opensuse 11.2 sound stopped working - Mixer / sound server issue

English Multimedia
1

Sound was working just fine in my opensuse 11.2 install until recently. Now it looks like applications can’t find the sound server. Under “Control Center” -> Sound it says “Waiting for sound system to respond” forever and doesn’t go anywhere. In audacious it has error “alsa error No suitable mixer element found”. Now my VirtualBox also gives an error about sound issue. All of these were working just fine early Yesterday.

I installed bunch of updates given by YAST yesterday. Could something have messed this up? It is very annoying when sound system was working just fine before and now it suddenly doesn’t! Sound like some from windows! >:(

2

There was a kernel update for 11.2 recently, and since the sound driver is a kernel module, its possible the kernel update has caused you problems.

But it could be other things as well.

Can you provide the output of:

uname -a
rpm -qa '*kernel*'
rpm -qa '*alsa*'
rpm -q libasound2
cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf

and run the script

/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh

and provide there the url/address it provides. There are pix here Welcome to multimedia sub-area explaining the script execution (as some users struggle running this simple script).

That may give sufficient information to understand better your problem.

3

Here the output for 1st set of commands:

:~> uname -a
Linux main 2.6.31.14-0.1-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2010-09-17 11:32:00 +0200 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

:~> rpm -aq ‘kernel’
kernel-desktop-devel-2.6.31.14-0.1.1.i586
kernel-source-vanilla-2.6.31.14-0.1.1.noarch
kernel-source-2.6.31.14-0.1.1.noarch
kernel-source-rt-2.6.31-3.4.noarch
nfs-kernel-server-1.1.3-21.3.1.i586
linux-kernel-headers-2.6.31-3.4.noarch
kernel-desktop-2.6.31.14-0.1.1.i586

:~> rpm -aq ‘alsa’
alsa-oss-1.0.17-25.2.i586
alsa-utils-1.0.21-3.1.i586
alsa-plugins-1.0.21-3.3.i586
alsa-1.0.21-3.2.i586
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.21-3.3.i586

:~> rpm -q libasound2
libasound2-1.0.21-3.2.i586

:~> cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel

u1Nb.GDpQEAJ8ayE:GA-EP45-DS5 Motherboard

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

Here is the ALSA info: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=1d9d17458c51462f6a0c9ae3a632f6eb87581535

Thanks for the help!

4

Thankyou for the information … I do not see anything obviously wrong there.

Do you get sound from any applications ?

try each of the following in a terminal, first as a regular user and then with root permissions:

  • first:
 speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav
  • second, try again:
speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav
  • third:
speaker-test -c2 -D hw:0,0 -t wav -l3
  • fourth, this next command has a volume meter at the bottom of its output with a changing number of #'s and %'s to show volume levels so run this command and tell me if the number of #'s and %'s are changing:
aplay -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_*
  • fifth: and also:
aplay -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/test.wav

Do any of those give an indication of sound ?

Also try those with and without headphones.

5

All of the 5 tests are giving error (see below) and no sound came out. I have tried them as root also and get the same results.

:~> speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav

speaker-test 1.0.21

Playback device is plug:front
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy

:~>speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav

speaker-test 1.0.21

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

Playback open error: -111,Connection refused

:~> speaker-test -c2 -D hw:0,0 -t wav -l3

speaker-test 1.0.21

Playback device is hw:0,0
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy

:~> aplay -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_*
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

aplay: main:608: audio open error: Connection refused

:~> aplay -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/test.wav
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

aplay: main:608: audio open error: Connection refused

6

Please try the following in a terminal:

su -c 'rcalsasound restart'

and provide the root password when prompted for a password. Then restart your mixer (kmix in KDE or alsamixer in gnome) .

And then try again the above 5 speaker tests I suggested.

7

Ok, I am getting some better results but problem still isn’t solved. I was sure exactly how to restart the mixer, just open it? That all I did for mixer.

Here are new results

[li]first:[/li]```
speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav
speaker-test 1.0.21

Playback device is plug:front
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 64 to 262144
Period size range from 32 to 131072
Using max buffer size 262144
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 65536
was set buffer_size = 262144
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.486934
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.487970
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.486982
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.487097
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.485862

Works fine



[li]second, try again:      [/li]```
speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav
speaker-test 1.0.21

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

[li]third: [/li]```
speaker-test -c2 -D hw:0,0 -t wav -l3
speaker-test 1.0.21

Playback device is hw:0,0
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 64 to 262144
Period size range from 32 to 131072
Using max buffer size 262144
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 65536
was set buffer_size = 262144
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.486657
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.485968
0 - Front Left
1 - Front Right
Time per period = 5.488104
Works OK



[li]fourth, this next command has a volume meter at the bottom of its output with a changing number of #'s and %'s to show volume levels so run this command and tell me if the number of #'s and %'s are changing:  [/li]```
aplay -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_*
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

aplay: main:608: audio open error: Connection refused

[li]fifth: and also: [/li]```
aplay -vv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/test.wav
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

aplay: main:608: audio open error: Connection refused

[/list]
8

To restart the mixer, in kde just type ‘kmix’ in a terminal. In gnome I think you can type ‘alsamixer’ in a terminal.

Typically 1/2 of those tests do NOT work on a functional system.

Do you get any sound ?

9

The 1st and 3rd speaker test did give sound. The rest didn’t work. I am getting an error on the alsamixer though:


:~> alsamixer
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

cannot open mixer: Connection refused

Any new ideas?

10

what is the output of:

ps aux | grep pulseaudio

and maybe try running this as root (su -) - Disable PulseAudio completly:

setup-pulseaudio --disable
11 
ps aux | grep pulseaudio\
:~> ps aux | grep pulseaudio
username  19046  0.0  0.0   3304   784 pts/3    S+   08:47   0:00 grep pulseaudio

and maybe try running this as root (su -) - Disable PulseAudio completly:

setup-pulseaudio --disable

I ran this as root, but still getting same sound issue with no being able to connect to alsa pulse audio. I restarted the sound system but do I need to reboot too?

 alsamixer
ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

cannot open mixer: Connection refused
12

I stumbled upon this thread and it has very good instructions. I have an annoying problem. My sound system continually dies. When it boots up, everything works fine. After a period of time, the sound dies. I came here looking for a way to restart the sound without rebooting. I found that. However, there seems to be a conflict/bug causing it to die.

One thing I noticed in the diagnostics you had the one person do, I found that the first command you had them do, did NOT work for me. All the others did. Once I did a restart command, then the first one worked too. So not sure if that points in any particular direction, but thought I’d post in hopes that it does.

Oh… my TV card sound never dies. However, it is directly connected to the input jack on the back of the computer from the output of the tv card.

13

I confess I had the user run many things, as did ah7013, so I do not know which diagnostics you are refering to.

If you mean the various speaker-tests to check for sound, then typically at least 1/2 of those do not work, but that does not mean there is a problem. Its difficult to guess a user’s configuration when creating a test command, so those are just a sort of random sample where one should hopefully succeed in getting at least one to work to prove their sound is functional.

Reference your sound stopping, not sometimes an application will seize the audio device and not let it go (and not share it) even after the application closes. Hence to break the ‘hold’ of that errant process, one can restart the sound driver with:

su -c 'rcalsasound restart'

and enter root password when prompted for a password. Was that the process that worked.

Note one can check to see what files are open causing an audio device not to work, by listing the open files in the directories where an audio device might be in use (instructions for this come from here in the troubleshooting guide). The command for that is:

lsof /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/snd/*

note that last item is /dev/snd/* and NOT /dev/snd* (many users make that mistake).

If one runs the above line at different times, when one’s sound is working and not working, one can learn better as to what the output means, and be better able to " point one’s finger " at the offending application that has seized the audio device.

Again, note one must run the above MANY times (when sound is working and when it is not working, when it is in use and when it is not in use) to understand the differences.

14

Hi,
My SUSE (11.4) also has the same problem. When I run your commands, it shows :

rujiang@linux-zko7:~/Documents> su -c ‘rcalsasound restart’
Password:
Shutting down sound driver done
Starting sound driver: hda-intel done
rujiang@linux-zko7:~/Documents> lsof /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/snd/*
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
pulseaudi 15508 rujiang 23u CHR 116,7 0t0 403072 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi 15508 rujiang 30u CHR 116,7 0t0 403072 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi 15508 rujiang 35u CHR 116,9 0t0

…

Could you tell me how I can do to make front mic and headphone work? Thanks.

15

That means NOTHING to me. Did you read my post above ? I quote:

Once is not many. Do you obtain the same every time ? (if so then your pulse audio may not be configured correctly).

I recommend you run it many times under different circumstances and teach yourself about this.

I’m currently on vacation in a different continent with limited to no Internet and will not be able to provide any consistent support for over a week.

16

Thank you. My case is a little complex now. Original, it works with SUSE 11.3, KDE. The settings I found are: model=5stack, position_fix=1.

Now, I reinstall OPENSUSE 11.4, GNOME. It seems pulse audio is automatically installed. With the same model and position_fix setting, (of course and I try many other combinations), there is no mic and headphone although the main speaker works.

When I run alsamixer at a terminal, the Card: and Chip: both are “PulseAudio”. I also tried to change device by F6 and select: HDA Intel. There is still no mic and headphone.

The card is:
head -n 1 /proc/asound/card0/codec*
Codec: Realtek ALC880

The 50-sound.conf content is:
…
options snd-hda-intel model=5model position_fix=1
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel

u1Nb.1iKcnAwVcq9:PufferM-UL8E

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

The drivers installed are:
linux-zko7:~> rpm -qa | grep alsa
alsa-plugins-1.0.24-6.1.i586
alsa-tools-devel-1.0.24.1-4.5.1.i586
alsa-1.0.24.1-3.1.i586
alsa-tools-1.0.24.1-4.5.1.i586
pyalsa-1.0.22-4.1.i586
alsa-tools-gui-1.0.24.1-4.5.1.i586
alsa-oss-1.0.17-32.1.i586
alsa-utils-1.0.24.2-3.1.i586
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.24-6.1.i586
alsamixergui-0.9.0rc1-749.1.i586
alsa-firmware-1.0.24.1-3.1.noarch
alsa-plugins-jack-1.0.24-6.1.i586

zko7:~> rpm -qa | grep pulse
libpulse0-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
libpulse-browse0-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-module-jack-0.9.22-6.11.1.i586
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.24-6.1.i586
pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
libpulse-mainloop-glib0-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-module-lirc-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.22-6.9.1.i586
@linux-zko7:~>

zko7:~> rpm -q libasound2
libasound2-1.0.24.1-3.1.i586

ko7:~> uname -a
Linux linux-zko7 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2011-02-21 10:34:10 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

What is wrong? It is really strange that it works in 11.3, not in 11.4. Thanks a lot.

17

With openSUSE-11.4, what happens if you REMOVE those two settings, reboot and test ?

Also, did you try to install pavucontrol and use that to tune your audio device ? Ensure you carefully select the correct device under the ‘Configuration’ tab, and ensure you select SHOW ‘all output devices’ in the ‘output devices’ tab, and ensure you select SHOW ‘all streams’ in the playback tab. Make the appropriate selections within those tabs.