Sound - partial intermittent

English Applications
#1

Hi
Hopefully I am putting this in the right place.

I recently installed Suse 11.1 with KDE4, but I didn’t like it so I changed it to KDE 3?? I’m not sure how to check. I’m not sure if I have both, because for example if I type KDE in, the first application listed is kdebluetooth4/KDE4

I am running Opera 9.64 and Firefox 3.0.13. I installed Skype and then I noticed that I was having difficulty with sound, so I have uninstalled Skype, but it has made no difference.

Some days I turn on the computer and the sound is fine and other days like today it is not.

I cannot get any sound out of Firefox or Opera for example with youtube. I cannot get any sound out of the cd player.

I can get sound out of mp3 files via Mplayer, but not Kaffeine or Amorak. It makes computer sounds like the welcome and logout.

Sometimes if I reboot the machine it will then be all right, but not always.

I have had a search here and I have done the following in terminal:

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

COMMAND    PID  USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
pulseaudi 4307 nappy   20u   CHR  116,6      0t0 4402 /dev/snd/controlC0
kmix      4344 nappy   10u   CHR  116,6      0t0 4402 /dev/snd/controlC0

I’m not sure if it is supposed to make a sound when you do this.

I have also carried out this one:

nappy@linux-5oez:~> speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav

speaker-test 1.0.18

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 8 to 16384
Period size range from 8 to 16384
Using max buffer size 16384
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 4096
was set buffer_size = 16384
 0 - Front Left

No sound here and also I carried out this one:

nappy@linux-5oez:~> speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav
speaker-test 1.0.18
Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 2048 to 16384
Period size range from 1024 to 1024
Using max buffer size 16384
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 1024
was set buffer_size = 16384
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 2.686188
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.007770
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.008131
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.008771
 0 - Front Left
e 1 - Front Right
Time per period = 3.027626

With this one I heard a woman’s voice saying front left, front right through each speaker.

So I don’t think it is a hardware problem. I would be grateful for anyone’s assistance.

Thank you.

#2

Hi nappy501, sorry to read of your sound problems.

To determine what KDE version, I typically type the KDE command:

kded -v

I can’t help with Skype as I never use it.

In can’t help with Opera, as I never use it. With Firefox I use flash-player and mplayerplug-in to get sound. I note that for some PCs one has to REMOVE libflashsupport to get sound working on youtube and other flash sites.

I also note that mplayerplug-in is being depreciated by gecko-mediaplayer, although I have not done anything about that YET on my PCs.

Sometimes this is caused by an inappropriate setting in the CD player application, where one has to change the setting from digital to analogue, or visa versa. Other times the CD media player has the incorrect location setup for where the CD is mounted when inserted. Without knowing the specific application you are using it is not possible to be more specific.

Kaffeine and Amarok can use either the gstreamer sound engine or the xine sound engine. Hence it suggests to me you do not have either sound engine setup with the Packman packaged version. Note the Novell/SuSE-GmbH packaged version of those two apps are packaged crippled for mp3. Hence I recommend you 1st setup your Software Package Manager so you can easily update your software, and then update your Software.

So along those lines, please setup your Software Package manager with 4 and ONLY 4 repositories. Those 4 repositories are OSS, Non-OSS, Update and Packman. Just those 4. No others. None. Only those 4. There is guidance here how to setup those 4 : Repositories/11.1 - openSUSE-Community

So please setup those 4 (and only those 4, remove others if you have others - ONLY those 4, and likely OSS, Non-OSS, and Update are already setup , so you ONLY need to add Packman. Remove any others). …

With those 4 setup, go to YaST > Software > Software management, change the “filter” to “search” and with your PC connected to the Internet search for and install the Packman packaged versions (replacing any other version) of Amarok, amarok-xine, amarok-packman, libxine1, xine-ui, kaffeine, libffmpeg0, w32codec-all, gstreamer, libgstxxxxxxx.

Note you can tell Packman packaged version by the “pm” in the version number. THAT IS IMPORTANT.

Its very common only 1 of those 2 tests will work. So give it no further thought.

Neither do I think it hardware.

Good luck.

#3

Hi

Sorry I wasn’t very clear. I uninstalled Skype.

I started to read your post, but just checking all the things you suggested, these would happen and then it all would be fine and working for a few days, before losing sound again?

Regards

#4

If you are asking if the suggestions I provided are permanent, … the answer is I don’t know.

I provided them in the hope that they will be permanent, but you will need to follow them up to see if that is the case. They are based on my limited experience.

We can only try our best. :slight_smile: