all sound muted except pcm on boot and...

drum · 06-09-2008, 07:31 AM

all sound muted except pcm on boot and after bootup when I unmute "front" in 'system/volume control' I can get internet audio programs but no system event sounds.
I'm using 12.1 with GSD (gnome) and not using "pulseaudio".
Alsaconf is configured and alsamixer and I've done 'alsactl store'.
I've set sounds in gdmsetup and they only work if I logout and in, not on reboot.
ESD and 'play system sounds' are enabled in Sound Preferences.
To put it simply, I can only get sound after booting if I go through all the unmuting and even then no system event sounds.
I'm sure there's a simple answer but it's a bit above my head.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks

bathory · 06-10-2008, 01:45 AM

What happens if you run

Code:

alsactl restore

after booting? Does the sound works?
If it works, then you can put that command (more precisely "/usr/sbin/alsactl restore") in /etc/rc.d/rc.local to run every time the box reboots.

Regards

shadowsnipes · 06-10-2008, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bathory

What happens if you run

Code:

alsactl restore

after booting? Does the sound works?
If it works, then you can put that command (more precisely "/usr/sbin/alsactl restore") in /etc/rc.d/rc.local to run every time the box reboots.

Regards

If asound.state is already readable (from alsactl store), which it sounds like it is in this case, then /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa should already be doing this. The only exception would be if you are booting into single user mode.

drum,
You did do the 'alsactl store' after all the outputs were unmuted and turned up, right? Make sure both Master and PCM are up at about 70% or more for now.

I don't use GNOME on Slackware or at all, so I don't know about its particular sound configuration. You might need to start GNOME with esdplay or something similar if ESD is not propagating correctly.

drum · 06-10-2008, 08:24 PM

Thanks for your help guys,
I put "alsactl store" in /etc/rc.d/rc.local after doing an alsaconf, and setting levels in alsamixer.
On reboot I have no sound and I have to reset the sliders in volume control. They all go down to the bottom except pcm but I need "front" up to get sound. All sound (system events & streaming audio) works fine then but lost again on reboot.
BTW it is an nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio built into the nvidia board and always works with other distros.
Looking forward to any more advice
Cheers
drum

bathory · 06-11-2008, 01:47 AM

Quote:

I put "alsactl store" in /etc/rc.d/rc.local after doing an alsaconf, and setting levels in alsamixer.

You run "alsactl store" after unmuting all the channels you want and adjusting the volume levels.
In /etc/rc.d/rc.local you should use "alsactl restore" to restore the values from /etc/asound.state. If you have rc.alsa it's done by that script.

Quote:

BTW it is an nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio built into the nvidia board and always works with other distros.

IIRC the driver for this chip is the snd-hda-intel. Run dmesg to check for errors during startup.

drum · 06-11-2008, 06:09 PM

Well, I reinstalled 12.1 with just KDE this time. No Dropline Gnome, yet.
Everything is beautiful and I had sound and eth0 connecting fine after the initial reboot and set up alsa etc after I removed the install DVD till I rebooted a second time and then no sound or net connection.
I have to go into alsamixer and unmute everything and do ifconfig eth0 up and dhcpcd eth0 to connect every time.
I've done alsaconf and alsactl store.
Got my Nvidia card working fine too.
If I can provide any more info please let me know.
Thanks
drum

shadowsnipes · 06-11-2008, 11:45 PM

show us dmesg

drum · 06-12-2008, 12:48 AM

shadowsnipes,
Dmesg is too big to send here, or so it says. Is there any part of it I could copy here.
How does one send files attached to these messages? I've seen it done.
Cheers
drum

shadowsnipes · 06-12-2008, 02:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drum

shadowsnipes,
Dmesg is too big to send here, or so it says. Is there any part of it I could copy here.
How does one send files attached to these messages? I've seen it done.
Cheers
drum

most people just post the parts that look like errors or pertain to the stuff we are talking about. Post the parts where your sound drivers and network is being loaded up or any errors.

Optionally you could post the entire thing by throwing it on a server somewhere. There are plenty of file bucket type sites if you don't have access to an account/personal server useful for this purpose.

drum · 06-12-2008, 03:35 AM

Code:

forcedeth: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.61.
forcedeth 0000:00:14.0: ifname eth0, PHY OUI 0x5043 @ 1, addr 00:1a:92:4e:a9:03
forcedeth 0000:00:14.0: highdma pwrctl timirq gbit lnktim desc-v3

These are the only lines in dmesg (after connecting to eth0) which I can interpret as something to do with eth0. I can't find anything relative to sound but heck, what do I know.
I didn't see any Error messages

Hope this helps a bit
thanks for your time
drum

shadowsnipes · 06-12-2008, 10:23 AM

try this for now as root

Code:

tail -f -n1 /var/log/messages

This will show the new lines in /var/log/messages as they come up.

Then on another terminal as root

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart
/etc/rc.d/rc.alsa

Copy the messages from the tail command and show them here.

Also, does your internet and/or sound work fine now? Any other error messages?

drum · 06-12-2008, 05:58 PM

Code:

# tail -f -n1 /var/log/messages
Jun 12 22:39:44 slackbox1 kernel: lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
Jun 12 22:44:29 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/route del default
Jun 12 22:44:29 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/dhcpcd -k -d eth0
Jun 12 22:44:30 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/ifconfig lo down
Jun 12 22:44:30 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0                                     .1
Jun 12 22:44:30 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/route add -net 127.                                     0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 lo
Jun 12 22:44:31 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/dhcpcd -d -t 30  et                                     h0

OK shadowsnipes, this is the result of " tail -f -n1 /var/log/messages" after I did
"/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart
/etc/rc.d/rc.alsa" on another terminal.

That started my sound OK.
I was already connected with eth0 in my usual way Ifconfig eth0 up and dhcpcd eth0.
I will reboot now and see if it saves the settings. (EDIT: OK rebooted and no sound or connection to net)
Thanks for your patience
Regards
drum

shadowsnipes · 06-12-2008, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drum

# tail -f -n1 /var/log/messages
Jun 12 22:39:44 slackbox1 kernel: lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
Jun 12 22:44:29 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/route del default
Jun 12 22:44:29 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/dhcpcd -k -d eth0
Jun 12 22:44:30 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/ifconfig lo down
Jun 12 22:44:30 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0 .1
Jun 12 22:44:30 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/route add -net 127. 0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 lo
Jun 12 22:44:31 slackbox1 logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/dhcpcd -d -t 30 et h0

OK shadowsnipes, this is the result of " tail -f -n1 /var/log/messages" after I did
"/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart
/etc/rc.d/rc.alsa" on another terminal.

That started my sound OK.
I was already connected with eth0 in my usual way Ifconfig eth0 up and dhcpcd eth0.
I will reboot now and see if it saves the settings. (EDIT: OK rebooted and no sound or connection to net)
Thanks for your patience
Regards
drum

I was not expecting those two lines to fix your problem between boots (ie save settings). What I wanted to know is if running those two lines gives you an IP and proper working sound- that is before you do any manual "ifconfig eth0 up" or messing with "alsamixer".

So, right after a boot/reboot, what is the effect of running those two lines?

drum · 06-12-2008, 11:02 PM

Quote:

So, right after a boot/reboot, what is the effect of running those two lines?

The result is that

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart
/etc/rc.d/rc.alsa

starts my internet connection and my sound.

Which is good, thanks.
Hoping you can make these stick after reboot

Again,
thanks, I think we (you) are almost there.
regards
drum

shadowsnipes · 06-13-2008, 12:36 AM

Unless you modified your init scripts (which I'm sure you didn't), those two commands should already have been run during a boot.

What is likely happening is that some part of your hardware is not completely settled/detected by the time those commands are run.

The easiest workaround would be to simply put those two commands in
/etc/rc.d/rc.local and see if that works.

However, the real solution would be to make sure that they work at the time they are supposed to. Probably all you have to do is specify that the modules for your sound card and network card need to be loaded during boot up. Right now they are probably being auto-loaded by HAL, but are getting loaded too late.

To fix this you will need to modify /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-$(uname -r).
You might be able to just uncomment a line for your soundcard and network device, but you may have to add a modprobe line for them. You could also load your modules from
/etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice
You will have to create this file if you want to use it.

Try the workaround first because I am curious if it will work.
Assuming you want to really fix the problem you will of course want to remove those extra commands from rc.local. If you are not sure what modules you need to have loaded there are some ways you can find out.

After your internet and sound is up run lsmod and report back what you have. If you didn't give us the specs for your network and sound cards you should do that as well.

Code:

/sbin/lspci -v

should also help in identifying hardware.