LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Current: upgrading pulseaudio breaks alsamixer

- Slackware (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/)

- - Current: upgrading pulseaudio breaks alsamixer (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/current-upgrading-pulseaudio-breaks-alsamixer-4175689659/)

Current: upgrading pulseaudio breaks alsamixer

I have Slackware64 Current, pulseaudio / ALSA, and alsamixer, with this configuration. Until a few days ago I could use alsamixer to change change volume, the change was immediately effective for all applications using sound, and life was good. Then a few days ago I upgraded pulseaudio from 14.0 to 14.2, and alsamixer stopped working: pressing the up and down arrows no longer changes either the volume or the colored bar representing the master control. Other mixers (f.i. pavucontrol) seem to have a similar problem, basically the cursor is stuck at whatever level was set at boot. This happens as root as well as my regular user, and downgrading pulseaudio to 14.0 and rebooting restores everything to a working state.

Any idea what's going on?

I couldn't get it working for a while either. I took a close look at the man page, and saw alsamixer or alsamixergui opens on card 0. This is not a problem until you have more than 1 audio card; as I do. aplay -l shows I have audio on my Nvidia card, and I audio on the system board. The Nvidia card is 0, the default. I'm using card 1 the analog card on the system board.

So, alsamixer -c1 works, as does alsamixergui -c1.

Long story short, check aplay -l and make sure you are trying to use it with the correct card.

Hope this helps. ( yes, I'm on current fully updated to Jan31. )

While I do have a second on board card (disabled in BIOS), ID games don't seem to be the problem here. The output of aplay -l (and aplay -L) stays the same after the upgrade. This is the output of alsa-info.sh with pulseaudio 14.2, the one I posted above is with pulseaudio 14.0. Ignoring the garbage caused by different installation times etc., the difference seem to be only in some levels:

Code:

--- alsa-info.txt.old        2021-02-02 07:46:00.143059550 +0200

+++ alsa-info.txt.new        2021-02-02 07:41:34.836506106 +0200

@@ -218,14 +218,14 @@

  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right - Rear Left - Rear Right - Front Center - Woofer - Side Left - Side Right

  Limits: Playback 0 - 255

  Mono:

-  Front Left: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Front Right: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Rear Left: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Rear Right: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Front Center: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Woofer: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Side Left: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

-  Side Right: Playback 255 [100%] [195.00dB] [on]

+  Front Left: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Front Right: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Rear Left: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Rear Right: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Front Center: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Woofer: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Side Left: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

+  Side Right: Playback 51 [20%] [-9.00dB] [on]

 Simple mixer control 'Front Panel',0

  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined

  Playback channels: Mono

@@ -293,14 +293,14 @@

        control.1 {

                iface MIXER

                name 'Master Playback Volume'

-                value.0 127

-                value.1 127

-                value.2 127

-                value.3 127

-                value.4 127

-                value.5 127

-                value.6 127

-                value.7 127

+                value.0 79

+                value.1 79

+                value.2 79

+                value.3 79

+                value.4 79

+                value.5 79

+                value.6 79

+                value.7 79

                comment {

                        access 'read write'

                        type INTEGER

@@ -308,14 +308,14 @@

                        range '67 - 127'

                        dbmin -6000

                        dbmax 0

-                        dbvalue.0 0

-                        dbvalue.1 0

-                        dbvalue.2 0

-                        dbvalue.3 0

-                        dbvalue.4 0

-                        dbvalue.5 0

-                        dbvalue.6 0

-                        dbvalue.7 0

+                        dbvalue.0 -4800

+                        dbvalue.1 -4800

+                        dbvalue.2 -4800

+                        dbvalue.3 -4800

+                        dbvalue.4 -4800

+                        dbvalue.5 -4800

+                        dbvalue.6 -4800

+                        dbvalue.7 -4800

                }

        }

        control.2 {

@@ -583,8 +583,8 @@

        control.25 {

                iface MIXER

                name Master

-                value.0 254

-                value.1 254

+                value.0 53

+                value.1 53

                comment {

                        access 'read write user'

                        type INTEGER

@@ -593,8 +593,8 @@

                        tlv '0000000100000008ffffec1400000014'

                        dbmin -5100

                        dbmax 0

-                        dbvalue.0 -20

-                        dbvalue.1 -20

+                        dbvalue.0 -4040

+                        dbvalue.1 -4040

                }

        }

 }

Answering my own question: this is actually in the PulseAudio FAQ: alsmamixer doesn't work since making the pulse plugin the alsa default. TL;DR: the volume for PulseAudio is now 16 bits, so you now have to use the keys 1-9 if you want useful values out of alsamixer. Because, you know, why not break all ALSA mixers out there.