How to fix: device_list:270: no soundcard found (Ubuntu server 18.04)?

Question

I was trying to capture some audio using a usb microphone and I got the error message mentioned in the title.

here is the output some (hopefully relevant) commands:

arecord -l
arecord: device_list:270: no soundcards found...

ls /cat/asound*
ls: cannot access '/cat/asound*': No such file or directory

lspci -v
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 29
Memory at f7c30000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

I've tried to remove and install alsa again and when I run

sudo arecord -l

The output is:

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC221 Analog [ALC221 Analog]
    Subdevices: 1/1
    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 2: ALC221 Alt Analog [ALC221 Alt Analog]
    Subdevices: 1/1
    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I guess meaning Ubuntu is recognising my sound card. The ALSA Info script can be found here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I had aplay: device_list:268: No sound card found... after using aplay l. Following the Ubuntu troubleshooting guide below, I installed apt install linux-generic and after reboot it found my soundcard from VirtualBox in Ubuntu Server 20.04 from ova.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting