Arch Linux

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

[Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Hi all,

I have two problems related to skype and sound. I have a thinkpad X61, and skype version 4.3.0.37.

The first problem is regarding which channels are visible in alsamixer. When I first boot up, if I run alsamixer, I have a whole list of playback channels (master, PC speaker, headphones, internal microphone, dock microphone, etc). If I start skype and run alsamixer again, now I only see one volume control labeled master. Once I quit skype, I'm stuck with the single channel control until I reboot. I tried pulseaudio -k and pulseaudio --start instead of rebooting, but no change in alsamixer. I'm not sure what Skype is doing to my audio system, but I don't like it :-)

Second problem: It used to be that if I went into settings -> Sound Devices in skype I could select either my laptop's internal microphone or the microphone on my Logitech USB webcam. This is nice, since the internal microphone mostly picks up the fan. Now, I have no choices for that setting. The dropdown menus for Microphone, Speakers and Ringing all have one entry and it's the same thing: PulseAudio server (local).

It seems that if I plug in the webcam before starting skype, it will usually use the webcam as the default. Trying to stop it using the internal mic is what got me looking at alsamixer. I suspect these are related?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

-Lefty

Last edited by LeftyAce (2014-08-10 05:28:16)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Do you have pulseaudio-alsa installed?  That is required for ALSA and Pulse to play nice with each other.

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Thanks for the reply, Headkase. Yes, I have pulseaudio-alsa installed.

Here's some additional info: I just installed pavucontrol, and noticed something interesting. alsamixer is still messed up, but when I start a skype call, skype shows up under the pavucontrol "Recording" tab and I can switch it to use the Logitech mic. By default it was trying to use a speaker as a recording device. pavucontrol shows everything I would expect in terms of devices even while alsamixer is showing just one Master channel.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Please post the output of these two commands:

aplay -l
lspci -nn | grep Audio

If "Audio" returns no results then try "audio."

Edit:
And:

arecord -l

Last edited by headkase (2014-08-10 04:27:43)

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

aplay -l:

 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1984 Analog [AD1984 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD1984 Alt Analog [AD1984 Alt Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

lspci -nn | grep Audio

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:284b] (rev 03)

The webcam is plugged in, and I'm currently playing music using mpd.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

See my above edit, also output of:

lsmod | grep snd

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Oops, I missed your earlier edit, sorry!

arecord -l

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1984 Analog [AD1984 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: U0x46d0x9c1 [USB Device 0x46d:0x9c1], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

lsmod|grep snd

snd_usb_audio         131860  1 
snd_usbmidi_lib        21428  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi            20278  1 snd_usbmidi_lib
snd_seq_device          5244  1 snd_rawmidi
snd_hda_codec_analog     9595  1 
snd_hda_codec_generic    56366  1 snd_hda_codec_analog
snd_hda_intel          22831  5 
snd_hda_controller     22975  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_codec         104665  4 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller,snd_hda_codec_analog
snd_hwdep               6652  2 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                83207  5 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller
snd_timer              19294  1 snd_pcm
snd                    61276  23 snd_usb_audio,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,thinkpad_acpi,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_analog
soundcore               5551  2 snd,snd_hda_codec
usbcore               188509  10 uas,usblp,uhci_hcd,snd_usb_audio,uvcvideo,usb_storage,snd_usbmidi_lib,ehci_hcd,ehci_pci,usbhid

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

First thing we're going to do is put your audio devices in order.

Create this file: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf

With these contents:

options snd_hda_intel index=0 vid=8086 pid=284b
options snd_usb_audio index=1

That makes your intel audio the default device (index=0) specifying the exact hardware (vid and pid from lspci -nn) and making your webcam audio the next device (lsmod | grep snd) and not the primary.

After you create this file with those contents reboot to take effect.  They look to already be in order so this might not solve the issue but rather it is to explicitly tell your system how to configure them.

You have reviewed the Skype page, right?: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Skype

And you do have lib32-libpulse installed for 32-bit Pulse Audio?

Edit: Also, it is normal for Skype to refer to all the devices as "local pulse server."  My Skype works fine and that's what it calls all of them.

Last edited by headkase (2014-08-10 04:46:40)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

You also need lib32-alsa-plugins according to the Pulse Wiki Page, but, I don't know if that is still required as Skype just moved to Pulse only.

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Ok, I set up /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf as you said. No change.

I have reviewed the skype page, and have all the 32-bit compatible stuff installed (including lib32-alsa-plugins).

Thanks for confirming that skype's behavior is normal. It looks like what I really needed was pavucontrol. Now that I have it installed I can control which microphone skype uses.

The fact that alsamixer gets messed up maybe doesn't matter? At this point it seems I can get everything I need to work through pavucontrol, although the alsamixer business is strange.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

The modprobe.d alsa.conf file just told your computer how to order the devices so it will be consistent.  With that file they will come up the same way every time you boot your computer.  There was no change as they had already come up that way.  Explicit is better than implicit however so I would recommend keeping that file as-is.

Regardless of initial order you should have this folder in your home folder:

~/.config/pulse

Once you set, using pavucontrol, your preferred devices then that configuration folder should automatically set them when you log in again at a different time.  You have to choose your microphone each new time you log in?

For alsamixer, once you have pulseaudio-alsa installed you should just see a pulse device there.  That is a virtual device that routes ALSA into Pulse.

Once you have everything set to how you want it, you can try:

sudo alsactl store

To "bake in" your ALSA preferences.  You shouldn't actually have to do that but it doesn't hurt.

"alsactl" is in package "alsa-utils".

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Aha! Thank you! I do have ~/.config/pulse. And you are right, I do not need to re-select the microphone each time, that setting seems to stay.

And now that you point it out, the "bad" alsamixer display, the one with only a single Master volume control, shows
Card: PulseAudio
Chip: Pulseaudio

in the top left corner. So it looks like it's just telling me that everything goes through pulse. I guess skype was waking pulse up or something (while mpd, my music player was not). Regardless, it seems like what I'm seeing is correct. One Alsa "device" that is actually pulse. I just never had pavucontrol installed. I think I started using alsamixer before pulseaudio was the default (many years ago), and never realized that this behavior was normal once pulse came around.

Edit: As a side note, it sounds like I shouldn't be using alsamixer any more, right? That's been taken over by pulse and pavucontrol?

Last edited by LeftyAce (2014-08-10 05:21:56)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

For the side note, yes you don't use alsamixer with Pulse installed.  As said, Pulse installs virtual "hardware" (pulseaudio-alsa package) that ALSA thinks is a soundcard.  ALSA sends sound to that "card" and it goes into Pulse as an input (from ALSA-only programs!) which Pulse can then mix and match with before finally outputting the audio of all your programs together, not just the ALSA programs.

You're welcome.   If the situation is now solved then don't forget to edit your first post in this thread and add "[Solved]" to the beginning of the title!

Last edited by headkase (2014-08-10 05:27:54)

LeftyAce

Member

Registered: 2012-08-18

Posts: 162

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Thanks so much! Now I know how to make things work, and also what's going on, which is always nice :-) First post edited :-)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [Solved] Skype kills alsamixer channels, and I can't select webcam mic

Right on, you're welcome again!