Actress Lindsay Lohan arrives in court in Los Angeles, California June 23, 2011.[Photo/Agencies]

Actress Lindsay Lohan failed an alcohol test while under house arrest in Los Angeles, a judge ruled on Thursday, but she did not violate her probation and will face no punishment.

But Los Angeles Superior Court judge Stephanie Sautner banned an emotional Lohan from holding parties as she nears the end of an expected 35 days of home confinement for stealing a necklace.

Lohan, 24, who is serving time at home for the January theft, had been summoned to court on Thursday for a hearing on whether she violated her probation in a 2007 case by failing an alcohol test last week.

Celebrity website TMZ said the "Mean Girls" actress threw a noisy barbecue party for friends at her house last week.

Media reports had speculated that Lohan, who has been in and out of jail and rehab for much of the past four years, could be immediately sent back behind bars.

But Sautner said that a court order in Lohan's 2007 drunk driving and cocaine possession case stipulated that the actress no longer had to undergo tests for drugs or alcohol.

Lohan was sentenced in May to four months jail and 480 hours of community service after pleading no contest to jewelry theft. She was given a shorter term of house arrest because of jail overcrowding and because she is a nonviolent offender.

Sautner told Lohan that for the rest of her house arrest, due to end on June 29, she could not have more than one friend or relative over to her home in the California beach resort of Venice.

"DON'T DO STUPID THINGS"

"Don't give people reason to hate you. Don't do stupid things that fly in the spirit of the court's order," she told an emotional Lohan, whose attorney comforted her by putting her arm around the actress.

"You know I sentenced you to jail. You know I didn't sentence you to house arrest, and what do you do? You have barbecues at your house so your neighbors are writing letters about you," Sautner told her.

The judge at one point asked Lohan, "Do you want to get on with your life? Tell me."

"I do," Lohan said, in the only time the actress spoke during the hearing.

Sautner expressed displeasure at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's decision to allow Lohan to serve her sentence at home but the judge said it was out of her hands.

Speaking to reporters after Thursday's hearing, her lawyer Shawn Holley said the actress has done nothing wrong.

"I feel like you are disappointed to hear that, but she did everything right this time," Holley said.

Lohan's once promising Hollywood career has been derailed because of drug and alcohol addiction and repeated run-ins with the law. However she is due to start filming a movie about New York crime boss John Gotti later this year with co-stars John Travolta and Al Pacino.