When I was trying play mp3 files on ubuntu with cli tools, like mp123, there was no sound.
And I tried when I logged into gnome, there was sound.
I googled, there were lots of ways, but none works for me.
Then I got this from this page: https://askubuntu.com/questions/471433/sound-card-not-detecting, the reason is current user has no right or not in the audio group.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get –reinstall install pavucontrol linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils libasound2 sudo usermod -aG $(grep -e ‘^pulse:’ -e ‘^audio:’ -e \ ‘^pulse-access:’ -e ‘^pulse-rt:’ -e ‘^video:’ /etc/group \ | awk -F: ‘{print $1}’ \ | tr ‘\n’ ‘,’ \ | sed ‘s:,$::g’) $(whoami)
Da~da, it works. Hope it good for you.