Can't un-mute Toshiba A-305 S6916

Question

The Toshiba Satellite A-305 S6916 laptop has six semi-touch buttons above the keyboard. The 'buttons' are capacitative touch areas which toggle on and off. They are back-lit when on, dark when off.

The buttons are audio controls -- mute, media, play, stop, back and next. When I touch the 'mute' button to disable it, it goes off for about half a second, then comes back on.

There is also a volume dial on the front of the laptop. When I scroll the dial, I see the software volume slider supposedly moving the volume up and down, but I get no sound.

If I start Rhythmbox and change the volume using the slider on the front of the laptop, Rhythmbox locks up.

I've hard booted the laptop; that didn't help.

I've had the laptop for a couple of years, and I've never had trouble with the sound before. I'm not exactly sure when the problem started, I don't do a whole lot that involves audio.

┌───────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.0.22 ──────────────────────────────┐
│ Card: HDA Intel                                      F1:  Help               │
│ Chip: Realtek ALC268                                 F2:  System information │
│ View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture  F5: All             F6:  Select sound card  │
│ Item: Master [dB gain: 0.00]                         Esc: Exit               │
│                                                                              │
│     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     ├──┤     ├──┤     ├──┤     └──┘     └──┘     └──┘     ┌──┐     ┌──┐      │
│     │MM│     │MM│     │MM│                                │OO│     │OO│      │
│     └──┘     └──┘     └──┘                                └──┘     └──┘      │
│     100    100<>100 100<>100   0<>0   100<>100   0<>0                        │
│  < Master >Headphon Speaker    PCM    Front Mi Mic Boos  S/PDIF  S/PDIF D    │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

I turned up the Master and Speaker volume in alsamixer, but that didn't help... the mute button is still enabled.

I also verified that the youtube video that I was watching actually did have audio ;-)

This issue is similar to https://askubuntu.com/questions/119678/sound-muted-in-milliseconds-after-unmute, although I can't even hear 100ms worth of sound, even when I do hit the unmute button. I do see the light turn off and on again though.

I also tried plugging in earphones; that didn't help.

Answer 1

I started working through the procedure at help.ubuntu.com; once I got through part 1, (which involves pasting a mess of apt-get commands, and rebooting), I was able to un-mute the laptop successfully. The mute 'button' still appears to be activated, but alsamixer shows that it is not:

┌──────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.0.24.2 ─────────────────────────────┐
│ Card: HDA Intel                                      F1:  Help               │
│ Chip: Realtek ALC268                                 F2:  System information │
│ View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture  F5: All             F6:  Select sound card  │
│ Item: Master [dB gain: 0.00]                         Esc: Exit               │
│                                                                              │
│     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐     ┌──┐                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        >
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │▒▒│     │  │                        │
│     ├──┤     ├──┤     ├──┤     └──┘     └──┘     └──┘     ┌──┐     ┌──┐      │
│     │OO│     │OO│     │OO│                                │OO│     │OO│      │
│     └──┘     └──┘     └──┘                                └──┘     └──┘      │
│     100    100<>100 100<>100 100<>100 100<>100   0<>0                        │
│  < Master >Headphon Speaker    PCM    Front Mi Mic Boos  S/PDIF  S/PDIF D    │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

(Note that the 'mute' indicator for <Master> is now set to 00 rather than MM)

I've verified that I can hear audio on YouTube.