I'm still having multimedia issues in KDE 4. After several FGLRX and KDE 4 updates video has gotten better, but sound is getting worse. Currently I'm using KDE 4.3.1.

The issue is that sound will randomly stop working. Sometimes it's just KDE apps, sometimes sound completely stops working. And like my video issues, it's only in KDE 4. Usually I have to reboot to bring sound back. I have checked the mixer and tried multiple sound cards.

Also, the sound is always muted on log in, whether "Restore volumes on login" is checked or not.

Anyone have an idea how to fix my issue?

Do you have pulse installed? The vast majority of my sound problems (granted I'm on Kubuntu) have been because pulse was installed by default and was routing the audio to the wrong card. You can see this by installing pavucontrol, right clicking the system tray, choosing volume. If you have sound playing, one of the sound inputs will show volume meter bouncing up and down. To the right of that is a button which if you click it says "Move stream" and a list of the sound cards pulse knows about. I choose the sound card I have my speakers hooked up to and 9/10 times I have sound back. If you don't see any volume in any sound input (when youre playing something), you have a different problem.

I do have pulse audio installed. Trying to remove it would also try to remove KDE as well. Even under 'Sound and Video Configuration', testing all the output devices provided no sound.

After my original post, I blacklisted 'pcspkr' and 'snd_pcsp' and after 3 days so far everything seems to be working ok.

I still am not sure why audio is always muted when I log in.

Erm, I never suggested removing Pulse. Just telling it where to pipe the audio.