Why can't I reach my alsamixer? T

ALSA lib conf.c:1179parse_def) default is not a compound
ALSA lib conf.c:1589snd_config_load1) _toplevel_:1:13:Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:2850snd_config_hook_load) /etc/asound.conf may be old or corrupted: consider to remove or fix it
ALSA lib conf.c:2714snd_config_hooks_call) function snd_config_hook_load returned error: Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:3079snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration

Try what they suggest

running alsaconf may help, as root.

Just don't know what to fix in asound.conf?

alsaconf doesn't work. Says command not found.

If you have asound.conf, then rename it as something like asound.conf.bad and then try running alsamixer again.

In newer versions of alsa, alaconf has been removed and the configuration is done automatically (so the theory goes )
jdk

You may have alsaconf at /usr/sbin/alsaconf. It is most likely supplied by alsa-utils package, which also supplied the alsamixer program, so you should have it. It may not be in your regular users path, because it is a root command.
Try "locate alsaconf" or "ls /usr/sbin/alsaconf".

At last it's working but as I'm eager to learn something from this I actually don't understand how come it works?

I renamed the asound.conf to asound.conf.bad. I did not locate alsaconf anywhere. What I did was changing to Logitech headset USB (OSS) and not (ALSA) in Sound preferences. But shouldn't ALSA replace OSS? It doesn't work with ALSA here.

I'm also able to reach Alsamixer via terminal (or Alsamixergui) now. How come? Because I renamed asound.conf?

When I added a Logitech USB microphone, I needed to use "alsamixer -c1" to set the level. It has a controller chip so it is another device to alsa. KDE4's kmix didn't like USB mike for some reason and trying to pot it up, KDE would drop level to 0.

Here's how it works in Debian. These are the lists of files in the /sbin folder of the alsa-utils packages.
Lenny: Squeeze: So at some point between 1.0.16 and 1.0.20 alsaconf got axed. I would guess a similar thing happened in other distros, right?
Cheers,
jdk

well if in the error you got it told you that asound.conf was corrupted changing the name would help.

it works because after changing to asound.conf.bad alsamixer cannot find the original file and what it does (or so i guess) is that it creates a new one with the very basics.

Also I guess you were always able to get to alsamixer, but not to alsaconf which are little different, alsamixer controls the volume of a specific device ex.

alsamixer -c0 [this is for card 1]
alsamixer -c1 [this is for card 2]

alsaconf on the other hand brings a dialog box which will do an automated configuration of the cards you have plugged on your pc... but as the others mentioned it seems to be blown away, who knows why, maybe alsactl or alsamixer make the autoconfig now...

I also thought it would create a new file in same directory as asound.conf.bad but it hasn't. And now isn't the sound working in youtube, but streaming wma at radio station works fine.

are you sure you ran alsactl after you renamed to asound.conf.bad?
did you change the configuration back to ALSA or is it still on OSS.

You can try to reinstall alsa-utils, maybe that helps.