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Distribution: Slackware64-current with "True Multilib" and KDE4Town.
Posts: 9,015
Rep:
Problem-Audio Bug with the 3.9.5 Kernel.
Edit in, 19:45, 15 June 2013: It's a bug. See post #15, below.
*****************************************************************
Original first post:
Did the upgrade about an hour ago and sound, for the most part, has disappeared.
Sound will work in Xfce, but the volume is very low.
Upon starting KDE it brings up a box with the message that KDE "has detected that one or more internal devices were removed.." and do I want KDE to forget about them.
It then lists two items, one for output and one for capture, and they are both the default sound device that has not been removed.
I've ran alsamixer and all looks well and it shows the Sigmatel stac9221 A1 card as the default device.
Looks to be a kernel problem or a firmware problem? Guess they are one and the same, basically.
Thanks.
Last edited by cwizardone; 06-15-2013 at 09:46 PM.
I saw the KDE prompt as well, and confirmed the removal (it was capture and output for both HDA Intel and Conexant audio on my X200.) Sound still works as it should on mine, however.
Distribution: Slackware64-current with "True Multilib" and KDE4Town.
Posts: 9,015
Original Poster
Rep:
Decided to give the 3.9.5 kernel another try and the results were the same. However, just for chuckles I ran "play" from the command line outside of X and could play audio files. Then, if on a fresh boot, I use Xfce I can hear audio in music or video IF I turn the volume almost all the way to the max.
However, once KDE is fired up there is no audio whatsoever. None, from the command line outside of X, or if I switch to Xfce without rebooting, i.e., no sound from any application running in Xfce.
I've tried various "fixes" and still searching for a answer.
Any ideas.. anyone?
Thanks.
Last edited by cwizardone; 06-13-2013 at 12:34 PM.
I had the same thing here right after the kernel bump and removing the KDE devices upon restarting KDE (which I think is the right thing to do). Volume was up, so I hit the mixer button and found that PCM was turned all the way down. Once I turned that up, it worked. It's been fine since.
Distribution: Slackware64-current with "True Multilib" and KDE4Town.
Posts: 9,015
Original Poster
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by volkerdi
I had the same thing here right after the kernel bump and removing the KDE devices upon restarting KDE (which I think is the right thing to do). Volume was up, so I hit the mixer button and found that PCM was turned all the way down. Once I turned that up, it worked. It's been fine since.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. It is greatly appreciated.
However, I had already checked the PCM and it was on (selected as a control) and turned all the way up. Doesnt' make a difference. The problem remains.
I saw the same thing with my hardware.
On initial boot with the new kernel, I saw messages about undefined controls from alsa. I deleted /var/lib/alsa/asound.state and did 'alsactl store'. On reboot the messages were gone.
KDE prompted about devices being removed, so I removed the devices. I also entered 'alsamixer' from a terminal window, pushed the levels up, then tested sound using mpg123. I then entered the KDE SystemSettings -> Multimedia -> Phonon -> Device Preferences and configured the device preferences after using the Test button to find the appropriate device.
More mucking about than I have had to do for a while, so a good reminder!
Distribution: Slackware64-current with "True Multilib" and KDE4Town.
Posts: 9,015
Original Poster
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by volkerdi
Maybe deleting the files in /var/lib/alsa/ and restarting rc.alsa would help?
Some mornings I'm lucky I can remember my name but I did remember you have recommeded this procedure before for similar problems and it was one of the first things I tried. Didn't work this time unfortunately.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmgf
Try to remove /home/you/.kde/share/config/phonondevicesrc and restart kde
Thanks. Tried that, but it didn't help, but thanks, again, for the suggestion.
I tried re-installing gstreamer, phonon, X (just for the heck of it), and a few other things. Nothing worked.
Finally, I threw in the towel and did a fresh installation from a very recent ISO of -current, brought it up-to-date, installed all the multilib files, etc., and audio has returned. The volume is still not as "strong" as it use to be, but it now works. Nothing wrong with the speakers, btw, I booted over to, ugh, Xp, and they work fine.
Thanks to Mr. Volkerding and gmgf for their suggestions and zakame and allend for their replies.
Distribution: Slackware64-current with "True Multilib" and KDE4Town.
Posts: 9,015
Original Poster
Rep:
Well, I'm over here in, ugh, Xp and, well.... With the volume knob on the speakers turned up only half way, as compared to the level used in Slackware64-current, about 80%, I have to turn the XP software volume control almost to 1 or 2 to get it down to a reasonable level. Plus the overall quality of the sound (tone, richness, etc., etc.) is far superior to what comes out of the same speakers, playing the same file through the same player (VLC).
Don't know what to say, but there has to be something wrong with the audio since installing the latest kernel.
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