No Audio: Linux Mint on a Dell Inspiron 15

kc067 · 04-30-2020, 04:24 PM

First, I'm a rank N00B with Linux. I installed Mint 19.3 as a dual-boot and all went well. However I've been struggling with no audio all day and can't resolve it.

I've been through all sorts of online suggestions to no avail and I've played with the settings in alsamixer ... it shows these options:
0 HDA Intel HDMI and
1 HDA Intel PCH.

I have selected the 2nd one several times and gone through the settings, then stored using [alsactl store] from a root prompt but it will not store. After reboot opening alsamixer, it shows [Default] with a single volume control and S/PDIF under it.

At this point I've tried everything I could find. If you're willing to help, please be mindful of the n00bness .... I greatly appreciate any help, but I'm kinda in the baby steps phase.

frankbell · 04-30-2020, 07:07 PM

Mint uses Pulse Audio. Install the Pulse Audio mixer (pavucontrol--it's in the repos). It gives you much more granular control over input and output devices than normal volume control applications.

Then check the settings for the individual devices and programs and let us know what you find.

kc067 · 05-01-2020, 10:42 AM

I have three devices in the output tab.

1. PCM2906C Audio CODEC Analog Stereo (This is associated with a Signalink TNC which connects to an HF transceiver)
2. Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
3. Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI)
The volume sliders for each of them is aprox half way.

I discovered that I have audio for Youtube on Firefox -ONLY-. No idea why. The Playback settings for Firefox specifies #2 above.

Thanks for the reply.

ferrari · 05-01-2020, 05:35 PM

Do you hear sound when you run 'speaker-test'? For example

Code:

speaker-test -t wav -c2

Post the output of

1)

Code:

aplay -l

*This will list the devices present

2)

Code:

pacmd list | egrep "profile|output"

*This should reveal the current active profile (and other available options). Hopefully, we can advise further with this information.

kc067 · 05-03-2020, 05:50 PM

So yeah, I do hear audio from the speaker test.

1

Code:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: Generic Digital [Generic Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC3234 Analog [ALC3234 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

2

Code:

pacmd list | egrep "profile|output"
Default sink name: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
		module.description = "Automatically restore profile of cards"
	name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_03.0.hdmi-stereo>
		device.profile.name = "hdmi-stereo"
		device.profile.description = "Digital Stereo (HDMI)"
		hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (priority 5900, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
	active port: <hdmi-output-0>
	name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo>
		device.profile.name = "analog-stereo"
		device.profile.description = "Analog Stereo"
		analog-output-speaker: Speakers (priority 10000, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
		analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority 9000, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
	active port: <analog-output-speaker>
	name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_03.0.hdmi-stereo.monitor>
	name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor>
		device.profile.name = "analog-stereo"
		device.profile.description = "Analog Stereo"
	profiles:
		output:hdmi-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output (priority 5400, available: unknown)
	active profile: <output:hdmi-stereo>
		alsa_output.pci-0000_00_03.0.hdmi-stereo/#0: Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI)
		alsa_output.pci-0000_00_03.0.hdmi-stereo.monitor/#0: Monitor of Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI)
		hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (priority 5900, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
	profiles:
		output:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Output (priority 6000, available: unknown)
		output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Duplex (priority 6060, available: unknown)
	active profile: <output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo>
		alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo/#1: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
		alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor/#1: Monitor of Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
		analog-output-speaker: Speakers (priority 10000, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
		analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority 9000, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
0 source output(s) available.

ferrari · 05-03-2020, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kc067

So yeah, I do hear audio from the speaker test.

That's a good sign.

Your PulseAudio output suggests more than one active profile. I guess your sound is being routed via HDMI output (for some apps at least). Check the 'Configuration' tab of pavucontrol to make sure you have it as desired.

kc067 · 05-03-2020, 06:36 PM

OK Thanks. I appreciate the help.