lost all sounds in fresh 11.4 64bit openSuSE install - need help

I have a clean (formatted) installation of 11.4 64bit openSuSE. I noticed I could play Audio CDs (the app shows movement), but with no sound. A bit more testing showed the same for DVDs (movies) and internet media (YouTube). I have been doing a lot of forum reading over the past 2 days, but have found nothing that looks like an answer.

A similar post which goes into some detail is the sound of silence .

Here is the link to the alsa-info I ran.

Another possible fix was to remove pulse audio and revert to esound here. That sounds like a bit drastic, so I haven’t tried that yet. Any thoughts of if that would help? It wanted to remove multiple other apps as well.

I did try a couple of things I found in some posts and now the music player, banshee shows no movement. And smplayer errored out with the following log:

/usr/bin/mplayer -noquiet -nofs -nomouseinput -sub-fuzziness 1 -identify -slave -vo xv -ao alsa -nokeepaspect -framedrop -autosync 100 -nodr -double -input nodefault-bindings:conf=/dev/null -stop-xscreensaver -wid 56623448 -monitorpixelaspect 1 -ass -embeddedfonts -ass-line-spacing 0 -ass-font-scale 1 -ass-styles /home/dad/.config/smplayer/styles.ass -fontconfig -font Arial -subfont-autoscale 0 -subfont-osd-scale 20 -subfont-text-scale 20 -subcp ISO-8859-1 -subpos 100 -volume 23 -dvd-device /dev/dvd -dvdangle 1 -nocache -osdlevel 0 -vf-add screenshot -slices -channels 2 -af scaletempo,equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 dvd://1

Option ,alsa needs a parameter at line 77

Everything worked in 11.3. I thought it may have been the internal soundcard so I installed another. There are two set in the system now, but neither is producing sound.

This reminiscent of sound problems of quite a few versions back. I am sure there is a fix, I just need help from the experts.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks - Idee

thanks for any help

Start by going into the Yast sound settings, and turn every possible volume setting up to high.

Or as su -

rcalsasound restart

Do you get sound from any apps ?

I note a Microstar MS-7094 running a 64-bit openSUSE-11.4 with the 2.6.37.1-1.2-default kernel with the 1.0.23 (driver)/1.0.24 (utilities) alsa version. Your hardware has two sound devices? an Aureal Vortex au8830 (with SigmaTel STAC9708) and a VIA8237 with ALC655 hardware audio codec(s).

Which device are you trying to use ?

Card 0 (the Aureal Vortex au8830 (with SigmaTel STAC9708) ) has Master volume is only at 61% and PCM at 74%. Did you try to move those levels up higher?

Card 1 (the VIA8237 with ALC655) has Master volume at 65% and PCM at 74%. Did you try to move those levels up higher.

I found what helped me with pulse when using multiple audio devices is to install ‘pavucontrol’ and run ‘pavucontrol’ and then select the appropriate sound device for each application in that gui.

I turned up all settings to 75 via the Pulse Audio controller. Still no sound. Where are the YaST sound settings?

Done, but no change.

rcalsasound restart
Shutting down sound driver                                          done
Starting sound driver:  au8830 via82xx                              done

At the beginning I had system sounds, just no CD,DVD or multimedia. At this point the system sounds don’t work. From YaST Sound tool, Other/Play Test Sounds does nothing.

I originally was using the onboard Via device. It had been working with 11.3 and prior releases. I thought it may have a problem so I added the Aureal card. I will disable the VIa in the bios and try to use the Aureal. If you would recommend otherwise, please let me know.

I have been using the pavucontrol, but not from terminal. When I ran it from terminal, the following debug messages occurred when I made any changes.

~> pavucontrol
** (pavucontrol:4162): DEBUG: Ignoring sink-input due to it being designated as an event and thus handled by the Event widget

I just reran the alsa-info here.

But did you set the new device as Primary (sound card 0) in Yast > Sound ?

Yes, it is set at the primary, via YaST. I also found the Volume settings under Other. I have everything raised to 75.

In YaST I moved the primary back to the Via, and then to the Aureal again, restarted the sequencer then exited. I then ran rcalsasound restart. Reopened YaST Sound to Play Test and walla, we have music!

I just put in a DVD movie, and there is sound via VLC. It played with sound for about a minute, but just cut out again.

I opened the same DVD via SMPlayer and it give the following error message:

/usr/bin/mplayer -noquiet -nofs -nomouseinput -sub-fuzziness 1 -identify -slave -vo xv -ao alsa -nokeepaspect -framedrop -autosync 100 -nodr -double -input nodefault-bindings:conf=/dev/null -stop-xscreensaver -wid 31457624 -monitorpixelaspect 1 -ass -embeddedfonts -ass-line-spacing 0 -ass-font-scale 1 -ass-styles /home/dad/.config/smplayer/styles.ass -fontconfig -font Arial -subfont-autoscale 0 -subfont-osd-scale 20 -subfont-text-scale 20 -subcp ISO-8859-1 -subpos 100 -volume 23 -dvd-device /dev/dvd -dvdangle 1 -nocache -osdlevel 0 -vf-add screenshot -slices -channels 2 -af scaletempo,equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 dvd://1

Option ,alsa needs a parameter at line 77

next?

This will fix mplayer
Mplayer Error

I don’t know if that messages matters. Did pavucontrol run? or crash after that message?

VLC. It played with sound for about a minute, but just cut out again.

@oldcpu helped me with this
IIRC I changed the settings in vlc

Either to ALSA or Linux OSS

Sorry, but where is that? Is it the Tools/Preferences/Audio/Output Module setting? I set that to Alsa.

I ran vlc in terminal. Here is what was going on. There was no sound. Earlier tonight there was for about 2 minutes, but then it cut out. Hope this helps to diagnose the issue. I did disable the Via internal sound and only have the Aureal card in right now.

> vlc
VLC media player 1.1.8 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
[0x6090c0] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
[0x7089f0] signals interface error: signal 17 overriden (0x7f869cfb5200)
[0x7089f0] signals interface error:  /usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(?)(nil)]
[0x7089f0] signals interface error: signal 17 overriden (0x7f869cfb5200)
[0x7089f0] signals interface error:  /usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(?)(nil)]

]

It is acting as though there is a conflict. I have had a couple of lockups (linux) that the only way to clear was to hard reboot. When playing a dvd in Mplayer, it tends to hang, and the videos cut back to a slow motion, looses data and eventually stalls. In VLC it looks great, but no audio. Here is the terminal information from playing a dvd movie. Again, no sound btw.

> vlc
VLC media player 1.1.8 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
[0x6090c0] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 4.1.3
libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.10 for DVD access
libdvdnav: DVD Title: ROBOTS_169
libdvdnav: DVD Serial Number: 33017942
libdvdnav: DVD Title (Alternative): ROBOTS_169
libdvdnav: Unable to find map file '/home/dad/.dvdnav/ROBOTS_169.map'
libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00fe0000. Regions: 1

libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys
libdvdread: This can take a _long_ time, please be patient

libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x00000221
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x000005bc
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x0000062c
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB at 0x00000641
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB at 0x00001575
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB at 0x00002476
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB at 0x0000ccef
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_1.VOB at 0x000573f0
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_07_1.VOB at 0x00066baf
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_08_0.VOB at 0x000febf4
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_08_1.VOB at 0x00105526
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_09_1.VOB at 0x0034970e
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_10_1.VOB at 0x003613d5
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_11_1.VOB at 0x00383eb9
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_12_0.VOB at 0x003aba7e
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_12_1.VOB at 0x003c995c
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Found 12 VTS's
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
Warning: call to srand(317975)
libdvdnav: Suspected RCE Region Protection!!!
libdvdnav: Suspected RCE Region Protection!!!
[0x7089f0] signals interface error: signal 17 overriden (0x7f789ec15200)
[0x7089f0] signals interface error:  /usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(?)(nil)]
libdvdnav: Suspected RCE Region Protection!!!
[0x7089f0] signals interface error: signal 17 overriden (0x7f789ec15200)
[0x7089f0] signals interface error:  /usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(?)(nil)]

Try the UnixOSS setting in the audio setting

Can you rip it with k9copy

I’ve read of others having difficulty when sound starts and stops with no apparent cause and effect, but I’ve only been able to reproduce this once, when I installed Linux (with pulse audio) on an ancient PC (athlon-1100 CPU), with a KDE or Gnome desktop where the overhead of pulse with those desktops was too much. I have not encountered this with LXDE.

Reference the output audio mode of your multimedia applications, I typically explore, trying different output audio modes until I find the one that works the best. Typically most of them yield NO sound, but there is usually a few that yield sound with differing levels of behaviour.

I will be checking the settings an preferring OSS. In the mean time, I read about the following terminal query to show all installed multimedia packages. I you don’t mind, could you look at this and tell me if there is anything I could safely remove and or if there are any obvious conflicts here? I am ready to peal back if it helps, but don’t know enough to do it wisely. Ie, could it be that mplayer and mplayer2 are an issue?

thanks for the help.

rpm --query --all 'libav*' 'libpostproc*' 'libswscale*' '*xine*' '*gst*' '*layer*' '*vlc*' | grep -v avahi | sort
banshee-1-backend-engine-gstreamer-1.9.3-4.7.4.x86_64
flash-player-10.2.153.1-0.4.1.i586
gmplayer-1.0rc4_r33082-1.pm.1.2.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-0.10.32-1.pm.50.1.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-ffmpeg-0.10.11-999.pm.1000.3.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3-0.10.14-42.pm.43.2.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mpegdemux-0.10.57-42.pm.43.2.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mpegmux-0.10.4-43.pm.44.2.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-libnice-0.1.0-0.pm.2.5.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-plugin-gnomevfs-0.10.32-999.pm.1000.8.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-bad-0.10.21-999.pm.1011.29.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-base-0.10.32-999.pm.1000.8.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good-0.10.27-999.pm.1002.17.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good-extra-0.10.27-999.pm.1002.17.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-ugly-0.10.17-999.pm.1002.2.x86_64
gstreamer-0_10-utils-0.10.32-1.pm.50.1.x86_64
gstreamer-utils-0.10.32-1.pm.50.1.x86_64
kdebase4-runtime-xine-4.6.0-4.9.1.x86_64
libavc1394-0-0.5.4-2.1.x86_64
libavcodec52-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libavdevice52-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libavfilter1-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libavformat52-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libavutil50-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libgstapp-0_10-0-0.10.32-999.pm.1000.8.x86_64
libgstbasecamerabinsrc-0_10-0-0.10.21-8.6.x86_64
libgstbasevideo-0_10-0-0.10.21-999.pm.1011.29.x86_64
libgstfarsight-0_10-0-0.0.22-4.1.x86_64
libgstinterfaces-0_10-0-0.10.32-999.pm.1000.8.x86_64
libgstphotography-0_10-0-0.10.21-999.pm.1011.29.x86_64
libgstreamer-0_10-0-0.10.32-1.pm.50.1.x86_64
libgstreamer-0_10-0-32bit-0.10.32-1.pm.50.1.x86_64
libgstsignalprocessor-0_10-0-0.10.21-999.pm.1011.29.x86_64
libgstvdp-0_10-0-0.10.21-999.pm.1011.29.x86_64
libpostproc51-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libswscale0-0.6.201103092102git-1.pm.2.2.x86_64
libvlc5-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
libvlccore4-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
libxine1-1.1.19-2.pm.45.19.x86_64
libxine1-codecs-1.1.19-2.pm.45.19.x86_64
libxine1-gnome-vfs-1.1.19-4.4.x86_64
libxine1-pulse-1.1.19-4.4.x86_64
media-player-info-12-3.1.noarch
MPlayer-1.0rc4_r33082-1.pm.1.2.x86_64
mplayer2-1.99+2.0rc2-0.pm.5.1.x86_64
PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin-0.6.12-1.4.1.x86_64
phonon-backend-gstreamer-0_10-4.4.4-3.1.x86_64
phonon-backend-vlc-0.3.2-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
phonon-backend-xine-4.4.4-3.1.x86_64
pullin-flash-player-11.4.1-0.3.1.x86_64
python-gstreamer-0_10-0.10.19-999.pm.1000.1.x86_64
smplayer-0.6.9+r3599-1.pm.1.1.x86_64
vlc-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
vlc-aout-pulse-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
vlc-gnome-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
vlc-noX-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
vlc-qt-1.1.8-1.pm.2.1.x86_64
xinetd-2.3.14-152.1.x86_64

Thats a good check of redwarf’s, and its been around for a while, such that jdmcdaniel3 wrote a script called ‘mmcheck’ that does exactly what you asked (and does more). I recommend you install and run mmcheck per this thread: MultiMedia Checker or mmcheck - Check Your openSUSE MultiMedia Setup in Just 16 Steps

Thanks for the suggestion. I saw that post, but since you and caf4926 were helping, I didn’t want to add to the confusion. MMCheck is a great tool. Thanks to jdmcdaniel3. I worked through it and there were a couple of missing files. I didn’t take notes. Cleaned, it still didn’t work so I ran rcalsasound restart. Then YaST Sound to run the test sounds. Still nothing. I disabled pulse sound and the test sounds worked. I then ran a movie in vlc for 15 minutes successfully with sound. It looks like it may be fixed. I’ll keep an eye on it. Thanks to all for the help.

If you want me to run any other test to help identify what is different just let me know.

thanks, idee

Thanks for letting us know
Good news anyway

glad to read its working for you.

My experience on 5 different PCs running 11.4 is if this works with pulse disabled, then it should work with pulse enabled by using pavucontrol to tune the audio device for each application. But pavucontrol has a number of different tabs/controls, and users can easily miss the appropriate setting.