# play mp3 on ubuntu cli – sound card not detecting

- URL: https://wuming.si/blog/3494/
- Author: Aaron
- Published: 2025-04-08
- Language: en
- Categories: Technology
- Originally published at: https://blog.wo.ai/archives/3494

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.