AC3 and DTS audio just stopped working

Mykander · 2013-03-10 05:10:16

Alright, sometime a few months ago some video files using AC3 just stopped playing sound through XBMC. Pretty minor problem for me, so I ignored it. Just a couple days ago it became a true annoyance, so I tried to fix it but couldn't figure out what could be the problem so after a lot of investigating (but not actually making any changes to anything beyond XBMC) I tried swapping how my host is connected to the speakers and TV. When I did that, anything with AC3 or DTS just stopped working. So I changed it back to how it was when at least DTS was working, but DTS is no longer working anymore either (under the old configuration). I thought it might be XBMC, so I tried using both VLC (independently and as an external XBMC player, if there is any difference) and Plex Home Theater, no go.

Next thing I could think of was installing ALSA (and yes, I unmuted the master), but I can't get any audio out of a speaker-test using ALSA even though I still audio as normal on everything but DTS and AC3 files.

Finally, best I could find out after hours of searching was that switching to systemd may have been the problem and it could be fixed by adding the appropriate users to the audio group, but it has been that way since before I even switched to systemd and they were still there.

Went through and made sure I had codecs installed for decoding AC3 and DTS, but still a no go.

I don't know if I'm more enraged that it makes absolutely no sense or that I can't find a fix, but either way I'm pretty much at my wit's end and don't want to spend all of Sunday pissed off and rebuilding my box under a different distribution.

Edit:
Forgot to mention that DTS/AC3 audio works fine through my TV/speakers if I grab the videos through the TVs DLNA client from my server (using Plex), although it could be that Plex is transcoding the audio at that point.

Last edited by Mykander (2013-03-10 06:06:59)

sliposk · 2013-03-11 02:38:23

Same problem with XBMC . Had to install pulseaudio.

sultanoswing · 2013-03-12 09:47:02

What sort of sound card are you using - on board? Separate?

I lost SPDIF DTS/AC3 pass-through several weeks ago on my ASUS Xonar D2. No idea what the problem was, but it's working properly on my on-board VT1828S.

Good luck!

Arch Linux

#1 2013-03-10 05:10:16

AC3 and DTS audio just stopped working

#2 2013-03-11 02:38:23

Re: AC3 and DTS audio just stopped working

#3 2013-03-12 09:47:02

Re: AC3 and DTS audio just stopped working

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