Today i suddenly had no sound within Google Chrome 37 on Ubuntu 14.04. There was no update or anything i initiated before starting the browser – it was the same configuration than the day before. But audio playback failed on YouTube and Netflix, with HTML5 and Flash content. Even the Ubuntu Sound Manager failed to list Chrome as an actively sound playing application, while Clementine Player and VLC appeared on the list.
Long story short, save your bookmarks, if you haven’t synced them yet, remove Chrome from your system. Head to Chrome Download Page and download the current 64-bit Beta. Why 64-bit? Well, the sound issue seems to be existing within the 32-bit version.
Then open your terminal, change to the Download folder and install Chrome by typing
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-beta_current_amd64.deb
Resolve dependency issues with sudo apt-get install -f
As I don’t know how far Adobe Flash is supported in 64-bit Chrome, keep in mind that it’s probably not working (i don’t like/use Flash).
Probably this workaround isn’t a sexy one, but as for me it’s working.