Have you checked in Sound settings > Output?:
To be honest, I am finding HDMI sound on all variants of Ubuntu pretty flaky at the moment. Though, it could be something to do with my particular hardware configuration.
Yes, I only have one sound output option available to select: ‘bcm2835 ALSA Analogue Stereo’. Sound is now coming out of my monitor in a fashion through the HDMI cable (even though analogue stereo is the only option selected) but as mentioned its quite slow and jerky.
For info I’ve tried this on a Iiyama Monitor, Samsung TV and HDMI projector all with the same results.
Thanks for your swift reply wolfman. No, the only device listed there available to configure is:
bcm2835 ALSA
1 Output/1 Input
Analogue Stereo Output
Though when I go to speaker test if I press the ‘test’ button a couple of times I get a garbled ‘Front left’ & ‘Front Right’ playing via the HDMI cable.
If that is the case, I suspect that the system isn’t picking up your HDMI hardware?, try running the following commands which may/may not solve the hardware problem for you?:
sudo apt-get --fix-missing install
The above command downloads and installs any missing packages on your system.
sudo apt-get --fix-broken install
The above command downloads and installs any broken dependencies on your system.
Did you install any graphics card drivers?:
I’ve just ran through both the fix-missing and fix-broken commands and it didn’t throw up any issues.
I hadn’t installed any graphics card drivers as its running on a Raspberry Pi 3 so didn’t think it was relevant. That said I’ve just checked for additional drivers and got the message ‘no additional drivers available’.
Still think its quite strange that although it can only see analogue stereo output its making a vague attempt to run sound through HDMI.
Perhaps just a bug with Ubuntu on R Pi3 for the moment.
I can’t help you much as I don’t have a RPI box!.
Check out this link and their forum if necessary!:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5062
Thanks for your help.
I checked out the linked forum but still couldn’t get it to work. Shelved the Ubuntu memory card for the time being and just got it running as a media centre for the moment…will drop back to it from time to time to see if any updates solve the problem 
Cheers
Hi guys. I’ve just bought an RPI3 and installed the latest ubuntu mate dated feb27 version for rpi. I have connected my rpi to Samsung TV with HDMI. the display just work like plug and play. but the analog only driver problem affects me too. Please help.
I have the same problems as the guys on top. Connected to HDMI TV.no problem with display, but no sound. and it only shows one analog audio driver as output. even if i do hdmi_2, etc, still the same problem.
Hi Michael,
take a look here and check out this section: “Hardware accelerated video”, it might help you?:
Hi wolfman,
thank you so much for replying to my question. i did that much earlier on when searching for answers:
sudo amixer cset numid=3 2
but i tried it again after you told me to. but still, i couldnt detect the hdmi audio output. i tot that my hdmi cable was improperly inserted, hence i took it out and replug and tried again. still cant get it. then i thought maybe my raspbery pi 3 from rs component malaysia was faulty because even when i played youtube or mp4 from pendrive or copied onto my sdcard, it lags and hangs. but its so smooth running browsing and word processing etc. just the video and sound part is faulty.
after searching around for more answers, i found that some ppl said that open elec works fine for videos and 720p playback. so i got another sdcard and installed open elec / kodi on it( from the raspberry pi3 blog referral page). on open elec / kodi OS. the video playback from mp4(pendrive) played smoothly without needing to copy to sdcard. but i cant use the youtube app on kodi.
summary, i think the ubuntu mate desktop is the best looking / working (multipurpose)OS for raspberry pi 3. but maybe the video playback / buffering / hdmi sound driver / output need to be checked. im no programmer, so i dont know what exactly is wrong. hoping to see a new release with all compatibility issues fixed, then ubuntu mate can be perfect for raspberry pi3, and by then raspberry pi 3 can be a true desktop(basic).
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Hi Michael,
have you seen this?:
Hello,
Here the same configuration: PI3, Mate 16.04 installed on a 32GB Samsung Class10 SD Card, Samsung TV and absolutely the same problems.
I use the standard Ubuntu Mate without any additional software installed and also did no upgrade.
I found that somewhere in the audio settings a volume slider was set to zero. I set it to 100% and got some HDMI sound. But the sound is stuttering and interrupted even when I play a MP3 from the SD card with VLC.
video playback (MP4) from the SD card is only working when the VLC window is set to a very small size. When set do ~ 1/4 of full screen size, the video freezes immediately.
What to do?
Hi Wolfman,
Yea, i’ve seen that. but it doesnt have any info that could help me.
I have downloaded the 16.04 beta2 file for RPI3, and now putting it into the sdcard.
My method for doing it is really easy, and i hope this info gets to other people.
-
Plug sdcard into pc using card reader. MUST be used with adapter and adapter set to unlock mode.
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Use Gnome Disks(ITS GRAPHICAL easy to use, no need use command line), click format sdcard(optional), then click RESTORE DISK from top right corner of gnome disk. Select your downloaded file. For my current case its the 16.04 beta 2 version. It is (ubuntu-mate-16.04-beta2-desktop-armhf-raspberry-pi.img.xz)
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The restore took about 15-20 minutes for me when i did the 15.10.3 file it was going at about 10mb/s. After it was completed, i just plug in the sdcard to RPI3 and it booted in.
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But the problem then was the system was only using partly of the sdcard, about 3.9gb or so. the remaining of my sdcard was unused and i couldnt install much thing into it.
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I solved that by using GParted Partition Editor. Just click on Resize the partition of PI ROOT. and drag to max so the RPI3 will fully utilize the sdcard.
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my current restore image is problematic, it so slow going at 800= kb/s for 16.04 file. i dont know why.
i will update if 16.04 solves my HDMI tv sound problem.
I am having the same problem I have already installed 16.04 beta. This problem is what brought me to here it seems as though I am not the only one. I do not have HDMI as an option to select. How frustrating!!!
So nobody has found the solution yet? I’ve been using an HDMI cable I know sends audio, and I’ve changed hdmi_drive=2. As of right now, I get video from smplayer and omxplayer. I don’t even get video from VLC. I have purchased both codecs so that’s not the problem.
I am really beginning to hate this little computer.
Well, i can say. I have the latest update with all the drivers and their updates. Problem still remains, no sound at all.
There is an extensive amount of detail on the config.txt.
I read this and used several of the audio overrides to succeed in getting the audio available.
Unfortunately I’m in hospital at the moment, so cannot pick up the detail
I was dealing with this exact same issue and then I just now figured it out. Turns out my ignorance was the problem. I was operating under the assumption that the config.txt file was already formated in such a way that all of the lines were being used. I assumed that ## ment the line was commented away and # (only one hash) meant that the line was being used. To make it work I had to remove the single # entirely! Then the audio worked after a reboot. It only took uncommenting the one line hdmi_drive=2. I am sure no one else made such a silly mistake but I thought I would share to help any other noobies out there (like myself 
). Good luck everyone!
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