why would i lose sound entirely every so often?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2009, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>
>   every few days, my gateway laptop will simply stop producing
> sound. it will have been functioning perfectly all that time and,
> suddenly, i go to watch a youtube video and ... nothing.  not from
> the speakers, not from the headphone jack.
>
>   i won't have touched any of the audio settings, nothing's been
> muted, everything's at full volume, etc.  a reboot will typically
> fix it but, surely, there's a simpler solution.  what can i look for
> in terms of diagnostics?  thanks.

  another data point -- i did a "killall firefox", started another
instance which promptly restored all my tabs including the youtube one
and, voila, i have sound.  i'm still confused.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

        Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.

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