversity I'm attending, but it didn't work and the startup sound still farts while loading Ubuntu. LOL
 
Turns out the only thing that might have fixed this issue was a good run of Antivirus Live Linux or sudo apt-get -y update or sudo apt-get -y upgrade along with possibly sudo apt-get -f install or sudo apt-get --fix-broken install or sudo apt-get --fix-missing install, but I'm not sure. However, I usually notice it almost working properly after booting from a finished run of Antivirus Live LInux, so I take it that partially fixes it.
 
So you actually caused this problem (once again) yourself by installing the antivirus. You are a true magnet for problems.
 
B00nie said:
So you actually caused this problem (once again) yourself by installing the antivirus. You are a true magnet for problems.
Click to expand...

I didn't say I caused it by running Live Antivirus or those commands I said it might have fixed it. if I did cause it then I did it while upgrading from Ubuntu 14.4 LTS to Ubuntu 16.4 LTS because it asked to to remove old programs or files that I probably should have kept because the problem started after I upgrade from 14.4 LTS to 16.4 LTS.

Also, what's wrong with installing clamav or running it from the live cd?
 
scharfshutze009 said:
I didn't say I caused it by running Live Antivirus or those commands I said it might have fixed it. if I did cause it then I did it while upgrading from Ubuntu 14.4 LTS to Ubuntu 16.4 LTS because it asked to to remove old programs or files that I probably should have kept because the problem started after I upgrade from 14.4 LTS to 16.4 LTS.

Also, what's wrong with installing clamav or running it from the live cd?
Click to expand...

You should keep the amount of installed programs at a minimum and avoid installing anything you don't need. Especially with intrusive software like antiviruses, problems may arise out of nowhere. You've come here so many times and having so exotic problems that they must be user related.
 
B00nie said:
You should keep the amount of installed programs at a minimum and avoid installing anything you don't need. Especially with intrusive software like antiviruses, problems may arise out of nowhere. You've come here so many times and having so exotic problems that they must be user related.
Click to expand...

Oh sure. Let's use yesterdays situation as an example: My system suddenly locked up for no reason and has issues after going to a spoofed website unintentionally while look for references on how to make a kernel with a shell and it's my fault because a url in a google search says it's something on how to do this, but isn't and won't let me go back to my google search causing me to have to close my browser and open history to go back to the point prior to loading that spoof site unintentionally. Also, after saving pictures of Norton SystemWorks and other Norton Products to my computer, which is when my system definitely started having issues as well, which is just crap and I didn't even go to those websites with the pictures either and apparently I can't even save a picture of something perfectly normal to my computer without experiencing issue with my system or browser locking up.

Also, clamav is probably one of the most trusted antivirus programs I have found and I'd thought I'd try it to see if a proactive version of it instead of the live cd would prevent downtime of my laptop, but it hasn't because the program doesn't do what I want it to do and that is allow me to scan my entire drive while keeping the system up without using the live cd with the gui interface. Maybe, it's good that it doesn't scan the entire drive or allow me to do that, because other antivirus programs that do that slow the crap out a computer especially when doing something important. I was just trying to be proactive by using a proactive solution though, so is that a bad thing because my former instructor who taught Microsoft classes said I should be proactive and not reactive and so does the security+ book by Sybex if not Examcram too. If I should use the command line interface of clamav while the system is up instead of the gui interface maybe I should look up how to do that.
 
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If you use linux the way you should (from repositories and trusted sources) you have zero need for an antivirus. Only if you run an e-mail server and want to scan your mail going to windows clients, you should have one installed. ClamAV is actually pretty poor as far as antiviruses go. According to tests I've seen it has a poor detection rate.

All antiviruses suck and are pretty much useless in any case. If you rely on them you're going to get owned.

Can you give me a link to that 'spoofed' website that caused you problems? I'm interested to investigate.
 
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