KDE picks wrong soundcard in 11.2

New install of 11.2 with KDE 4.

I have two soundcards in my system, one on the motherboard and a soundblaster.

I multiboot and all FIVE other images, including SUSE 10.1 with KDE 3, use the soundblaster so that is where the speakers are plugged in.

11.2 insists on configuring the motherboard sound card for KDE, even when I do a fresh install setting the soundblaster as the primary sound card at installation time or when I remove the motherboard sound card from the configuration after installation. KDE 4 never even lists the soundblaster as a known card.

Any way to fix or work around this restriction?

You must be missing something here.
In Yast > Hardware > Sound
Do you see both cards?

In KDE Desktop Settings: Hardware > Multimedia > Phonon
Do you see both cards

In Kmix can you see both cards?

caf4926 has the correct advice IMHO.

You need to ensure that card-0 in YaST > Hardware > Sound is the card in which you wish the sound to come out of. You can either delete the ‘other’ card in **YaST > Hardware > Sound ** (temporary delete which only unconfigures that unwanted card, and note you can add it back later) or simply go to **YaST > Hardware > Sound > Other **and change the order of sound cards.

Then you need to go to KMENU > Configure Desktop > Multimedia and ensure the ORDER of sound devices you have there matches the order of sound devices you have in YaST > Hardware > Sound.

And in some cases (in ADDITION to the above) you also can run the diagnostic script:

/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh 

and examine the order of sound devices there to ensure it is the same.

The order of sound devices is critical to get this working.

If my memory serves me correct, the file /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf keeps a record of the sound card configuration (it used to be /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf, but I think it changed in 11.2). By running YaST you change the order of sound devices. YaST should have your sound blaster card listed (as should the 50-sound.conf file) assuming your hardware is not broken.

if you are using the soundblaster card why don’t you disable the onboard soundcard in the bios?

Progress … sort of. I now think KDE is trying to use the correct card.

Now I get a message box that pops up (briefly) when I try to start Kaffeine.

Notification from Phonon: KDE’s Multimedia Library
The audio playback device Ensoniq AudioPCI ENS1371 (ES1371
DAC2/ADC) does not work
Falling back to .

Play Test Sound on the card works in Yast>Hardware>Sound

I spot nothing that seems significant to me in /var/log/

Any suggestions for what to try or look at next?

If test sound in Yast works
Now check your Kmix settings and make sure you have the mixer volume On

The problem does not occur for the root userid. Is there a permission that non-root users need that I may have missed?

No
And why are you logging in as root?

Check @oldcpu’s guide
SDB:Audio troubleshooting - openSUSE

You could try as su -

rcalsasound restart

then reboot

If you believe it to be a permissions problem, then you can add your regular user to group ‘audio’. There is guidance here for that in step-6

Thanks. Added the user to audio. Had to reboot, too, to get the sound working for the user. It’s working now.