Audio stopped working?

[KirkD]

Yesterday all was good and fine with no issues whatsoever. Today, when I start up I have audio at the login screen - the characteristic "clunk" when I choose my user account. Once KDE starts up I see that my audio is muted. Hovering over it says "Volume at 100% (muted)" - no problem, I'll just unmute it. But I get no audio on YouTube or RhythmBox or any other method I've tried audio.

This happened once before with FC9 or FC10 - a kernel update killed the audio. I did a full update last night but didn't notice any issues until this morning after reboot. Booting into the old kernel didn't seem to fix the problem though.

Any tips on getting my audio back?

-Kirk

BTW - I'm running FC12 2.6.31.12-174.2.3.fc12.i686.PAE with KDE 4.3.4

[BugRocks1]

To see if the audio is enabled.
lspci | grep -i audio


To see the codecs, pci paths and error messages for the audio
dmesg | grep -iE 'hda|sound'

ltrace and strace to track what the program is doing very good to see where the audio actually is failing.

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2006/0...eshooting.html

If it is because of a missing link or if the file didn't exist in some directory it will show up on the trace.
If you can't undertand the output of the tracing you can always post it here maybe someone can see the problem.

[KirkD]

Thank you for the tips. Following is what I get as output for the commands you suggested.

lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)



dmesg | grep -iE 'hda|sound'
HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: setting latency timer to 64
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:3862: autoconfig: line_outs=1 (0xd/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:3866:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:3870:    hp_outs=1 (0xa/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:3871:    mono: mono_out=0x0
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:3874:    dig-out=0x21/0x0
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_codec.c:3882:    inputs: mic=0xb, fmic=0x0, line=0x0, fline=0x0, cd=0x0, aux=0x0
ALSA sound/pci/hda/patch_sigmatel.c:3188: stac92xx: dac_nids=1 (0x10/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/input/input12
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_intel.c:691: azx_get_response timeout, switching to polling mode: last cmd=0x01df000e
input: HDA Intel Mic at Ext Left Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input13
input: HDA Intel HP Out at Ext Left Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input14

I don't quite know how to interpret the output. Seems odd that the hda_codec.c containing lines all refer to 0x0 for the various output options. But then again, I don't exactly know what it is should be.

strace and ltrace seem useful as well, but I'm not sure which program to trace. Any additional help is appreciated.

BTW - Another update from last night contained a number of pulseaudio updates. I also tried uninstalling pulseaudio and then reinstalling it - same results. I have sound on the login screen and then nothing once I'm in KDE. (Haven't tried Gnome.)


Edit:

I just logged out of KDE and back into Gnome. The sound was still muted upon startup, but I was able to turn up the volume and have sound. Must be a KDE issue. All the output for the two commands above is the same between KDE and Gnome, too.

[jbone]

I got similar problem after yum update.

[xxxx@Acorn ~]$ lspci | grep -i audio
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)

[xxxx@Acorn ~]$ dmesg | grep -iE 'hda|sound'
ALSA sound/pci/ac97/ac97_codec.c:2163: MC'97 1 converters and GPIO not ready (0xff00)

Although sound worked before, sometimes I did get an annoying error message "ich 6 does not work with stac 9XXX, fall back to pulseaudio" (something like that). My computer is dell inspiron 6000.

Help is highly appreciated.

Update: I can get sound on the youtube site, but not on amarok.

[KirkD]

OK, so I log out of KDE, go into Gnome and sound works. It started up muted just like in KDE, but I could actually adjust the sound and, more importantly, hear it once I turned it up. I assume the issue is KDE. I log out, go back to KDE, and it no longer starts up muted _AND_ I get my audio back.

Somewhere along the way there was a configuration issue that KDE couldn't fix. Any ideas? It works now, but I would love to know why.

-Kirk

---------- Post added at 07:35 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 07:34 PM CST ----------

jbone - Try the logout, switch window managers, logout, and switch back. Are you using KDE or Gnome?

[jbone]

Originally Posted by KirkD

OK, so I log out of KDE, go into Gnome and sound works. It started up muted just like in KDE, but I could actually adjust the sound and, more importantly, hear it once I turned it up. I assume the issue is KDE. I log out, go back to KDE, and it no longer starts up muted _AND_ I get my audio back.

Somewhere along the way there was a configuration issue that KDE couldn't fix. Any ideas? It works now, but I would love to know why.

-Kirk

---------- Post added at 07:35 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 07:34 PM CST ----------

jbone - Try the logout, switch window managers, logout, and switch back. Are you using KDE or Gnome?

Thanks, Kirk. I use KDE. I will try the trick you suggested.

[KirkD]

Let us know if it works.

[BugRocks1]

@jbone:

I think but am not sure you have some driver problem there it should have shown a lot more on the dmesg and what it is showing says it is not ready for use(I think).

@KirkD:

Glad you got your sound back, from what you posted there was no problems that I could see but I'm not and expert on audio just a curious guy.

About what to trace, when I do have those problems I start at the top going to trace the program that is having trouble and in your case that would be anything that have sound involved, so I would try tracing vlc or amarok and putting the trace on a txt, so I could search for the words sound, audio, stream, streams and etc and see what is being called and then trace that is like following bread crumbs

[KirkD]

BugRocks - thank you for the info! I will definitely keep tracing around for future reference.

I'm still unsure what the problem with my audio was, but I'm not complaining. The fix was easy. 8^)

[jbone]

I found the solution here: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=239013. Changing the backend from xine to gstream solved my problem too. I did not logout and switch window manager since I installed only KDE from the livecd. I think Gnome defaults the backend to gstream, so switching to Gnome can make the sound work. Thank you very much!

Originally Posted by KirkD

Let us know if it works.

---------- Post added at 04:42 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 04:27 PM CST ----------



---------- Post added at 04:45 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 PM CST ----------

Thanks, BugRocks! The sound is back by changing the backend from xine to gsream. But I still get the same results when issuing the two commands you recommended. Definitely something is not right. The sound card in the dell inspiron 6000 is sigma tel stac 975x, previously I can see two audio devices (sigma tel stac and pulseaudio) in "system setting"->"multimedia" (KDE), but I can see only one (internal audio analog stereo) right now.

Originally Posted by BugRocks1

@jbone:

I think but am not sure you have some driver problem there it should have shown a lot more on the dmesg and what it is showing says it is not ready for use(I think).

[rdieter]

A recent phonon update should cure all ills:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/upda...DORA-2010-1030
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/upda...DORA-2010-1024

making both xine/gstreamer backends much better and usable (esp when used with pulseaudio).

[jbone]

Originally Posted by rdieter

A recent phonon update should cure all ills:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/upda...DORA-2010-1030
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/upda...DORA-2010-1024

making both xine/gstreamer backends much better and usable (esp when used with pulseaudio).

I did 'yum update', now both gstream and xine work. Thanks for your great work on KDE.

[rgaelzer]

Ok. I also have sound back on my Dell Vostro 1500 laptop.
My laptop has the same audio device as KirkD's and the
lspci | grep -i audio
dmesg | grep -iE 'hda|sound'
listings returned pretty much the same results.

What happened with me was that I didn't have the gstreamer backend and simply installing it with yum brought the sound back.
I don't know if it was a kernel update that caused the problem, because at the same time I was trying to make the sound work for skype and kopete (msn).

Although the problem seems to be fixed, I still have some questions:
1. Using KDE, when I open the System Settings app -> Sound and Video Configuration, the only device listed is "Internal Audio Analog Stereo". I'm pretty sure that there were additional audio devices listed. Shouldn't the Intel 82801H audio controller be listed there?

2. On the Backend tab, should I promote GStreamer as the preferred backend then, instead of Xine?

3. Since we are on a multimedia topic, could someone point me to instructions on how to use webcam/audio/microphone with kopete (msn protocol) and skype?

Thank you.