[SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

decipher · 2021-05-11 11:56:27

My system is recognizing my audio headset's microphone in pavucontrol under 'Input Devices' as "Monitor of JBL TUNE 750BTNC" and even though it is set as fallback, it won't actually work as in it won't register/ receive any audio.

https://imgur.com/w6pqIeF.png

The only way I can get them to work is by setting the headphones as HSP/HFP under the headphones configuration tab in pulse-audio. But then the audio quality is terrible for online meetings.

$ pacmd list-cards
2 card(s) available.
    index: 0
	name: <alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0>
	driver: <module-alsa-card.c>
	owner module: 6
	properties:
		alsa.card = "0"
		alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel MID"
		alsa.long_card_name = "HDA Intel MID at 0xf0600000 irq 31"
		alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel"
		device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1b.0"
		sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0"
		device.bus = "pci"
		device.vendor.id = "8086"
		device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
		device.product.id = "3b56"
		device.product.name = "5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio"
		device.form_factor = "internal"
		device.string = "0"
		device.description = "Built-in Audio"
		module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
		device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
	profiles:
		input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Input (priority 65, available: unknown)
		output:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Output (priority 6500, available: unknown)
		output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Duplex (priority 6565, available: unknown)
		output:hdmi-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output (priority 5900, available: no)
		output:hdmi-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 5965, available: no)
		output:hdmi-surround: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output (priority 800, available: no)
		output:hdmi-surround+input:analog-stereo: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 865, available: no)
		output:hdmi-surround71: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) Output (priority 800, available: no)
		output:hdmi-surround71+input:analog-stereo: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 865, available: no)
		off: Off (priority 0, available: unknown)
	active profile: <output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo>
	sinks:
		alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo/#0: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
	sources:
		alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor/#0: Monitor of Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
		alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo/#1: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
	ports:
		analog-input-internal-mic: Internal Microphone (priority 8900, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
			properties:
				device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone"
		analog-input-mic: Microphone (priority 8700, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
			properties:
				device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone"
		analog-output-speaker: Speakers (priority 10000, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
			properties:
				device.icon_name = "audio-speakers"
		analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority 9900, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
			properties:
				device.icon_name = "audio-headphones"
		hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (priority 5900, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
			properties:
				device.icon_name = "video-display"
    index: 1
	name: <bluez_card.70_99_1C_98_DE_5C>
	driver: <module-bluez5-device.c>
	owner module: 25
	properties:
		device.description = "JBL TUNE750BTNC"
		device.string = "70:99:1C:98:DE:5C"
		device.api = "bluez"
		device.class = "sound"
		device.bus = "bluetooth"
		device.form_factor = "headset"
		bluez.path = "/org/bluez/hci0/dev_70_99_1C_98_DE_5C"
		bluez.class = "0x240404"
		bluez.alias = "JBL TUNE750BTNC"
		device.icon_name = "audio-headset-bluetooth"
		device.intended_roles = "phone"
	profiles:
		headset_head_unit: Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP) (priority 30, available: unknown)
		a2dp_sink: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink) (priority 40, available: yes)
		off: Off (priority 0, available: yes)
	active profile: <a2dp_sink>
	sinks:
		bluez_sink.70_99_1C_98_DE_5C.a2dp_sink/#1: JBL TUNE750BTNC
	sources:
		bluez_sink.70_99_1C_98_DE_5C.a2dp_sink.monitor/#2: Monitor of JBL TUNE750BTNC
	ports:
		headset-output: Headset (priority 0, latency offset 0 usec, available: yes)
			properties:
				
		headset-input: Headset (priority 0, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
			properties:

Last edited by decipher (2021-05-11 14:39:30)

V1del · 2021-05-11 12:56:01

The monitor device is a loopback of your playback and can't be used for voice recording purposes. The audio quality downgrade by switching to HSP/HFP is currently unavoidable, there are some developments happening but they aren't yet part of an official release in pulseaudio. You might be able to get a better mic implementation by using the current pipewire release or using pulseaudio-git

decipher · 2021-05-11 13:20:21

V1del wrote:

The monitor device is a loopback of your playback and can't be used for voice recording purposes. The audio quality downgrade by switching to HSP/HFP is currently unavoidable, there are some developments happening but they aren't yet part of an official release in pulseaudio. You might be able to get a better mic implementation by using the current pipewire release or using pulseaudio-git

But the mic used to work just fine with A2DP Sink. Now it won't work at all unless I switch to HFP/HSP. It's a new problem not an existing one. I used to be able to just join meetings and the system would automatically pick up my audio headset's mic while still in A2DP sink. Also back then it just used to be "JBL TUNE 750BTNC" and not "Monitor of JBL TUNE 750BTNC". So maybe that's the issue like you said with the loopback thing.

I'll install pulseaudio-git and see if that works.

V1del · 2021-05-11 13:25:44

That's impossible, no A2DP implementation has had mic support so far as far as I know and mSBC is a fairly recent development. What it does have is an automatic switch between A2DP and HFP when a phone source appears, but that's still just a switch over to HFP.

Last edited by V1del (2021-05-11 13:27:58)

decipher · 2021-05-11 13:48:46

V1del wrote:

That's impossible, no A2DP implementation has had mic support so far as far as I know and mSBC is a fairly recent development. What it does have is an automatic switch between A2DP and HFP when a phone source appears, but that's still just a switch over to HFP.

Impossible? Well I did make an assumption or two but I am not sure how it worked then.

I most certainly had audio output and input features with my headphone while in online meetings. So basically that means my headset switched to HFP mode automatically and it wasn't A2DP is what you are saying. That seems plausible. In that case I will see what could be done to switch it automatically again.

I tried installing pulseaudio-git but it threw an error.

pulseaudio/meson.build:665:0: ERROR: C shared or static library 'wrap' not found

A full log can be found at /home/privileged/.cache/yay/pulseaudio-git/src/build/meson-logs/meson-log.txt
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
    Aborting...
error making: pulseaudio-git

I am so fed up with these build errors, I'll just push it under the rug and reinstall pulseaudo. I don't think I'll be able to debug it now.

When you said pipewire, were you referring to This pipewire application from arch?

Last edited by decipher (2021-05-11 13:58:03)

V1del · 2021-05-11 13:59:34

That's what I meant yes, and yes you can install pavucontrol as well, pipewire is intended as a drop-in for pulseaudio as far as mixer/device control goes.

decipher · 2021-05-11 14:34:12

V1del wrote:

That's what I meant yes, and yes you can install pavucontrol as well, pipewire is intended as a drop-in for pulseaudio as far as mixer/device control goes.

It worked but with no notable change. I have more codecs to choose from but that's all. For now I am fine with this since now I know it was the autoswitching thing.
I referred to this wiki to enable auto switching Since I wasn't sure what to use to enable pipewire's autoswitching and it wasn't doing it by default I installed pulseaudio and added

load-module module-bluetooth-policy auto_switch=false

to my

/etc/pulse/default.pa

Thank you for your time. Found this video of yours.

Last edited by decipher (2021-05-11 14:38:07)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-05-11 11:56:27

[SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

#2 2021-05-11 12:56:01

Re: [SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

#3 2021-05-11 13:20:21

Re: [SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

#4 2021-05-11 13:25:44

Re: [SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

#5 2021-05-11 13:48:46

Re: [SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

#6 2021-05-11 13:59:34

Re: [SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

#7 2021-05-11 14:34:12

Re: [SOLVED] Mic showing but not working in pulseaudio mixer.

Board footer