upgraded to 14.2 beta including pulseaudio: sound always muted

Martinus2u · 02-09-2016, 03:29 PM

Hi,

apologies if this is a known topic, but I have searched the forum as well as other places without finding an asmwer. I used to have a perfectly working -current installation, using XFCE. After the latest upgrade (14.2 beta, which also washed pulseaudio onto my shore) my sound is gone. ALSA sound is always muted. If I unmute it, someone (maybe the "pulseaudio server"?) mutes it back.

some probably irrelevant tidbits:

Code:

ps -Al | grep pulse
1 S  1000  1785     1  0  61   0 - 229661 SyS_pp ?       00:01:35 pulseaudio
# pamixer --get-volume
No protocol specified
xcb_connection_has_error() returned true
No protocol specified
100
# pamixer -u
No protocol specified
xcb_connection_has_error() returned true

What can i do?

bassmadrigal · 02-09-2016, 04:03 PM

Do you have an .asoundrc or /etc/asound.conf with alsa configs? Try to remove those.

Martinus2u · 02-09-2016, 04:15 PM

I seem to have only the default /etc/alsa.conf from alsa-lib-1.1.0-x86_64-2. no .asoundrc...

af7567 · 02-09-2016, 05:17 PM

Are your /etc/rc.d/rc.pulseaudio or /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa files executable? They probably don't want to be.

Your /etc/asound.conf should set the default pcm and ctl to be pulse so that alsa programs still work (this is the Slackware default now).

Code:

$ cat /etc/asound.conf
# ALSA system-wide config file
# By default, redirect to PulseAudio:
pcm.!default {
    type pulse
    # If defaults.namehint.showall is set to off in alsa.conf, then this is
    # necessary to make this pcm show up in the list returned by
    # snd_device_name_hint or aplay -L
    hint.description "Default Audio Device"
}
ctl.!default {
    type pulse
}

I was having problems with mixer settings after the switch to pulse and I found out it was my own fault because I had /etc/rc.d/rc.pulseaudio executable and it was being run every startup. Pulse seems to work better if you let it autospawn using your user account instead of at system start.

Martinus2u · 02-09-2016, 06:16 PM

yeah, the /etc/asound.conf is the same. rc.pulseaudio is chmod 644, rc.alsa is chmod 755. I'll change it to 644.

There is something else i found in the syslog:

Code:

Feb 10 00:52:28 xxx pulseaudio[10316]: [pulseaudio] client-conf-x11.c: xcb_connection_has_error() returned true
Feb 10 00:52:28 xxx pulseaudio[10319]: [pulseaudio] server-lookup.c: Unable to contact D-Bus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Feb 10 00:52:28 xxx pulseaudio[10319]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Unable to contact D-Bus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Feb 10 00:52:28 xxx pulseaudio[10319]: [pulseaudio] bluez5-util.c: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.bluez was not provided by any .service files

orbea · 02-10-2016, 09:51 AM

Try disabling pulseaudio altogether, I bet alsa alone will still work...

Martinus2u · 02-10-2016, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orbea

Try disabling pulseaudio altogether, I bet alsa alone will still work...

Thank you heaps.That advice gave me my sound back. ^^

For reference, this is what i did:

Code:

removepkg pulseaudio
removepkg pulseaudio-compat32
removepkg xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin

When using slackpkg, add those packages to the blacklist. Finally, set your /etc/asound.conf or .asoundrc back to sanity:

Code:

pcm.!default {
	type hw
	card 0
}

ctl.!default {
	type hw           
	card 0
}

or any other advanced ALSA configuration you find in the ALSA tutorials. Sound will promptly return. You won't even have to reboot, re-logon or sacrifice a small mammal, as is the custom with other popular desktop operating systems.

I won't set this thread to "SOLVED" yet as this is not a solution of the problem but an evasion...

orbea · 02-11-2016, 12:48 PM

You can just have an empty asoundrc so that it doesn't get overwritten next time alsalib is updated, alsa will pick likely working defaults on its own.

volkerdi · 02-11-2016, 01:04 PM

Also, removing the pulseaudio package is going to break a dozen or so other packages that depend on the pulse libraries.

You'll notice this once you finally reboot. If you take a look with this:

Code:

lsof | grep pulse

... you'll see that the removed libraries are still in use, for now.

Any deactivation of PulseAudio should be achieved through configuration changes. Leave the package installed.

ryanpcmcquen · 02-11-2016, 05:54 PM

In XFCE, you should start the xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin (you can script that part out if you wish, example: https://github.com/ryanpcmcquen/linu.../.xfceSetup.sh).

On top of that, you're using a devilish ALSA syntax, it will work in most cases, but often ends up subtlety breaking sound. I spent two years happily trodding along with this `/etc/asound.conf` before running into trouble:

Code:

pcm.!default {
  type hw
  card 1
}

ctl.!default {
  type hw           
  card 1
}

This actually stopped XCOM: Enemy Unknown from launching, apparently an ALSA configuration can do that. Yep, that's really a thing.

So I did a ton of research on ALSA configuration, turns out using '!' actually overwrites the stuff in `/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf`, which can lead to strange happenings. The current Slackware `/etc/asound.conf` breaks the microphones on two of my laptops. I would suggest we switch over to this syntax:

Code:

pcm.default pulse
ctl.default pulse

Or for those who are too stubborn to use PulseAudio, you really should use this script to generate an `/etc/asound.conf` that uses a better syntax:

https://github.com/ryanpcmcquen/linu...nalogOutput.sh

colorpurple21859 · 02-11-2016, 09:04 PM

did you unmute using the keyboard button? I was having something similar and turned out to be the mute button on the keyboard.

Martinus2u · 02-12-2016, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi

Also, removing the pulseaudio package is going to break a dozen or so other packages that depend on the pulse libraries.

You'll notice this once you finally reboot. If you take a look with this:

Code:

lsof | grep pulse

... you'll see that the removed libraries are still in use, for now.

Any deactivation of PulseAudio should be achieved through configuration changes. Leave the package installed.

Yeah, I've noticed that by now:

Code:

$ gwenview
gwenview: error while loading shared libraries: libpulse.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

So I'll reinstall the packages and continue to tinker until I get sound back. Alternatively I've looked at the pulseaudio lib using nm, but it has too many entry points to create a quick fake.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryanpcmcquen

In XFCE, you should start the xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin (you can script that part out if you wish, example: https://github.com/ryanpcmcquen/linu.../.xfceSetup.sh).

Thanks, I'll look into that. But why doesn't it work out of the box? Why does it work for other people?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryanpcmcquen

Or for those who are too stubborn to use PulseAudio,

That is not me. I don't care as long as I have a desktop system with sound out of the box, preferrably easy-to-use. Hope that's not asking too much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by colorpurple21859

did you unmute using the keyboard button? I was having something similar and turned out to be the mute button on the keyboard.

Thanks, I haven't hit any keyboard buttons, but I might try.

Martinus2u · 02-12-2016, 03:05 AM

ok quick update: I've reinstalled the libraries, unmuted pulse in the mixer and suddenly it worked. I noticed, that while the XFCE mixer window is open, the device is muted after 30 to 60 seconds. This is different from before, and does not happen when the mixer window is closed.

So in all likelihood the problem is solved through the re-install. I'll observe it for a little while before marking the thread as solved.

jostber · 02-12-2016, 07:15 AM

Unmute your sound and run 'sudo alsactl store'. Does that help?

Martinus2u · 02-20-2016, 08:07 AM

Sigh. Pulseaudio worked for a while, but after the last suspend/resume cycle it is gone again.

I tried variations of starting/stopping the daemon (both rc.pulseaudio as root and pulseaudio as desktop user), but the pulseaudio device is not even shown in alsamixer. It's all weird.

Any ideas?