I don't get any pulseaudio messages or any other information that looks related to audio (with STEAM_DEBUG=1). But I uninstalled pulseaudio and sound worked again, so it seems to be related to that.

I just installed openSUSE 13.1 and it seems I am running into this issue too.

Serious Sam 3 and Doom 3 ( Doom 3 complied on openSUSE 12.3 ) still have sound.

But portal, Left For Dead 2, no sound anymore.

Disabling pulse audio, gives me sound in steam, ( flash) and in games.

Processor Information:
Vendor: AuthenticAMD
CPU Family: 0x10
CPU Model: 0x4
CPU Stepping: 0x2
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3210 Mhz
4 logical processors
4 physical processors
HyperThreading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Unsupported
SSE4a: Supported
SSE41: Unsupported
SSE42: Unsupported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
"openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64)" (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.11.6-4-desktop
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 11403901
X Window Manager: KWin
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime-release_2013-10-23

Video Card:
Driver: ATI Technologies Inc. ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series

Driver Version:  4.3.12614 Compatibility Profile Context 13.25.18
OpenGL Version: 4.3
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
VendorID:  0x1002
DeviceID:  0x68be
Number of Monitors:  1
Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
Primary Display Resolution:  1680 x 1050
Desktop Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Primary Display Size: 17,05" x 10,67"  (20,08" diag)
                                        43,3cm x 27,1cm  (51,0cm diag)
Primary VRAM Not Detected

Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek ALC892

Memory:
RAM: 3958 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: nl_NL.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 447088 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 314546 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports:
Fri Nov 22 02:06:34 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/crash_20131122030626_15.dmp'', upload no: ''Failure when receiving data from the peer''
Sun Nov 24 15:43:37 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20131124164324_4.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-1f50168a-c492-492e-bc45-8267b2131124''
Sun Nov 24 15:44:06 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/crash_20131124164359_4.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-ed721c60-7897-4ed5-88ec-1f5eb2131124''
Sun Nov 24 15:45:31 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20131124164324_2.dmp'', upload no: ''Couldn't connect to server''
Sun Nov 24 15:46:07 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20131124164359_6.dmp'', upload no: ''Couldn't connect to server''
Mon Nov 25 23:33:58 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20131126003333_5.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-ff7d50db-3b4f-484f-8a47-4cb572131125''

Started steam from the command line and then LFD2

https://gist.github.com/Gps2010/7666515

What I found myself:
/usr/bin/pulseaudio: relocation error: /usr/lib64/libpulsecore-4.0.so: symbol pa_volume_snprint_verbose, version PULSE_0 not defined in file libpulse.so.0 with link time reference
/usr/bin/pulseaudio: relocation error: /usr/lib64/libpulsecore-4.0.so: symbol pa_volume_snprint_verbose, version PULSE_0 not defined in file libpulse.so.0 with link time reference

@Gps2010 So, for you the version 1.1 libpulse.so.0 from the steam runtime is having a hard time with the version 4.0 pulseaudio system install. I'm not surprised at this outcome, since the runtime is not ment for you and openSUSE 13.1, it's for ubuntu 12.04.

Edit: If this is an issue for all openSUSE 13.1 users, then the steam package maintainer for openSUSE (13.1) should be notified of the issue and hopefully a workaround devised.

@Tele42 If this is really just an openSUSE package problem, I know who to contact.
Which I doubt because serious sam 3 still has sound. And every other application outside steam.
Futher more the openSUSE package installs steam, but then it updates it self.

Flash 64 is working too, but not the sound on the 32 bit one in steam.

And unless things have changed, I still have to see the first official reply from Valve stating, too bad you're not using Ubuntu.

They might not fix stuff just (open)SUSE related, but they did already fix a sound issue which did not affect Ubuntu, but did affect openSUSE and Arch ( and prob more distro's )

And then there is this official steam page:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux

From my personal experience since the steam beta went public, I am very happy about the support of valve on steam for Linux. :)

I believe I'm fighting the same problem on my up-to-date Arch64 as the original poster. Extending the list of titles:

sound works fine for:

• The Cave
• FTL: Faster Than Light
• Prison Architect

games having no sound:

• Shadowrun Returns
• Monaco (it even crashes on start with audio related messages but runs fine WITH sound when started from the command line without steam)

A Monaco crash from Steam looks like this:

[0] ------------- [WARNING] -------------> ClXACTEMULowLevel::cacheStreamingSound() -> FMOD system could not create streaming sound source [0xEADD388F] - [This command failed because System::init or System::setDriver was not called. ]!
[0] Load Timing -> Audio: 352.41
[0] ------------- [!ALERT!] -------------> FATAL ERROR: _setUpFMODDSPForVC() -> Failed to create custom FMOD DSP for Voicechat!

Running Shadowrun Returns has no audio related messages on the console, just plain have no sound. Digging through its own logs, I found this though:

FMOD failed to initialize ... Error initializing output device. 

Killing or restarting the pulseaudio process did not make any difference in either scenarios. Any ideas what else to try to get it work?

@ kjozsa

On openSUSE disabling pulseaudio gives me sound in all games. ( kde )
( I need to reboot though, for the sound to start working )

After a couple of hours of playing around, installing the package lib32-alsa-plugins has solved this issue for me (it has the pulse plugins for 32 bits as it seems). Hope it helps someone..

I might have found some solution:

I had already installed the alsa 32 libs, with out succes.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/1179#issuecomment-13066470

I still have to test other games, but I am very optimistic this did the trick.

openSUSE 13.1 has been released last week, but not when hachre posted this:

quote hachre:
I have run into sound problems on OpenSuse 13.1 (not yet released). In my case the '/etc/machine-id' and the '/var/lib/dbus/machine-id' files both existed but contained different values.

I removed the dbus one and made a symlink to the other by running:
'sudo ln -s /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id'

Can somebody tell me if this is a steam issue or an openSUSE issue ? if its an openSUSE issue I will contact them.

Thank you. :)

Now lets see if we can find the right person. I have already reported this to the pulse audio guys.
No idea how this happens though, and why those id 's are different.
This goes far beyond my knowledge.

This fix however worked for me, and it already helped one other person on openSUSE 13.1.
It has prob helped more people, but this person reported it on the openSUSE frorum.

Bug report filed:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?GoAheadAndLogIn=1&id=831626

Bug seems to affect Arch too.

I have similar problems with one of my Arch Linux machines.

One machine has an AMD on-board soundcard and Nvidia graphics card which is connected via HDMI cable to my LED TV. If I list the sound devices it shows two Nvidia HDMI sound devices and the onboard AMD soundchip. I'm not sure if every game knows how to address these HDMI devices. My second Arch Linux machine with Intel mainboard and Intel soundcard works fine. No sound issues at all.

Another thing I discovered with the AMD machine is that the Flash videos in the Store don't have sound, but if I turn on "Big Picture Mode" the same videos have sound! The games have the same sound issues.

I tried the following suggestions without success:

* sudo ln -s /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id --> no effect
* installing lib32-flashplayer --> no effect
* deactivating second sound device --> no effect
* STEAM_RUNTIME=0  steam --> lib missing, doesn't start

Games with sound are:

* Super Meat Boy
* Portal
* FEZ

Games without sound are:

* The Cave
* Bastion --> doesn't start
* Metro LL --> doesn't start

Some ideas why it may not work:

* Some games use SDL sound libraries. But which one
* The AMD sound chip isn't properly working with its current driver
* main sound device isn't addressed the right way. Doesn't respect pulseaudio default settings?

I'll post the AMD machine's hardware settings later.

I thought I fixed it all, but bought Metro last light yesterday, no sound.
starting steam with SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa steam gives me sound though.

@tr37ion For me flash in steam has sound. Do you have all the 32 bit alsa and pulse libs ?
I have not looked at big picture mode.

It's so strange I have to set my sound device by hand then it works well with Gnome and also Firefox+Flash. No Flash sound problems. Then I start Steam and no more Flash sound at the stores :(

Also I tried to fix it by following some suggestions in SteamOS issues:

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/12

Without success. It's like Steam is using another soundcard. than Gnome does. Maybe Steam just starts with a certain soundcard which is different from the one I chose before. Then I don't get why Flash sound in Firefox is working while it's off in Steam ...

I had the same issue with Monaco crashing on startup that @kjozsa reported and from the log files I found that whenever there was a conflict for the audio device some games would have no sound, others would crash. For me applying a software mixing configuration to my .asoundrc solved the problem (see http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Asoundrc#Software_mixing).

I have a new issue ;)
I started XBMC and GUI sounds work well. Then I watched a DVD and sound was ok. Then I switched back and forth between 'Pulseaudio' to 'Nvidia HDMI Sound'. At a certain time I could change those settings without getting the voice actors sound channel back while the movie's music was there! Maybe some of you can try this, too.

I'm still searching for a pattern to solve this.

Are we actually talking about this PA mailing-list issue? http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07433.html
This might be the reason why I could play a movie with XBMC and the music channel was on while the voice actors stream was muted?! I found it at ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/gpu-hdmi-audio-document/gpu-hdmi-audio.html#_issues_in_pulseaudio

I just solved this by deleting all the steam-runtime versions of pulseaudio so it falls back onto Fedora's:
find ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime -name 'libpulse_.so._' | xargs rm

I had already removed liborc.*.

@jsgf Thank you!

I can confirm this worked for me on Arch Linux 3.12.6-1. I tried all these workarounds:

• using SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa steam
• removing pulseaudio
• creating a machine-id symbolic link ln -s /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
• using export PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/pulse
• removing every liborc-0.4.16 reference in Steam

I was installing all dependencies to try running with STEAM_RUNTIME=0 steam, but that did the trick!

Happy new Year, @jsgf and everyone!

Finally I could solve this issue by disabling all soundcards in my BIOS. Following that, just the Nvidia HDMI soundcard was left. Now sound works again.

I'm on arch x86_64 and installing lib32-alsa-plugins solved this for me.

@jsgf That solution worked for me as well. Thank you!

on Manjaro Openbox unstable with pulse audio installed

I can also confirm this issue on Ubuntu 13.10 when trying to play Octodad and Broken Age both of which use FMOD. If started outside of Steam it runs fine but from within Steam there is no sound.

It seems to be fixed by installing libasound2-plugins:i386 and libasound2-plugins-extra:i386

@Gps2010 Thanks, I'm running Fedora 19 and your fix did the trick:
sudo rm /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
sudo ln -s /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id

I also have no sound on my SteamOS - I'll try tomorrow if that's the same issue.

This is fixed and will be rolled out in a future version of the runtime. Thanks!

Despite being closed and supposedly fixed, some people are still encountering issues. Most recently I encountered this issue with Arch Linux and Star Conflict. The fix was to install ALSA 32-bit libs.

pacman -S lib32-alsa-lib lib32-alsa-plugins

@llbraughler if that is the what needs to be done to get things working, then this is fixed on valve's end. The package maintainers need to be contacted to make that adjustment to the distro-specific packaging.

I had installed lib32-alsa-lib and lib32-alsa-plugins but was still having issues under Archlinux. The 8 March 2016 update to the steam client fixed this. From the changelog:

Linux: Updated ALSA libraries in the Steam Runtime to prevent compatibility issues with newer distributions

Steam is updated outside the package manager in Arch, so to force an update, you'll need to boot Steam up and choose "File" → "Check for Steam Client Updates…".

Edit: added link to changelog entry

I fixed my sound problem on debian in this way:
sudo apt-get install libpulse0:i386

I've forgotten to install lib32-libpulse on Arch, FWIW.