After getting the missing sound control panel in Ubuntu back yesterday, the next problem that turned up was that no actual applications would play any sound – other than the annoying beep! beep! beep!
The reason is that after the pulseaudio configuration has been installed, pulseaudio it self may be missing all it device drivers and other packages.
The solution for this issue can be found at the page for PulseAudio at the Ubuntu Wiki.
Install the missing PulseAudio packages through APT:
sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins "pulseaudio-*" paman padevchooser paprefs pavucontrol pavumeter
Restart the application that needs sound support and everything should work. If you’re still not getting any sound, check the PulseAudio device configuration (by default installed under Applications, Sound and Video, PulseAudio Device Chooser) and that your device shows up there (mine didn’t before installing the above packages).
Awesome.