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mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

[SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

After updating a few weeks ago or so two things happened:
1) The selected Xine skin reverted to default. I changed that again in the options, no problem.
2) The volume control no longer works! Changing audio volume or clicking the mute button have no effect at all.
Any ideas?

Edit: Using xfce4 and Alsa.

----
SOLUTION: In xine options switch to any mode above 'beginner' level, go to GUI options, switch "Audio Mixer Control Method" from hardware to software.

Last edited by mir91 (2014-09-19 23:43:06)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 Do you have any audio related settings in ~/.xine/config?

mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 Do you have any audio related settings in ~/.xine/config?

audio.driver:alsa  (it was auto before, I changed it to alsa, but it didn't change anything)
audio.device.alsa_front_device:default
that's all.
In the options in xine I saw that "alsa mixer device" was set to "PCM". I tried setting that to "master" but it didn't help, so I reverted it to PCM.
I wanted to get a list of available mixer devices I could enter there besides PCM and master, but I didn't know how to get such a list.
I tried "aplay -l" but I'm not sure if I can extract strings to input into the xine config from that aplay outout. At least it didn't contain the word "Master" anywhere, it did contain "[Loopback PCM]" and some others, but can I actually enter spaces into the xine mixer setting? Like "Loopback PCM" instead of a single word "PCM"? Well I just tried entering "Loopback PCM" and "ALC892 Analog" and neither did help, still the same, mixer controls don't do anything. Do I have to restart xine after changing the alsa mixer device? Cause I didn't, since xine didn't prompt me to.

Last edited by mir91 (2014-09-19 21:20:57)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 Please use [⁣code]output[⁣/code] tags for output of commands or scripts. It is far easier to read configuration that way.
 Try one of the controls reported by amixer:

amixer -c 0 scontrols

 The 'aplay -l' command outputs list of sound cards and digital audio devices, so they do not really qualify for the mixer. Spaces probably have to be escaped, the double quote should accomplish this. You could however create a softvol plugin for xine and use that. Do you run puselaudio?

mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

First, I found out that you do have to restart xine if you change the mixer device.
So after changing it to master it actually worked, however this is a no go because it mutes the whole system, not just xine.

That amixer command shows these

Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0
Simple mixer control 'Bass Speaker',0
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost',0
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Default PCM',0
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',16
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Simple mixer control 'Auto-Mute Mode',0
Simple mixer control 'Digital',0
Simple mixer control 'Internal Mic',0
Simple mixer control 'Internal Mic Boost',0

so it seems that there isn't really a choice besides PCM and Master. I also tried IEC958 but it didn't help, and then I entered "IEC958 Default PCM" (with spaces and with quotes) but that actually resulted in just "PCM" after a restart.
hang on, testing something..
Ok, even editing the config file directly with quotes for IEC... doesn't help, it reverts to PCM. But I don't think that IEC.. is the correct setting anyway.
I don't run pulseaudio, cause it used crazy amount of resources on my old notebook, so I banned it from all my devices back then. (Also I find it annoying how random software demands pulseaudio dependancies even though it runs with ALSA just fine.)
I will check out the softvol thing. But I wonder why xine's volume control just stopped working. It worked a while ago after all.

Edit: Uhh way too complicated. There is no explanation of all the ints and strings and stuff. What's a slave and a control card etc?? Would take weeks to read into all this stuff, I already have a job. Any other ideas?

Last edited by mir91 (2014-09-19 22:38:36)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 You can use this for reference. A simple implementation could be:

pcm.xine {	type softvol;
		slave.pcm "default";
#		slave.pcm "plug:default";
		control {	name "Xine";
				card 0;	}
		min_dB -40.0;
		max_dB 20.0;
		resolution 16;	}

 Then set xine or Xine as default mixer for xine I speculate on the name since I do not use xine. IEC958 is a standard or specification, I always forget, maybe even both. It refers to spdif digital signals. I agree, this is a workaround. Does xine output anything relevant in terminal with default settings? By the way, you should always restart an application when editing its configuration.

mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

by the way, I "restart" alsa after editing asound.conf by issuing

alsactl restore

right?

Edit:
I tried Xine and xine in xine, but both don't work and get reverted to PCM on next restart.
Also,

amixer -c 0 scontrols

does not list xine or Xine!
I will try restarting the pc..
Nope, doesn't work. Both revert to PCM and have no effect.

Last edited by mir91 (2014-09-19 23:01:28)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 Not really, no. You could 'alsactl init', but that does not restart anything also. [New] configuration is read, when a new audio application uses alsa*. '[A]mixer scontrols' lists softvol definitions here. You could add a hint section, so that 'aplay -L' lists it, but I doubt it would help.
 Xine must have some sort of a log, debug messages or output anything relevant in terminal.

Edit: *Ergo, when you start an alsa application. The wording above might not be clear enough.

Last edited by emeres (2014-09-19 23:08:53)

mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

xine output is this:

This is xine (X11 gui) - a free video player v0.99.9-[DEBUG].
(c) 2000-2014 The xine Team.
videowin: display is using xinerama with 1 screens
videowin: going to assume we are using the first screen.
videowin: size of the first screen is 1920x1080.
videowin: Xinerama fullscreen parameters: X_origin=0 Y_origin=0 Width=1920 Height=1080
pixel_aspect: 0.998682
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_i965.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
vo_vdpau: Can't create vdp device : No vdpau implementation.
xv_set_property: property=1, value=0
xine: could not connect to socket
xine: No such file or directory

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 Where did you put the softvol configuration? Do you have the file /etc/asound.conf? The vdpau issue is probably unrelated. I have a segfault when trying to run xine from xine-ui package. There appears to be a xine-ui-hd aur package. Did you try that one? Search for any changes in xine. Maybe audio is handled differently now, should xine be still developed that is. You could also try 'strace -e file -o /tmp/xine.log xine' or similar to debug the application.
 Is there any reason you do not use mpv or even mplayer?

mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

Yes, /etc/asound.conf. I don't have an .asoundrc in my user's home folder. I'm using xine-ui from the repository. I will try the AUR package I guess.
The reason I use xine is that mplayer won't work with livestreamer, it just doesn't output neither video nor audio and just quits. Friend of mine has the same problem with it (although on Windows OS I think). And VLC is broken since 2.1.0 update (or is it 2.10? I don't really follow that): It tries to exclusively reserve the sound device! So if VLC gets to grab it, all other sound output on my system will be muted, which is a no-go. If VLC doesn't get to grab it, it will be mute.

That xine package is broken:

$ makepkg -s
==> Making package: xine-ui-hg 3073-1 (Sat 20 Sep 01:23:53 CEST 2014)
==> WARNING: Using a PKGBUILD without a package() function is deprecated.
==> Checking runtime dependencies...
==> Checking buildtime dependencies...
==> Retrieving sources...
==> Extracting sources...
==> Removing existing pkg/ directory...
==> Entering fakeroot environment...
==> Starting build()...
abort: HTTP Error 404: Not Found
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
    Aborting...

EDIT: I solved it.. in a pretty silly way!
I only looked in "Audio" options so far. But now I looked through "GUI" options and if you switch to non-beginner mode, there's a setting "audio mixer control method".. which is set to hardware. I set it to software, and all is well!
Thanks for your help though, interesting softvol stuff, too bad I couldn't get that to work.

Last edited by mir91 (2014-09-19 23:43:44)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 Where did you put the softvol configuration?

 What is the content of /etc/asound.conf? VLC issue looks like it is using hardware directly, blocking everything else. Should be probably set to dmix. Search for the xine package on the net, then actualize the source array with the new link. Mpv works fine here:

livestreamer 'http://new.livestream.com/thegreenespace/events/3395248' -p mpv --default-stream 432p

Edit: Great.

Last edited by emeres (2014-09-19 23:46:07)

mir91

Banned

Registered: 2013-11-17

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

asound.conf was:

pcm.!default {
  type asym
  playback.pcm "LoopAndReal"
  #capture.pcm "looprec"
  capture.pcm "hw:0,0"
}

pcm.looprec {
    type hw
    card "Loopback"
    device 1
    subdevice 0
}


pcm.LoopAndReal {
  type plug
  slave.pcm mdev
  route_policy "duplicate"
}


pcm.mdev {
  type multi
  slaves.a.pcm pcm.MixReale
  slaves.a.channels 2
  slaves.b.pcm pcm.MixLoopback
  slaves.b.channels 2
  bindings.0.slave a
  bindings.0.channel 0
  bindings.1.slave a
  bindings.1.channel 1
  bindings.2.slave b
  bindings.2.channel 0
  bindings.3.slave b
  bindings.3.channel 1
}


pcm.MixReale {
  type dmix
  ipc_key 1024

  slave {
    pcm "hw:0,0"
    rate 48000
    #rate 44100
    periods 128
    period_time 0
    # must be power of 2
    period_size 1024
    buffer_size 8192
  }
}

pcm.MixLoopback {
  type dmix
  ipc_key 1028

  slave {
    pcm "hw:Loopback,0,0"
    rate 48000
    #rate 44100
    periods 128
    period_time 0
    # must be power of 2
    period_size 1024
    buffer_size 8192
  }
}

pcm.xine {
    type softvol
    slave.pcm "default"
#    slave.pcm "plug:default"
    control {
	name "xine"
	card 0
    }
    min_dB -40.0
    max_dB 20.0
    resolution 16
}

I think it was based on asound.conf from two persons named "kazuo" and "kokoko3k" and allows recording "everything you hear" like the Windows mixer does. I installed this a longer time ago because of the lack of mixing/recording functionality in out-of-the-box alsa, but don't ask me about the details. :-p
I just tried mpv and it works too!

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] Xine volume control stopped working

 This looks very limiting, capture "hw:0,0" will block recording from that sound device. Dsnoop would have been better. You did not post 'aplay -l', but I assume you have an hda compliant sound card. Look through my posts, there is a thread about hardware loopback on hda sound cards. That might be more suitable for your needs that this configuration and should be lighter on resources also. There is also file pcm plugin that should/could take care of that.