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After I use Jack, the PulseAudio outputs and inputs are replaced by a dummy device. I've tried to kill PulseAudio and reload Alsa, but the only way I can use an Alsa-based application again is to reboot. I know that there must be a way to fix the problem without rebooting. I have had this problem in multiple Linux distros, including Ubuntu and currently Fedora 19.

Output of service alsa-utils restart:

Redirecting to /bin/systemctl restart  alsa-utils.service
Failed to issue method call: Unit alsa-utils.service failed to load:
No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status
alsa-utils.service' for details.

And systemctl status alsa-utils.service:

alsa-utils.service
   Loaded: error (Reason: No such file or directory)
   Active: inactive (dead)

alsactl kill quit and alsactl init proceed with no errors.

bntser
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  • You don't mention your distribution but assuming you are using a `sysv` one, does `service alsa-utils restart` help? – terdon Sep 27 '13 at 16:58
  • @terdon, I edited my question to include the distros. No, it just gives an error. – bntser Sep 27 '13 at 17:11
  • @bntser What is the error message? Always copy-paste error messages. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Sep 27 '13 at 21:35
  • [`pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload`](https://askubuntu.com/a/230893/349837) works for me, and when I messed with pulseaudio setup [`mv ~/.config/pulse/ ~/.config/pulse.old` solved the problem](https://askubuntu.com/a/23081/349837). – Pablo A Mar 07 '18 at 17:21

1 Answers1

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The solution turned out to be simpler than it appeared. The output of fuser -v /dev/snd/* revealed jackd was silently hogging the audio card even after QjackCtl supposedly killed it. Running killall jackd fixed the problem. The problem wasn't with PulseAudio, but rather jackd running invisibly in the background.

bntser
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