Arch Linux

revealer

Member

Registered: 2013-12-31

Posts: 5

USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

Hello,

I have recently installed ArchLinux and my Audioengine HD3+ speakers (with a builtin DAC connected via USB) aren't detected anymore by my system. When pulseaudio was installed as a dependency of another package (based on pacman.log of lightdm-pantheon-greeter) they were detected and it worked. After some reboots, when trying to play some music, I discovered that the only sound devices available were the integrated ALC codec and the NVIDIA HDMI one. Even lsusb doesn't detect them. I've tried turning them on and off, changing the usb port to which they're connected, rebooting, to no avail. When I reboot in the other operating system (Windows) everything works fine.

Here is the output for lsusb:

$ lsusb
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0518:5111 EzKEY Corp. USB Gaming Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 045e:02fe Microsoft Corp. XBOX ACC
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0025 Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04d9:fc02 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. USB Laser Game Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Of course the DAC isn't detected:

$ cat /proc/asound/cards 
 1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xf7080000 irq 110
 3 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xf7900000 irq 112

Let me know if I need to provide more information in trying to debug this problem.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,678

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

Check dmesg for errors. This is kernel/HW level way before pulse becomes relevant.

Last edited by V1del (2020-03-21 02:03:57)

revealer

Member

Registered: 2013-12-31

Posts: 5

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

I haven't found any errors in dmesg. Using "dmesg -w" there is no output when either turning the speakers on/off or changing the USB port.

Here's the dmesg output after a fresh reboot: http://ix.io/2eOR

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,678

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

double check on a different system sounds like the speakers/cable is broken

revealer

Member

Registered: 2013-12-31

Posts: 5

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

double check on a different system sounds like the speakers/cable is broken

If I reboot in Windows, they work. My guess is that a kernel driver is missing, I assume that at some point a "pacman -Syu" has upgraded the kernel. Unfortunately I don't know enough to figure it out.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,678

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

Check your /var/log/pacman.log to see what was updated, you could try downgrading the kernel (don't forget to keep nvidia in sync or use nvidia-dkms for this) or try the LTS kernel (don't forget nvidia-lts or nvidia-dkms here either).

FWIW maybe you are also just booting the wrong kernel (though 5.5.10 would be current so that's unlikely) What's your output for

uname -a
pacman -Qs linux

But still I find it quite weird that no signal at all is registered on the USB port with no message. Is fastboot disabled

Last edited by V1del (2020-03-21 10:52:03)

revealer

Member

Registered: 2013-12-31

Posts: 5

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

Thanks for your replies.

$ uname -a
Linux revelation 5.5.10-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 18 Mar 2020 08:40:35 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ pacman -Qs linux
local/alsa-lib 1.2.2-1
    An alternative implementation of Linux sound support
local/alsa-utils 1.2.2-1
    Advanced Linux Sound Architecture - Utilities
local/archlinux-keyring 20200108-1
    Arch Linux PGP keyring
local/avahi 0.8+15+ge8a3dd0-1
    Service Discovery for Linux using mDNS/DNS-SD -- compatible with Bonjour
local/base 2-2
    Minimal package set to define a basic Arch Linux installation
local/filesystem 2019.10-2
    Base Arch Linux files
local/iptables 1:1.8.4-1
    Linux kernel packet control tool (using legacy interface)
local/keyutils 1.6.1-3
    Linux Key Management Utilities
local/kmod 27-1
    Linux kernel module management tools and library
local/libiec61883 1.2.0-5
    A higher level API for streaming DV, MPEG-2 and audio over Linux IEEE 1394
local/libimobiledevice 1.2.0+87+g92c5462-6
    Library that talks the protocols to support iPhone and iPod Touch devices on Linux
local/libraw1394 2.1.2-2
    Provides an API to the Linux IEEE1394 (FireWire) driver
local/libutil-linux 2.35.1-1
    util-linux runtime libraries
local/libva 2.6.1-1
    Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux
local/libxshmfence 1.3-1
    a library that exposes a event API on top of Linux futexes
local/linux 5.5.10.arch1-1
    The Linux kernel and modules
local/linux-api-headers 5.4.17-1
    Kernel headers sanitized for use in userspace
local/linux-firmware 20200224.efcfa03-1
    Firmware files for Linux
local/nvidia 440.64-5
    NVIDIA drivers for linux
local/pacman-mirrorlist 20200207-1
    Arch Linux mirror list for use by pacman
local/util-linux 2.35.1-1
    Miscellaneous system utilities for Linux
local/v4l-utils 1.18.0-1
    Userspace tools and conversion library for Video 4 Linux

Is fastboot disabled

What do you mean by that?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,678

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

Oh whoops hit submit before finishing my sentence. Is fastboot disabled in Windows: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Du … ibernation that can lead to a wide array of weird HW behaviours on linux if it is booted while a Windows hibernation image is active.

Outputs look fine you are on the kernel that's installed so modules and things should be present.

Last edited by V1del (2020-03-21 11:29:04)

revealer

Member

Registered: 2013-12-31

Posts: 5

Re: USB Speakers not showing in PulseAudio

Yes, fastboot and hibernate is disabled, I've doublechecked. It was disabled using "powercfg /h off". Also switched to linux-lts kernel and nothing.

The speakers are working properly as far as I can tell, I would like to use their DAC because I assume is better than the onboard one.

After further investigation, I found out the reason why they were working in Windows - the speakers are also Bluetooth capable and they were connected via bluetooth. So now I assume is a speaker/cable USB problem.

I guess we can mark this thread as solved.

Last edited by revealer (2020-03-21 18:15:38)