Microphone / Audio capture not working hda-intel Realtek ALC880 openSUSE 11.2

Hello all

I’m using openSUSE 11.2 KDE on a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1536 laptop. My problem is that my microphone (I’m attempting to use a 3.5mm headset) doesn’t work. Audio playback however does work through the built-in speakers and headphones.

I have gone through the SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE as suggested by oldcpu on the** Welcome to multimedia sub-area **sticky.

I have tested audio recording with

arecord -vv -fdat foo.wav

resulting in a silent recording. The vumeter showed 0% during the recording.

I would greatly appreciate any help.

Here is my url produced by the alsa-info script:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=2d86634252f0d70999440c4b06ac32604a500858

rpm -qa ‘alsa

alsa-plugins-1.0.21-3.3.i586
alsa-1.0.21-3.2.i586
alsa-oss-1.0.17-25.2.i586
alsa-devel-1.0.21-3.2.i586
alsa-firmware-1.0.20-3.2.noarch
alsa-utils-1.0.21-3.1.i586

rpm -qa ‘pulse

libpulse-browse0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libpulse0-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libpulse-devel-0.9.19-2.3.i586
libxine1-pulse-1.1.18.1-1.pm.37.2.i586

rpm -q libasound2

libasound2-1.0.21-3.2.i586

uname -a

Linux linux-qvcu 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2010-03-16 21:25:39 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf


options snd-hda-intel model=fujitsu
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
# u1Nb.DV3KFp34yEE:82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

Thank you in advance

Oh and I forgot to include this:

In System settings-> Multimedia
in the Device Preference tab -> Audio Capture
my audio card HDA Intel (ALC880 Analog) is listed, but the test button is greyed out and I cannot test it. This is opposed to the audio output where I can use the test button and audio output works. I don’t know whether this is important.

Thanks for all the output. It saves time.

Ok, I confirm from the script a 32-bit openSUSE-11.2 with 1.0.20/21/21a of alsa and the 2.6.31.12 kernel on a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo PI 1536, which has an Si3054/ALC880 hardware audio codec.

I note you have the model=fujitsu applied in the /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file, and that is confirmed in the script output.

I checked the HD-Audio-Models.txt file and noted this:


ALC880
======
  3stack	3-jack in back and a headphone out
  3stack-digout	3-jack in back, a HP out and a SPDIF out
  5stack	5-jack in back, 2-jack in front
  5stack-digout	5-jack in back, 2-jack in front, a SPDIF out
  6stack	6-jack in back, 2-jack in front
  6stack-digout	6-jack with a SPDIF out
  w810		3-jack
  z71v		3-jack (HP shared SPDIF)
  asus		3-jack (ASUS Mobo)
  asus-w1v	ASUS W1V
  asus-dig	ASUS with SPDIF out
  asus-dig2	ASUS with SPDIF out (using GPIO2)
  uniwill	3-jack
  fujitsu	Fujitsu Laptops (Pi1536)
  F1734		2-jack
  lg		LG laptop (m1 express dual)
  lg-lw		LG LW20/LW25 laptop
  tcl		TCL S700
  clevo		Clevo laptops (m520G, m665n)
  medion	Medion Rim 2150
  test		for testing/debugging purpose, almost all controls can be
		adjusted.  Appearing only when compiled with
		$CONFIG_SND_DEBUG=y
  auto		auto-config reading BIOS (default)

of which the model setting “fujitsu” that you applied already is recommended for Fujitsu Laptops (Pi1536). So that appears correct.

I did a search on the ALSA web site for the ALC880 and I obtained this hit: Search results - AlsaProject which indicates to me that there is likely not much that is obvious to be gained by updating to 1.0.22.1 of alsa.

So lets focus on your mixer. I note this:

!!Amixer output
!!-------------

!!-------Mixer controls for card 0 [Intel]

Card hw:0 ‘Intel’/‘HDA Intel at 0xb0000000 irq 22’
** Mixer name : ‘Realtek ALC880’**
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,0
Front Left: Capture 35 [100%] [35.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 35 [100%] [35.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,1
Front Left: Capture 29 [83%] [29.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 29 [83%] [29.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Capture’,2
Front Left: Capture 29 [83%] [29.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 29 [83%] [29.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Digital’,0
Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] -30.00dB]
Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] -30.00dB]
Simple mixer control ‘Ext Mic’,0
Front Left: Playback 54 [83%] [19.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 54 [83%] [19.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,0
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Line’ ‘CD’
Item0: 'Line’
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,1
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Line’ ‘CD’
Item0: 'Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Input Source’,2
Items: ‘Mic’ ‘Front Mic’ ‘Line’ ‘CD’
Item0: 'Front Mic’
Simple mixer control ‘Int Mic’,0
Front Left: Playback 31 [48%] -4.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 31 [48%] -4.00dB] [on]

I coloured in purple your laptop’s internal mic which i think is a digital mic. I understand you do not want to use that. It is not clear to me if that is the “Mic” or “Front Mic”.

Does your laptop have multiple input jacks for the “Mic” or just one? Its important that you figure out what connector “Mic” corresponds to, and what connector “Front Mic” corresponds to.

I recommend you try to figure this out by putting ‘Input Source’,0, and ‘Input Source’,1, and ‘Input Source’,2 all to Mic. Then test your Mic. Please use the test you noted in your post with arecord.

If that does not work then try putting ‘Input Source’,0, and ‘Input Source’,1, and ‘Input Source’,2 all to “Front Mic”. Then test your Mic. Please use the test you noted in your post with arecord.

If at any time your mic works , immediately do a screen capture of your settings, so that you do not lose what you found (many users have it working and then immediately lose/forget the settings).

I assume you KNOW your external mic is good.

If this does not work, then I think we are in bug reporting territory, as it should work. By raising a bug we get the attention of the SuSE-GmbH sound packager, who is also an alsa developer and who is very good at fixing users sound/mic problems. So there is a benefit there.

I can point to you the reference for raising bug report, but please first try what I pointed out there.

Firstly oldcpu I would like to thank you for the very quick response.

Yes I know that my external mic is good - I use it with Skype in my Windows XP installation (I have a dual-boot configuration on the laptop). The internal mic doesn’t work that well in Windows and that is why I wanted to use the external mic in openSUSE.

The laptop has a single input jack for the “Mic”.

I have now tried arecord with the external microphone with the following set in the capture section of alsamixer:

capture, capture1 and capture2 selected and their volume to 100%; input sources all set to mic

capture, capture1 and capture2 selected and their volume to 100%; input sources all set to front mic

capture, capture1 and capture2 selected and their volume to 100%; input sources all set to line.

All three of the above resulted with the vumeter in arecord at 0% during the whole recording and silent sound files.

I then tried the same settings with the addition of ‘digital’ set to 100%. In this case the vumeter remains at 99% during the whole recording

capture, capture1 and capture2 selected and their volume to 100%, digital 100%; input sources all set to mic

This when played back contained white noise but not my voice, on the right channel of my headphones.

capture, capture1 and capture2 selected and their volume to 100%, digital 100%; input sources all set to front mic

This when played back contained some medium-high pitched sound but not my voice, on the left channel of my headphones.

capture, capture1 and capture2 selected and their volume to 100%, digital 100%; input sources all set to line.

This produced a silent sound file.

Then I tried selecting alternatingly only one of the capture devices and testing it without the digital, and changing the input sources in the same manner as above. This resulted in silent sound recordings.

Is there perhaps something that I’m overlooking? Should I repeat these tests trying to use the internal microphone? Although I guess trying to use the internal microphone is not solving the external microphone problem.

Your advice is appreciated.

If I were you, at this stage, I would not waste any more time, but rather I would go straight to THE expert. You can do that with a bug report. There is guidance for writing bug reports here on openSUSE-11.2:
Submitting Bug Reports - openSUSE

You can login to bugzilla with your forum user name and forum password. Please raise the bug report against component sound.

Please run on your pc (connected to the internet):

/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload

and then attach the created file /tmp/alsa-info.txt to your bug report. Bugzilla allows file attachments.

Note the openSUSE packager for sound, who is also an alsa developer, will NOT read a forum thread. So all the salient/relevant information MUST be in the bug report. But he is very very good at this.

If anyone can sort this, he can.

oldcpu, thank you again for your quick response.

I would like to ask you whether I should include everything contained in my posts, in the bug report? Or is the info contained in my first post sufficient? This would be my first bug report and I would like it to be as efficient as possible.

Thank you in advance

Ensure when you run the script /usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh, that you have your mixer in what you believe to be the most optimal state for the mics settings. If you do not, the alsa developer will pickup a bad configuration when they look at the alsa-info.txt file that you attach, and they will ask you to adjust the settings and that may waste time.

You can advise in the text that you tried setting all capture settings to Mic1, and then repeated the test with all to Front Mic. Advise what you noted about digital mic working, but that you want the input jack Mic to work.

They are probably not interested in the rpm output commands that I like to see, as they can infer/read more from the script that I can.

When they want input, they will “flag” the bug report such that it states “Need info”. When you provide the needed info, you need to apply the setting (and these is a small circle to select) to indicate that the “Need info” flag should be cleared.

Its pretty straight forward after one has done it a few times. The first time is always a bit daunting.

The alsa developer is really very very good.

However, if for some reason you end up going for a few weeks with no response on the bug report, then the “trick” I found to proceed is to then download the latest Milestone liveCD, burn the CD, boot to the Milestone liveCD, and then repeat the error (as it typically is there as well). Sometimes one gets a quicker response on a Milestone bug report than a regular version bug report.

Thank you for all your advice oldcpu.

oldcpu

The bug has been filed as #594363 on the Novell bugzilla and I have been interacting with the alsa developer since 2010-04-07.

Well done on working with the alsa developer to sort this. We need more people like you willing to help out in cases such as this.

oldcpu

About a month has passed and I am able to report success! I can now record via the mic in jack and the built-in digital mic.

What I changed about my setup was installing alsa-driver-kmp-desktop (1.0.22.1.20100417_2.6.31.12_0.2-1.1) and changed the model option in the 50-sound.conf file to

options snd-hda-intel model=test

. This gave me the pin options, so I had many more settings to explore in alsamixer. The settings that worked for me was capture 2 selected and In-2 Pin Mode: In 50% and In-2 Pin Source: Front. I also upgraded my alsa packages.

Also in my travails I learnt a bit about the arecord command. I happened upon an example

arecord -D hw:0,2 -fdat -vv foo.wav

that worked for me - changing to the hw:0,2 part. Perhaps my sound would have worked from the beginning had I known how to better utilise the arecord command, but alas, I am content as my setup stands.

In the interest of the post being complete I will add the following

Here is my url produced by the alsa-info script:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=40251a22c97f3d4efbac25c59d34567e3d5ae7c4

rpm -qa ‘alsa

alsa-plugins-1.0.23-1.2.i586
alsa-devel-1.0.23-2.5.i586
alsa-1.0.23-2.5.i586
alsa-tools-1.0.23-1.2.i586
alsa-utils-1.0.23-1.2.i586
alsa-tools-devel-1.0.23-1.2.i586
alsa-firmware-1.0.23-1.1.noarch
alsa-oss-1.0.17-28.5.i586
alsa-driver-kmp-desktop-1.0.22.1.20100417_2.6.31.12_0.2-1.1.i586
bluez-alsa-4.64-2.1.i586

rpm -qa ‘pulse

libxine1-pulse-1.1.18.1-1.pm.37.2.i586
libpulse0-0.9.21-7.9.i586
libpulse-devel-0.9.21-7.9.i586
libpulse-browse0-0.9.21-7.9.i586
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.21-7.9.i586

rpm -q libasound2

libasound2-1.0.23-2.5.i586

uname -a

Linux linux-qvcu 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2010-03-16 21:25:39 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf

options snd-hda-intel model=test
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
# u1Nb.DV3KFp34yEE:82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

Kind regards

Thank you for sharing your solution. … and congratulations on your success.

What is really good here IMHO is your providing support to the bug report. While it may appear Takashi has been absent for a while from the thread, I believe he will take on board your experience, and submit an update to alsa such that it will eventually appear upstream and all Linux users will benefit.

You’re welcome and thank you. I do hope that my documenting the process in the forum will help someone else.