Sound card or GStreamer stopped working

[JMiykal]

HH 8.04 on a Toshiba Satellite A75-S2762. Rather suddenly, I have no sound. On startup, I click on the volume control (speaker-with-x) icon in the tray, and the error message in the attachment shows up. (That message only appears once per session, subsequent clicks just say "No volume control GStreamer plugins and/or devices found.") Synaptic shows a broad range of said plugins installed (everything from Pidgin to good/bad/ugly), I mark them all for reinstallation, but nothing. I have no sound from any program, and when I go to Control Center | Sound, there are no options down in the "Device" pull-down.

Recent changes to system: installed and later uninstalled VLC for i386, however sound continued to work for at least one or two sessions. (However, after installing VLC, I got no sound in Totem or VLC, only in Dragon.) No other changes of note.

What further info do I need to post here (such as terminal output, etc) to aid diagnosis?

[JMiykal]

Interestingly, even though I had restarted a few times during the process described above, another restart or two seems to have made the problem disappear. (Posting this reply so that the next noob knows what "fixed" it.)