Arch Linux

Keyboard_Crasher

Member

Registered: 2021-12-02

Posts: 23

[Solved] Audio stopped working, vol. n+1

Audio for normie (non-root) user stopped working after a reboot. Pavucontrol shows that audio is not muted and shows a lively green bar for the web browser I use for testing the audio. It (audio) works alright for root's desktop, though.

This problem emerged at the same time my window manager (xcfe) glitched overall. After a desktop login, the manager opened up all the windows from the previous session, but I couldn't switch windows and the top-bars were nowhere to be seen. This latter problem was fixed by '# pacman -Syu' that was some weeks over-due, but the lack of audio persists.

I tried to debug the issue by reading the outputs of the commands prompted to try in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=267688. Note that my case is different from that thread's OP, as I don't hear anything, not even a snap/pop and the fix that worked for him isn't cutting it for me. Only thing that was off (literally, no pun intended) in the outputs of those CL commands was 'Speaker' in the following excerpt. The output of the command is the same whether I have anything plugged in the headphone jack or not.

$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
x11
$ amixer -c0
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 46 [53%] [-30.75dB] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 46 [53%] [-30.75dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 66 [76%] [-15.75dB] [off]
  Front Right: Playback 66 [76%] [-15.75dB] [off]

< ... >

Last edited by Keyboard_Crasher (2022-08-11 15:42:25)

Keyboard_Crasher

Member

Registered: 2021-12-02

Posts: 23

Re: [Solved] Audio stopped working, vol. n+1

I noticed that Pavucontrol only shows "Dummy Output". And after searching for more, I found this thread. Someone prompted OP to to show the results of

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*

In my case it shows that the only process, the web browser, is under root. This was not discussed further in that thread because OP did not have the same issue. However the user asking the results mentioned that all processes should be under the logged-in user. This seems to explain why my audio works when logged in to desktop as root. I tried to search more about this particular issue but could not find anything useful. How should I proceed debugging and fixing this issue?

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,334

Re: [Solved] Audio stopped working, vol. n+1

The web browser is running as root?  I really recommend you not do that.   This is when you are logged in as a user?

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Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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Keyboard_Crasher

Member

Registered: 2021-12-02

Posts: 23

Re: [Solved] Audio stopped working, vol. n+1

The web browser is running as root?

Yes, I'm afraid so. Not by my volition. Logged in as non-root user. Did quit the browser windows, killed the process and after restarting, audio works normally.

However I'm both curious and a little worried about web browser having gained such status and the ramifications thereof. I see that this is a major security risk.

I will mark my original question as solved, but the reasons and possible repercussions of this escalated privilege just begs for further questions. Do you think I should ask about it in a separate topic or post the questions here?

Edit: This root-ownership might have something to do with fact that prior to this audio-incident I logged in to root's desktop and used the browser there for searching information relevant to debugging another, unrelated problem described in OP. This leads to the question, what is the proper way to browse the web as the root user?

Last edited by Keyboard_Crasher (2022-08-11 15:50:04)

gothmog123

Member

Registered: 2012-10-31

Posts: 125

Re: [Solved] Audio stopped working, vol. n+1

This is happening to me too, but not on every boot. Sometimes everything is good, then one boot theres no audio and whole desktop is lagging.

Something is wrong with pipewire in arch right now?

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2018-09-30

Posts: 207

Re: [Solved] Audio stopped working, vol. n+1

This might be happening to me as well, however at every boot. When I login to Plasma, I have to hit the volume mute/up/down keys to get the audio output to work.