Pulseaudio problem after upgrading to Leap 42.3

anandrajan · August 10, 2017, 2:16am

After upgrading from Leap 42.2, I lost sound for regular users. Only root had sound. Thinking this was a permission problem, I added audio,pulse to the regular users groups to no avail.

Digging a little further, I noticed that root was sending audio output to a “Default Device” in KDE Multimedia whereas for a regular user, it was attempting to send the output to HDMI Audio Output. Since I only had Analog Stereo Output, I fired up Pulse Audio Control (pavucontrol) and attempted to change the output device to Analog Stereo. This was not possible since there was no such option.

So, to temporarily get audio working for a regular user, I disabled pulseaudio in Yast -> Sound. Now, audio works for a regular user.

But, I’d like to get pulseaudio working again. How do I get pulseaudio to allow me to direct output to Analog Stereo Speakers if that option does not exist in the GUI? Do I have to change a pulseaudio or modprobe/sound configuration file?

Here’s the output of aplay -l:

anand@agape-server:~> aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC892 Analog [ALC892 Analog]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Detailed alsa info has been uploaded to http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=7c3e819116416e4fb8796f54a1b750c34850a987

Thanks for any help! My kid looked at what I was doing to get audio working and said “You linux people are crazy”

deano_ferrari · August 10, 2017, 4:00am

After upgrading from Leap 42.2, I lost sound for regular users. Only root had sound. Thinking this was a permission problem, I added audio,pulse to the regular users groups to no avail.

Digging a little further, I noticed that root was sending audio output to a “Default Device” in KDE Multimedia whereas for a regular user, it was attempting to send the output to HDMI Audio Output. Since I only had Analog Stereo Output, I fired up Pulse Audio Control (pavucontrol) and attempted to change the output device to Analog Stereo. This was not possible since there was no such option.

This might useful as well

aplay -L

Perhaps start by cleaning out the PA user config (or rename it). It will get recreated when PA next starts anyway.

rm -rf ~/.config/pulse/

Then do

sudo setup-pulseaudio --enable

pulseaudio -Dv

What is reported by the following?

pactl list

Thanks for any help! My kid looked at what I was doing to get audio working and said “You linux people are crazy”

What’s his/her point?

anandrajan · August 10, 2017, 4:41am

Results of aplay -L

anand@agape-server:~> aplay -L
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default
Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)
sysdefault:CARD=PCH
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
Front speakers
surround21:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output

Re-enabled pulseaudio after deleting the .config/pulse directory. Rebooted.
Checked the default sink in .config/pulse

anand@agape-server:~/.config/pulse> more 74fc18841ff54a7f8e09f6b58d4bad53-default-sink
alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-stereo

It still gives me just one hdmi option (as does the pavucontrol GUI). No Analog Stereo. Is pulseaudio getting the wrong info from alsa somehow? Can I hardcode the analog stereo output as the default somewhere for pulseaudio to pick up?

deano_ferrari · August 10, 2017, 4:53am

What about the following?

pactl list sinks

BTW, please use

[/CO..] tags when posting output. Refer to the '#' button in the forum editor.

anandrajan · August 10, 2017, 5:10am

Sorry, here you go.


pactl list sinks
Sink #2
        State: SUSPENDED
        Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-stereo
        Description: Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series] Digital Stereo (HDMI)
        Driver: module-alsa-card.c
        Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 48000Hz
        Channel Map: front-left,front-right
        Owner Module: 6
        Mute: no
        Volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        Base Volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        Monitor Source: alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-stereo.monitor
        Latency: 0 usec, configured 0 usec
        Flags: HARDWARE DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY SET_FORMATS 
        Properties:
                alsa.resolution_bits = "16"
                device.api = "alsa"
                device.class = "sound"
                alsa.class = "generic"
                alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
                alsa.name = "HDMI 0"
                alsa.id = "HDMI 0"
                alsa.subdevice = "0"
                alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
                alsa.device = "3"
                alsa.card = "1"
                alsa.card_name = "HDA ATI HDMI"
                alsa.long_card_name = "HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfe640000 irq 32"
                alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel"
                device.bus_path = "pci-0000:01:00.1"
                sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card1"
                device.bus = "pci"
                device.vendor.id = "1002"
                device.vendor.name = "Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]"
                device.product.id = "aa98"
                device.product.name = "Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series]"
                device.string = "hdmi:1"
                device.buffering.buffer_size = "352768"
                device.buffering.fragment_size = "176384"
                device.access_mode = "mmap+timer"
                device.profile.name = "hdmi-stereo"
                device.profile.description = "Digital Stereo (HDMI)"
                device.description = "Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series] Digital Stereo (HDMI)"
                alsa.mixer_name = "ATI R6xx HDMI"
                alsa.components = "HDA:1002aa01,00aa0100,00100200"
                module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
        Ports:
                hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (priority: 5900, not available)
        Active Port: hdmi-output-0
        Formats:
                pcm

deano_ferrari · August 10, 2017, 5:13am

Ok, that looks as expected with respect to your HDMI device anyway.

Are both cards (Analog and HDMI) shown via the following?

pactl list cards

anandrajan · August 10, 2017, 5:21am

I don’t think so. Think only the HDMI output is shown. Don’t understand why the Analog Stereo Output doesn’t show up. I get sound on my analog audio speakers for root (and users when not using pulseaudio).


pactl list cards

Card #0
        Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_01_00.1
        Driver: module-alsa-card.c
        Owner Module: 6
        Properties:
                alsa.card = "1"
                alsa.card_name = "HDA ATI HDMI"
                alsa.long_card_name = "HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfe640000 irq 32"
                alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel"
                device.bus_path = "pci-0000:01:00.1"
                sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card1"
                device.bus = "pci"
                device.vendor.id = "1002"
                device.vendor.name = "Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]"
                device.product.id = "aa98"
                device.product.name = "Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series]"
                device.string = "1"
                device.description = "Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series]"
                module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
        Profiles:
                output:hdmi-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 5400, available: yes)
                output:hdmi-surround: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 300, available: yes)
                output:hdmi-surround71: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 300, available: yes)
                off: Off (sinks: 0, sources: 0, priority: 0, available: yes)
        Active Profile: output:hdmi-stereo
        Ports:
                hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (priority: 5900, latency offset: 0 usec, not available)
                        Properties:
                                device.icon_name = "video-display"
                        Part of profile(s): output:hdmi-stereo, output:hdmi-surround, output:hdmi-surround71

deano_ferrari · August 10, 2017, 5:41am

Hmmm…let’s try forcing the sound card order, so that first sound card is the analog one. I’m basing this on your alsa diagnostic info you shared

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series]


!!Advanced information - PCI Vendor/Device/Subsystem ID's
!!-------------------------------------------------------

00:1b.0 0403: 8086:1c20 (rev 05)
    Subsystem: 17aa:3611
--
01:00.1 0403: 1002:aa98
    Subsystem: 1462:aa98

You’ll need to make a custom edit (as root) to /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf so that it contains the following

options snd-hda-intel index=0 vid=8086 pid=1c20 
options snd-hda-intel index=1 vid=1002 pid=aa98

Then restart alsa with

sudo systemctl restart alsasound

You might need to logout and back in again, or else restart PA with

pulseaudio -k;pulseaudio -D

Let’s see if that makes a difference.

anandrajan · August 10, 2017, 3:01pm

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Caicos HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6400 Series]

OK, I tried making the Intel device primary and the Caicos device secondary, rebooted and restarted pulseaudio. No dice. (I did the edits in 50-sound.conf as well.)

Sorry, but I have to give up because of real world pressures. I’ve disabled pulseaudio, removed the Caicos card from Yast -> Sound and I get sound as a regular user now. (I understand I’ll be giving up per application sound control but the extra configuration headache just doesn’t seem worth it. FWIW, I still see the Caicos card HDMI output as an option in KDE Settings -> Multimedia when I enable pulseaudio, despite the fact that I disabled it in Yast. IMHO, this is confusing and should not be allowed.)

Thanks for all your help. It’s amazing to see this much commitment to make open source desktops work in 2017, so thanks again.