Arch Linux

pmtk_milk

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Registered: 2026-06-20

Posts: 9

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The sound is not working on Discord voice calls

Hello, I've been using Arch Linux for at least a week, so I know almost nothing about it. I installed the programs I normally use, like Discord, etc. The problem is that when I'm on a voice call with my friends, I can't hear them, and they can't hear me. In the Discord settings, it shows something like "Default Input Device" and "Default Output Device," which doesn't tell me much. I've also had problems recently. Since yesterday, I've been having issues with some Steam games, like Half-Life 1 and Sven Co-Op; oddly enough, both are GoldSrc.

I use ALSA for almost everything related to sound, but suddenly one day 'Master' stopped working. When I boot up and log in, I have to use "alsamixer" to change the sound card and increase the volume. Also, since things just stopped working out of nowhere, I restarted the PC, and the "alsamixer controls" list changed, adding more than 20 devices and inputs, etc.

Please excuse any grammatical errors or strange things, as I don't know how to write or speak English and used a translator.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,286

Re: The sound is not working on Discord voice calls

If you're at the level you appear to be at I'd strongly recommend installing pipewie{,-alsa,-pulse} and wireplumber and lib32-libpipewire and lib32-libpulse and using pulse/wpctl/pavucontrol tools for managing the sound graph,  it will align much better with what you usually expect coming from other systems.

Depending on if you follow this advice the needed steps will vary. If you truly think you want to do this the ALSA way, from a non working setup post the outputs of

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
aplay -lL
amixer -c0

If you follow my advice and things don't work like you expect additionally to the above post

wpctl status
pactl list cards
pactl list sinks
pactl list sink-inputs

post these wrapped in  [code][/code] tags