Sound from external DAC not detected; can't unmute devices in pavucontrol
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Sound from external DAC not detected; can't unmute devices in pavucontrol
Recently I installed Linux Mint 17.1 KDE on a brand new computer. So far, only this problem. Using Audacity, I'm trying to capture audio streams from an external DAC-tuner connected by optical cable to a Xonar D2/PM sound card's S/PDIF input. But there's no sound input detected by Audacity or by headphones plugged into the Xonar's headphone output jack. However, music files played on the computer can be captured by Audacity and are heard through the headphones.
In PulseAudio Volume Control it's not possible to unmute the Xonar card, the onboard audio, or the graphics card – clicking on the red X beside the speaker icon associated with each of these devices doesn't remove the X. In KDE Mixer the sound devices can be unmuted/muted, and opening alsamixer in the terminal shows that nothing seems to be muted.
I want to record radio streams from the external DAC-tuner as I had been doing using Audacity and the same Xonar sound card in my previous old computer running Debian XFCE, with only ALSA and no PulseAudio. Then, whenever the sound system was playing and the computer was also on, the sound was always audible through the headphones connected to the Xonar. I've checked and rechecked the optical cable and headphone connections several times and they seem fine. Would greatly appreciate any helpful advice. I would think that sound must be audible from the headphones if it's being processed by the Xonar and before it has any possibility of being captured by Audacity.
Thanks EDDY1, an .asoundrc file is worth trying. Your example is different from my setup so when I get a chance I'll investigate how to configure that file. In the meantime, here's more relevant information:
Following a suggestion from an Audacity Forum Staff Member, I removed .asoundrc. The headphones continued outputting audio but Audacity continued not recording it. As no one has come up with a fix to the problem of Audacity not recording from an external DAC-tuner, I tried ocenaudio. Without any set-up, 2 mouse clicks and it started recording the external audio. Ocenaudio has all the capabilities I require, so goodbye Audacity.
Audacity still doesn't record my external audio, so the main problem hasn't been solved; I've simply sidestepped it by switching to one of several alternative applications. Also, pavucontrol unmute still doesn't work, though that doesn't seem to be a problem since it doesn't appear to effect sound. If forum moderators define this as being solved, they should mark it as such.
The only file I could find for ocenaudio with a name resembling that is ocenaudio.cfg which defines keyboard shortcuts and isn't what you're referring to.
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