aplay plays sound but I can't hear it

Gary Baker · 10-20-2014, 10:22 AM

[Mon Oct 20 -11:15:36 root@vector:/home/gb10]#aplay -D plughw:0 horned_owl-Mike_Koenig-1945374932.wav
Playing WAVE 'horned_owl-Mike_Koenig-1945374932.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo

Can't hear sound with headphones any help?

It has worked in the past. Thanks.

rtmistler · 10-20-2014, 12:13 PM

Check your volumes, your mixer, perhaps something is turned way down or muted. Do other files play with sound? "Worked in the past." When? How often? What's changed in your system? You posted in Slackware so that would be the assumption. Like did this work an hour ago and pretty much worked everyday all the time, or do you happen to only listen to sound files once in a blue moon, and there's also been a lot of system changes via updates or software installs since the last time you've done this. Many systems have different output jacks for amplified speakers versus headphones, try them if you have different ones. Verify also that you are on the headphone or speaker output plugs and not the microphone plug.

Gary Baker · 10-22-2014, 07:02 AM

The sound use to work all the time. I have unmuted the master and set the vol way up. Checked the plug. Basically still stumped.

Alien Bob · 10-22-2014, 07:22 AM

Are those headphones USB? Can you hear sound if you use regular speakers?
What is the output of

Code:

aplay -L

and

Code:

aplay -l

And what about

Code:

for AUDIODEV in $(lspci -mm | grep -i audio | cut -f1 -d' ') ; do lspci -k -s ${AUDIODEV} ; done

Is there anything in /etc/modprobe.d/ which relates to that kernel driver?
Did you add a ~/.asoundrc which affects the default audio device/

Questions, questions...

Eric

allend · 10-22-2014, 07:34 AM

Have you tried different headphones? Broken wire in the cable? A soldered connection has failed?

PS - As a normal user you may need to specify the full path to lspci

Code:

for AUDIODEV in $(/sbin/lspci -mm | grep -i audio | cut -f1 -d' ') ; do /sbin/lspci -k -s ${AUDIODEV} ; done

Gary Baker · 10-22-2014, 11:31 AM

Here is aplay -l:

[Wed Oct 22 -12:15:51 gb10@vector:~]$aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC892 Analog [ALC892 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC892 Digital [ALC892 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

[Wed Oct 22 -12:17:57 gb10@vector:~]$for AUDIODEV in $(lspci -mm | grep -i audio | cut -f1 -d' ') ; do lspci -k -s ${AUDIODEV} ; done
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 841b
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
01:05.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RS880 Audio Device [Radeon HD 4200]
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 843e
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

I will check /etc/modprobe.d.

Did not add to or modify .asoundrc

Gary Baker · 10-22-2014, 11:43 AM

[Wed Oct 22 -12:40:40 gb10@vector:/etc/modprobe.d]$ cat snd-hda-intel.conf
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
[Wed Oct 22 -12:41:23 gb10@vector:/etc/modprobe.d]$cat sound.conf
# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF version 1.0.24.2 ---
alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 snd
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---

These are my two sound files in /etc/modprobe directory.

Thanks again.

Alien Bob · 10-22-2014, 12:33 PM

What happens if you just execute

Code:

aplay horned_owl-Mike_Koenig-1945374932.wav

Eric

Gary Baker · 10-24-2014, 07:55 AM

[Fri Oct 24 -08:47:18 root@vector:/home/gb10]#aplay horned*
aplay: main:660: audio open error: No such file or directory

rtmistler · 10-24-2014, 08:01 AM

Have you like uninstalled and re-installed aplay? Or better yet, can you boot from a LIVE distribution, perhaps even the same distro you have, and get sound working? I do wonder if there is hardware or connection failures. I'd check the system log and see if there are any complaints when you try to play sound files.

Forgetting aplay, can you get ANY system sounds? If you play a movie file with something else, do you hear the audio? If you visit a website like youtube and play a streaming video with audio, do you hear the audio? I think you need to determine if sound is broken on your hardware, your sound drivers, or if aplay itself happens to be the problem here.

And by the way Alien Bob's suggestion was for you to try and play your cited sound file, with no arguments; also meaning that you'd need to run aplay from the directory where that sound file is located, or at the very list give the fully qualified pathname to that sound file when you give it as an argument to aplay.