No sound after rpi-update

posted Apr 24, 2016, 8:08 AM by Chris G [ updated Apr 24, 2016, 8:10 AM ]

After upgrading the Raspbian kernel on your Raspberry Pi, you may find that you are now unable to play any sounds. Some of the symptoms include:


sudo aplay -l
aplay: device_list:252: no soundcards found...


cat /proc/asound/cards

--- no soundcards ---


sudo service alsa-utils restart

[FAIL] Shutting down ALSA...warning: 'alsactl store' failed with error message 'alsactl: save_state:1580: No soundcards found...'...failed.

[ ok ] Setting up ALSA...warning: 'alsactl restore' failed with error message 'alsactl: load_state:1686: No soundcards found...'...done.

The solution is actually quite simple...if you know what to do!!! These applied to raspbian wheezy upgraded to the 4.4.8+ kernel.

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

and add the following parameter to the file:

dtparam=audio

Reboot...and hopefully this will fix the issue!!! This is apparently the 'modern' way of getting the module loaded.

For additional details, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=130429#p895402