Erratic loading behavior in ALSA 1.0.9 using kernel 2.6.11 (Archlinux)
 

OK - I'm lost. I've tried just about everything I know how to do. (and some stuff that Im not so sure on) Here's the problem:

Im using an SB Live Card (I think that's it). It uses ALSA's ens1371 sound module, and is being correctly detected and loaded. (lspci output is below) With both the modules and the card, there seems to be no problem; however - restoring the ALSA levels upon boot up returns multiple errors that I can't quite catch. I'm not sure whether the error is what I'm interested in though -as the behavior changes and the error message seems to remain the same. It seems to take up to three reboots to get sound working properly. The first reboot, I have none of the "master" sliders in any mixer program - amixer, aumix, alsamixer, kmix, or gmix. At this point I reboot. The next time I have one Master slider - but it's only the "Master Mono" slider. Again - this is in any mixer. The THIRD reboot I can get the "Master" slider, but the volume is all the way down and muted.

I have reinstalled alsa-lib, alsa-utils, and alsa-oss via pacman, rerun alsaconf, and deleted my asound.state file in order to have a 'clean slate' to create another. None of this has worked, and Im no longer sure what to attempt. Any google search has turned up similair, but not similair enough, problems, and I am curious as to whether anyone else has had this error/ problem. I'm afraid - however, that it is just me. Thank you all in advance for your consideration of my problem and I completely understand if I get zero responses as this seems to be strange to me. Thanks again.


The error when the system has booted with all sliders, but muted
[root@DSLIN bryan]# alsactl restore
alsactl: set_control:894: warning: name mismatch (Master Mono Playback Volume/Master Playback Switch) for control #1
alsactl: set_control:896: warning: index mismatch (0/0) for control #1
alsactl: set_control:898: failed to obtain info for control #1 (Operation not permitted)

lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ALi Corporation M1647 Northbridge [MAGiK 1 / MobileMAGiK 1] (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation PCI to AGP Controller
00:04.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:06.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV]
00:08.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: D-Link System Inc RTL8139 Ethernet (rev 10)
00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 PMU
00:14.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX440] (rev a3)

If you need any more information about the system - please let me know. I'll be more than happy to give it to you. Thank you all again.

Edit:
Well, I just rebooted again and the problem persists -
I stored my values before I restarted,
They - again - didn't load correctly.

The error message as the system boots with all but the master slider
alsactl: set_control:894: warning: name mismatch (Master Playback Switch/Headphone Playback Volume) for control #1
alsactl: set_control:896: warning: index mismatch (0/0) for control #1
alsactl: set_control:994: bad control.1.value type

I hate to be a pain - but I'd like to see at least some resolution to this problem...although it's looking like I won't get one.

I'm bumping this in the hopes that I will see one

From what I understand its the kernel and the soundcard...they aren't playing nice with each other.

Hi,
I don't know if I'm going to be helpful. Anyway...
what I know is that SB live card works with the module called emu10k1. Take a look at my lspci line,
Could it be that the sound works as well with this other module that you mention? I don't know. Maybe this is the problem? Perhaps the Ensoniq module works a bit but now enough :confused:
Regards

Some thoughts...

1, Assuming lspci is correct, then your card is not an SBLive but an Ensoniq 5880 and the ens1371 module is the correct module.

2, If you are using the alsa modules supplied with the 2.6.11 kernel then you may have a version mismatch, the stock (kernel.org) 2.6.11 kernel uses alsa-1.0.8, while 2.6.12 uses 1.0.9 alsa modules. This may explain the weird alsamixer behaviour. Im a little confused as to what kernel you are actually running, the thread topic says 2.6.11 and the Distro entry in your profile indicates 2.6.12-2.

Hopefully this will help...

Mad.

OK - so I gave up here. I upgraded my kernel to 2.6.12 and enabled my onboard sound instead of my SoundBlaster. (It's not a Live! - but one of the cheaper spinoffs as I found) So now I have sound working perfectly with an Ac '97 (which I thought was strange since so many people have problems with it.)

Thank you all - and I'll be baqck when I get it all figured out.