Sound configuration problems

English Multimedia
1

On Leap 16, KDE:

After having what seemed unsolvable audio problems with a Nvidia GT710 card, I installed an AMD Radeon RX550 card. The card outputs to a 5.1 channel receiver (H/K AV AMP). When I go to the sound settings on “System Settings”, I am offered choices of stereo, 5.1, and 7.1. All of these are listed as being on HDMI 4.

Screenshot_20251030_164334
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However, aplay shows that the card’s output to the receiver is HDMI 3 and there seems to be no way I can choose this.

steve@HTPC:~> aplay -L
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
speexrate
Rate Converter Plugin Using Speex Resampler
pipewire
PipeWire Sound Server
upmix
Plugin for channel upmix (4,6,8)
default
Default ALSA Output (currently PipeWire Media Server)
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=1
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 1
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=2
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 2
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
HDA ATI HDMI, H/K AV AMP
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=4
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 4
HDMI Audio Output

I tried installing pavucontrol and it lists all HDMI devices except HDMI 4 as “unavailable”.

I get no sound from HDMI 4. How can I tell the system to look at a different output?

2

Well, never mind my attempt at diagnosing. What I’m having now is essentially the same problem I had with the Nvidia card.

3

Maybe a little progress.

I can get output from all speakers in the “Sound Settings”. But applications (vlc) are outputting in stereo.

At least I know that the problem wasn’t the “HDMI 4” setting.

I’ll keep playing around with it.

Unless there are any suggestions…

4

Have a look at VLC Tools > Preferences > Audio. What is the Output module set to currently?

Also, select “Show settings” > “All” and scroll down to the “Output modules” > “ALSA”, and check the appropriate “Audio output channels” is set as required.

5

Please use the Preformatted text button </> instead of the Blockquote button " for posting computer text.

6

I’m starting to think that there might be some issue with my receiver.

When I bring up the Sound module on system settings, and select “Test”, if I continue to press the icon of one of the speakers it finally puts out audio—so the system is seeing the HDMI audio device. Regardless of this, however, none of the multimedia applications (e.g. vlc) produce any sound.

I tried one of the “live” USB installations (manjaro) and got the same result.

Curiously, everything worked when Window 11 was running (I decided to dump Windows for Leap 16). It would be a big pain to reinstall Windows as a trial. The only other suspect, however, is the receiver. So I might try the Windows reinstall just as a test.

I can’t think of anything else to try.

7

Share the audio hardware, driver, and environment info:
inxi -Aaz

Let’s see the available and active profiles:
pactl list cards | egrep -i "proifle|output"
Available sinks:
pactl list sinks | egrep -i "port|output"

8 
steve@HTPC:~> inxi -Aaz
Audio:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Baffin HDMI/DP Audio [Radeon RX
    550 640SP / 560/560X] driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 8 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aae0 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.17.5-3.g362ef3c-default status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.6 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl

steve@HTPC:~> pactl list cards | egrep -i "profile|output"
                api.acp.auto-profile = "false"
        Profiles:
                output:hdmi-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 5900, available: no)
                output:hdmi-stereo-extra1: Digital Stereo (HDMI 2) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 5700, available: no)
                output:hdmi-stereo-extra2: Digital Stereo (HDMI 3) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 5700, available: no)
                output:hdmi-stereo-extra3: Digital Stereo (HDMI 4) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 5700, available: yes)
                output:hdmi-stereo-extra4: Digital Stereo (HDMI 5) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 5700, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 800, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround71: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 800, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround-extra1: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI 2) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround71-extra1: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI 2) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround-extra2: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI 3) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround71-extra2: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI 3) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround-extra3: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI 4) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: yes)
                output:hdmi-surround71-extra3: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI 4) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: yes)
                output:hdmi-surround-extra4: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI 5) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: no)
                output:hdmi-surround71-extra4: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI 5) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 600, available: no)
        Active Profile: output:hdmi-surround-extra3
                hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (type: HDMI, priority: 5900, latency offset: 0 usec, availability group: Legacy 1, not available)
                                card.profile.port = "0"
                        Part of profile(s): output:hdmi-stereo, output:hdmi-surround, output:hdmi-surround71
                hdmi-output-1: HDMI / DisplayPort 2 (type: HDMI, priority: 5800, latency offset: 0 usec, availability group: Legacy 2, not available)
                                card.profile.port = "1"
                        Part of profile(s): output:hdmi-stereo-extra1, output:hdmi-surround-extra1, output:hdmi-surround71-extra1
                hdmi-output-2: HDMI / DisplayPort 3 (type: HDMI, priority: 5700, latency offset: 0 usec, availability group: Legacy 3, not available)
                                card.profile.port = "2"
                        Part of profile(s): output:hdmi-stereo-extra2, output:hdmi-surround-extra2, output:hdmi-surround71-extra2
                hdmi-output-3: HDMI / DisplayPort 4 (type: HDMI, priority: 5600, latency offset: 0 usec, availability group: Legacy 4, available)
                                card.profile.port = "3"
                        Part of profile(s): output:hdmi-stereo-extra3, output:hdmi-surround-extra3, output:hdmi-surround71-extra3
                hdmi-output-4: HDMI / DisplayPort 5 (type: HDMI, priority: 5500, latency offset: 0 usec, availability group: Legacy 5, not available)
                                card.profile.port = "4"
                        Part of profile(s): output:hdmi-stereo-extra4, output:hdmi-surround-extra4, output:hdmi-surround71-extra4

steve@HTPC:~> pactl list sinks | egrep "port|output"
        Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-surround-extra3
        Monitor Source: alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-surround-extra3.monitor
                node.name = "alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-surround-extra3"
                port.group = "playback"
                api.acp.auto-port = "false"
                hdmi-output-3: HDMI / DisplayPort 4 (type: HDMI, priority: 5600, availability group: Legacy 4, available)
        Active Port: hdmi-output-3
9

I dug out an old HDD that I can put Window 11 on and see what happens. I’ll report back.

10

You can do that, but not relevant to your Linux environment.

11

I’m still trying to get a handle on the issue you describe.

Try playing a single channel sound to the recevier first…
aplay -D hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
Does that work as expected?

Then a 5.1 channel test sound…
speaker-test -D hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3 -c6 -twav

If this works, the system and HDMI are working fine, and the issue is probably app-level (VLC / PipeWire channel negotiation). If it doesn’t work then maybe Linux may not be correctly reading the 5.1/7.1 capabilities of the receiver perhaps.

Can you also show the current default sink?
pactl get-default-sink
It should return something like alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-surround-extra3. If not, set it explicitly with pactl set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-surround-extra3

With respect to VLC, I already provided some general advice but you did not reply back about that. You could try setting the “Output module” to “PulseAudio”. Does that help with audio output to the receiver?

12

After doing a test installation of Windows 11, the same problem occurs—although it’s weird—I get the “startup sound” from Windows, but then once it finishes starting up and I go to the speaker configuration page and click on the individual speakers, I get no sound, and again there is no sound from applications.

So Windows doesn’t work, “live” manjaro doesn’t work, and leap 16 doesn’t work.

So the verdict here concerning Linux in general and openSUSE in particular, is “not guilty”. I appear to have some kind of hardware malfunction. I have another computer with leap 15.6 on it, and later today I will hook that up to the receiver and see what happens.

Regardless, thanks to deano_ferrari for his interest and help in trying to resolve this.

13

It turns out that it was the receiver.

14

Ok, so working as expected now? Hardware fault or configuration?

15

I think it was an HDMI handshake problem. Funny thing is that the sound from the TV itself never failed. But after trying a Windows installation and then a different computer with Leap 15.6 and having the same problem with each of them, I went ahead and replaced the receiver, and now all is well.

Again, thanks for your help and interest.

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