[SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

bibek22 · 2015-09-13 13:36:08

The problem is exaclty what the title says. The sound doesn't work. I went through https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ad … chitecture. ALSA feels seriously underdocumented, at least for me.

I installed alsa-utils.

When I try to play music through audacious, which I found that it directly talks to ALSA, I get the following error:

ALSA error: No suitable mixer element found.
ALSA error: snd_pcm_open failed: No such file or directory.

Here's my system:

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
ALSA lib conf.c:3325:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_conf_pulse.so
ALSA lib control.c:954:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL hw:0
aplay: device_list:277: control open (0): No such file or directory
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC3223 Analog [ALC3223 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

@root: ls -l /dev/snd
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       80 Sep 13 17:21 by-path
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  2 Sep 13 10:15 controlC0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  7 Sep 13 10:15 controlC1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  6 Sep 13 10:15 hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 10 Sep 13 10:15 hwC1D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  3 Sep 13 12:39 pcmC0D3p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  4 Sep 13 10:15 pcmC0D7p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  5 Sep 13 10:15 pcmC0D8p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  9 Sep 13 12:39 pcmC1D0c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  8 Sep 13 10:15 pcmC1D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116,  1 Sep 13 15:44 seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 33 Sep 13 10:15 timer

@root: lsmod | grep '^snd' | column -t
snd_usb_audio          151552  0
snd_usbmidi_lib        28672   1   snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi            28672   1   snd_usbmidi_lib
snd_pcm_oss            49152   0
snd_mixer_oss          24576   1   snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy          16384   0
snd_seq_oss            40960   0
snd_seq_midi_event     16384   1   snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                61440   5   snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_dummy
snd_seq_device         16384   3   snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_oss
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     53248   1
snd_hda_codec_realtek  77824   1
snd_hda_codec_generic  69632   1   snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_hda_intel          28672   0
snd_hda_controller     28672   1   snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_codec          98304   5   snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller
snd_hda_core           28672   5   snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_controller
snd_hwdep              16384   2   snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                90112   6   snd_pcm_oss,snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller
snd_timer              28672   2   snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd                    69632   16  snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_pcm_oss,snd_usb_audio,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_device,snd_mixer_oss

These are my observation/experiments:

$ systemctl enable alsa-restore.service
The units files have no [install] section. They are not meant to be enabled using systemctl
$ ls /var/lib/asla

$ amixer sset master unmute
amixer: Unable to find simple control 'master', 0

@root: alsactl -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state store
ALSA lib conf.c:3325:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_conf_pulse.so
ALSA lib control.c:954:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL hw:0
alsactl: get_controls:567: snd_ctl_open error: No such file or directory
speaker-test 1.0.29

@root: speaker-test -c 2
Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
ALSA lib conf.c:3325:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_conf_pulse.so
ALSA lib pcm.c:2267:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory

And my system is up-to-date. I don't know how to proceed. Similar posts here doesn't work/ or are not exacly similar to my case.

Last edited by bibek22 (2015-09-16 04:41:26)

olive · 2015-09-13 15:08:20

The error that you have usually mean that your sound card were not recognized.

A few things to check. You must have:

alsa-lib alsa-plugins alsa-utils

installed. Be sure pulseaudio is not installed. You should start with no /etc/asound.conf /var/lib/alsa/asound.state ~/.asoundrc ; remove these files if you have them. Your sound should work out of the box. You may have to unmute the channels with alsamixer. To do test, play a .wav file with alsaplay. You may also try as root to check if this is a permission problem. If you still have problems, it could mean that your sound card is not or badly supported. You will have to search the net with the specific model of your sound card. Sometimes some "magic options" in modprobe.conf might help.

Last edited by olive (2015-09-13 15:09:58)

bibek22 · 2015-09-14 01:48:53

I installed audacity before checking the sound actually worked. And I think I installed some pulse-related packages. I am used to pavucontrol, coming from Linux Mint. So, I tried installed pavucontrol, but it required pulseaudio. I went ahead and installed both the packages and pulseaudio-alsa and few packages which pacman suggested. Voila, sound worked now. Not totally configured to play from USB audio, however. But I could totally do that with pactl. This was before you replied.

Keybinding for sound control were not working, but I could fix that myself. However, It still remains unclear to me what the problem was or if there ever was one before installing pulseaudio. So, I uninstalled pulseaudio and other packages which depended on it.

And the sound is now back to where it was.

Starting audacious greets me with:

ALSA error: snd_mixer_find_selem failed.
ALSA error: snd_pcm_open failed: No such file or directory.

$ aplay -D default <wavfile>
 ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1024:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:722: audio open error: No such file or directory

and
Identical result for doing it as root.
Those files you mentioned - I removed /var/lib/alsa/asound.state and other two weren't there.

I am looking for modprobe.conf tricks for my sound card. Meanwhile, any more insight into this would be very welcome.
Also I am wondering what snd_mixer_find_selem, snd_pcm_open, and snd_pcm_dmix_open are!

Edit:
I googled for the specific model of sound card. This line was suggested to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf :

options snd-hda-intel index=1,0 # for setting hdmi as secondary

That solves audacious complaing about snd_pcm_open and snd_mixer_find_selem.

$ aplay <wavfile>

says "playing WAVE ... "
But I can hear no sound. Also no sound card is muted.

Last edited by bibek22 (2015-09-14 02:58:45)

Lone_Wolf · 2015-09-14 07:34:00

run alsamixer , it will open showing the setup for the soundcard alsa sees as default.
Verify it's the sound card you want and check all channels .

olive · 2015-09-14 07:37:57

If you have your sound working by installing pulseaudio; then it is not hardware related because pulseaudio is a sound server sitting on top of ALSA. Pavucontrol is the tool that control pulseaudio, it cannot work outside pulseaudio. Also, by default pulseaudio reroute all ALSA call to itself (using one of the file I mentioned). According to the new elements you mention, the only possibility I see is that you have several sound cards and the default is not the correct one. Try (with no pulseaudi and none of the files I mentioned in my first message): aplay -l and then something like:

aplay -D plughw:1,3 <something>.wav to play through HDMI (card 1, device 3, as seen below):

[oesser@pcolivier ~]$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

A last question: are you sure your sound card is not muted? Have you tried with alsamixer? (not pavucontrol that only talk to pulseaudio).

bibek22 · 2015-09-15 05:47:13

That modprobe.d entry did most of the trick. I ran alsamixer and profiled each sound card; one was muted. But, the setup is still unstable. It doesn't recognize the PCM card on some boot. And when I reboot the machine, it recognizes the card (weird)! Thanks everyone. I think I can handle any other trouble myself.

(How can I flag this thread [solved]?)

V1del · 2015-09-15 06:37:22

Edit the title of your initial post

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-13 13:36:08

[SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

#2 2015-09-13 15:08:20

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

#3 2015-09-14 01:48:53

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

#4 2015-09-14 07:34:00

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

#5 2015-09-14 07:37:57

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

#6 2015-09-15 05:47:13

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

#7 2015-09-15 06:37:22

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA sound not working

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