I recently built a new computer, and my sound works fine, but the speakers don’t mute when I plug my headphones in. The headphones work, other than there is also sound coming from the speakers.
My sound information is here.
Any ideas?
In my experience, the muting of the speakers is usually a hardware kind of thing. Does the muting work in Windows (if you have that installed).
If there is more than one jack where you can plug in the earphones, then try another jack. It could be that one of the jacks mutes the speaker while the other doesn’t.
Yes, in Windows the speakers mute when headphones are plugged in.
There are only two sound jacks on my computer, and I’m plugging my headphones in to the front jack, which is the one designed for headphones.
This is definitely worth writing a bug report on. It may already be solved in 1.0.24 of alsa.
I note your PC is a Gigabyte GA-880GM-D2H running a 64-bit openSUSE-11.3 with the latest stock 2.6.34.7-0.7-desktop kernel and the stock 1.0.22.1/1.0.23 version of alsa. Your PC’s hardware audio codec is identified as a Realtek ID 887 which is NOT the standard way the diagnostic script identifies an audio device, and it suggests to me there are automatic audio configuration problems with the alsa driver. The absolutely MASSIVE dmesg entry at the bottom of the diagnostic script confirms there were automatic configuration problems with that hardware.
I recommend you update to the latest version of alsa following the guide here: SDB:Alsa-update - openSUSE That webpage is out of date (my fault) but the philosophy still applies. You need to install the version of alsa-driver-kmp-desktop that is applicable to your kernel version. And you also should update all you alsa apps including libsound2 as also noted in that same guide. Unfortuantely I can not be more specific as you did not advise as to what alsa apps you have installed on your PC. In the case of my 64-bit PC that would mean also updating libasound2, alsa, alsa-plugins, alsa-plugins-32-bit, alsa-oss, alsa-oss-32-bit, alsa-utils. But your PC may have different alsa apps installed so I can not be precise. Also note a VAST MAJORITY of openSUSE users do NOT know how to use YaST properly when it comes to updating alsa and they simply fail to update those alsa applications. I provided guidance in that out of date guide how to do that, but many users ignore that guidance because they think they know how to do this (and they do not) and then they fail to update those alsa apps. So be careful and precise when updating and do not fall in to that mistake/trap.
After updating you need to reboot and test.
If things do not work afterward, write a bug report on openSUSE-11.3 component “sound” per the guidance here: openSUSE:Submitting bug reports - openSUSE . You can use your openSUSE forum user name and password when logging on to bugzilla. Attach to the bug report the text file /tmp/alsa-info.txt you get by running:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
Do not reference this forum thread as the SuSE-GmbH sound driver packager (who is also a developer of the alsa sound driver) will NOT read a forum thread. Then follow up the bug report checking every day or so, and respond to the SuSE-GmbH packagers (alsa developers) questions as he tries to solve the problem. IF you and he succeed in solving the problem, he will send the fix upstream and EVERY LINUX version will benefit.
Thank you for your posting and good luck.
Sorry for the delayed reply,
I updated alsa to the version in Factory (1.0.24.1-72.2), but that didn’t work. My kernel version doesn’t have an associated alsa-driver-kmp-desktop; I could try downgrading the kernel and installing the driver package, but I haven’t done that yet since my graphics driver is compiled against the current kernel and last time I tried changing kernel versions it messed with the graphics. It’s still an option, but I don’t want to follow through with it until I have a better idea of what the package contains. If sound works fine otherwise without the driver, why is it necessary?
Thanks for your feedback.
The guide for updating alsa is out of date for its listed kernel versions, but the same philosophy applies. If you look at the repository you WILL see an rpm alsa-driver-kmp-desktop-1.0.24.20110305_k2.6.34.7_0.7-1.1.x86_64.rpm which IS for the 2.6.34.7-0.7-desktop kernel that you have.
You are correct that a kernel update WILL likely break your graphics (requiring the graphics driver to be updated). The same will be true for both graphics AND sound after you have the alsa-driver-kmp-desktop package installed. But unless you have changed your kernel, the correct kernel version IS there. What brought you to come to the conclusion that the kernel version was NOT there ? Did you look in the wrong place ? Or was it the guide being out of date (which it is - my fault).
Did you follow my recommendation and raise a bug report ? Please, you really should try to do that.
Note I am not an alsa/sound developer nor a packager of alsa/sound rpms, nor am I an employee of any Linux company. Rather I am a user like you, and also an enthusiast and I try to provide some support to Linux users in my spare time. IF you want this looked at by an alsa developer and/or looked at the SuSE-GmbH sound packager then you need to raise that bug report. THEY are the best one’s to answer your further questions as to what EXACTLY is in an update. (although if you look here Main Page - AlsaProject you will see a section on that page indicating changes between alsa versions).
Turns out the multimedia repository I added was the wrong one; it was openSUSE_11.3, not openSUSE_11.3_Update. That’s why the driver corresponding to my kernel version wasn’t there.
I installed the driver package, and the problem still persists. I’ll look into writing up a bug report, but I wanted to make sure I’d covered all of my options to make sure I could make it as detailed as possible.
Anyone interested in following the results of this, the bug report number is 677256.
Could you also provide the output of:
rpm -qa '*alsa*'
I ask because my experience is many users of openSUSE believe they update their alsa per that guide, but in fact they fail (unknowingly running into difficulty with the change of supplier with a different repository).
The versions probably are a little off, since I downloaded the factory version of alsa:
alsa-utils-1.0.23-1.8.x86_64
alsa-driver-kmp-desktop-1.0.24.20110305_k2.6.34.7_0.7-1.1.x86_64
alsa-oss-32bit-1.0.17-29.2.x86_64
alsa-firmware-1.0.23-1.2.noarch
alsa-oss-1.0.17-29.2.x86_64
alsa-plugins-1.0.23-1.9.x86_64
alsa-plugins-32bit-1.0.23-1.9.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit-1.0.23-1.9.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.23-1.9.x86_64
alsa-docs-1.0.23-2.12.noarch
alsa-1.0.24.1-72.2.x86_64
OK, you failed to update all those apps above, and also I suspect failed to update “libasound2”. Those versions you note (that I quoted) are the versions that come with openSUSE and they are NOT the versions in the repository:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/multimedia:/libs/openSUSE_11.3/
Just look at the directory here (that is NOT a full repository URL) to see what I mean:
I recommend you try again to update them, as they could make the difference between this working or not working properly.
Assume you finally figure out how to update, do not forget to restart to unload and reload the driver.
Ah, guess I wasn’t aware that the alsa updates spanned multiple repositories; in any case, I updated all the alsa packages and rebooted, but the problem still persists. Here are my new versions:
alsa-firmware-1.0.24.1-11.2.noarch
alsa-oss-32bit-1.0.17-56.3.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-1.0.24-36.1.x86_64
alsa-1.0.24.1-72.1.x86_64
alsa-docs-1.0.24.1-72.1.noarch
alsa-plugins-1.0.24-36.1.x86_64
alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit-1.0.24-36.1.x86_64
alsa-utils-1.0.24.2-33.1.x86_64
alsa-oss-1.0.17-56.3.x86_64
alsa-driver-kmp-desktop-1.0.24.20110308_k2.6.34.7_0.7-1.1.x86_64
alsa-plugins-32bit-1.0.24-36.1.x86_64
Sorry to read that did not work.
You could now add an extra entry to your bug report here: Access Denied and note that you updated your alsa, with no improvement. And also in the update, include an updated version of the output alsa-info.txt from the script:
/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload
On 11.3 standard kernel (2.6.34.7-0.7-desktop), I had sound on my notebook concurrently in speakers and headphones and was able to mute one of those channels using KMix or Alsamixer.
Automatic muting of speakers on plugging in headphones (as on Win7) was only achieved on 11.3 when I upgraded to a 2.6.37 version of kernel-desktop (using Tumbleweed repo), and it works that way on 11.4 RC1/2 (also kernel 2.6.37). In a few days, 11.4 should have general availabilty (GA).
I just upgraded to 11.4 (kernel 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop), but it hasn’t solved the problem. I haven’t done anything with sound drivers since updating, so I still have a couple things to try, but updating the kernel didn’t solve it.
Sorry to hear it’s not fixed in 11.4 yet. It was worth a try (I would have also done that), although if it was me, I would run 11.4 for a while without making non-standard changes. You should be able to mute either headphones or speakers as appropriate, until the bug gets fixed or they give you a workaround.
Does that mean you now don’t have 11.3? In any case you should add a note to your bug report about 11.4 also having the problem.
I updated the bug report to 11.4, but nobody from the team has responded to it yet. Here’s hoping they’ll look at it soon.
UPDATE: I was given a fix for the problem by patching the firmware, and they report that the problem has been fixed in the upstream kernel, so starting with 11.5 this issue should be fixed out of the box. Anyone until then having this issue can follow the steps listed on the bug report.
Now if I can just figure out how to mark the thread as solved…
I read the bug report. you got good support there. Well done for filing it and getting the job done. 