Sound Problem

English Multimedia
1

Hi, from yesterday I haven’t sound for any application - XBMC, VLC, Amarok, etc.
I try

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

and this work perfect, but

speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav

didn’t work. I didn’t install or change anything and all work perfect fine until yesterday.

2

Check in kmix, the volume sliders and audio devices (if you have more than one)

SDB:Audio troubleshooting - openSUSE

Worth trying this as su -

rcalsasound restart
3

:frowning: got exactly the same problem (SuSE 11.3). Yast lets me play a test sound, but speaker-test produces the following error messages (English text only):

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

none of the channels has been set ‘mute’.

Bernd

4

Sometimes if YaST allows one to play a test sound, but if all efforts to play sound as a regular user fail, then it is a permission problem. Is that your case? Can you play any sound as a regular user? If note, then add your regular user to group audio per the recommendation in step-6 in the audio troubleshooting guide which is either:

  • Go to YAST » Security and Users » User Management » “select your user” » Edit » Details » Groups »
    check “audio” and then click on “ACCEPT” - or the command line method which is to run as root
usermod -A audio yourusername

where ‘yourusername’ is your user name (insert your username there)

In both cases above the new group membership will be available to processes started from the next openSUSE Linux login (hence a quick way to test is to do a complete reboot).

It is known that for some hardware an update to the proprietary nVidia driver can cause this problem.

5

Thank you very much. It was actually something very stupid in “Sound Preference” section “Output” I have 2 options to choose a device for sound output and the wright one was marked, but still didn’t work. I just mark other option close window, but without effect. After that I mark first option again and try speaker-test and this work fine, then I start VLC and work perfect.
Before that I try some troubleshooting unfortunately without immediate effect.
Thanks again.

6

this is getting more mysterious! After installing the latest version of VLC I get sound as an ordinary user with Amarok. VLC does play sound, but complains about an outdatet library:

VLC failed to initialize your sound output device (if any).
Please update alsa-lib to version 1.0.23-2-g8d80d5f or higher to try to fix this issue

I wonder how this happened as I included all recommended updates for 11.3. So I consider the problem solved from a practical point of view, although not in an understandable way.

Bernd

PS: I added myself to the audio group, but this did not change anything.

7

did you install vlc and add yourself to audio grou simultaniously?

8

Perhaps you should visit this
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide

9

Why did you add yourself to the audio group? I specified it was to be added if sound worked as a root user but not as a regular user. I did not say it was a fix for VLC problems.

I recommend you do NOT apply fixes intended for different symptoms.