How can S/PDIF just stop working? [Solved! this time for good!]

Primoz · 2010-08-19 20:12:14

I have S/PDIF cable as my main output from my computer to my receiver, and it worked fine, up until now.
Earlier today it still worked but I turned my computer off and after a while on again, and then it just didn't work.
I tried to troubleshoot the problem, and noticed that my sound starts working if I mute the S/PDIF (I do have another cable coaxial?) my sound comes back.
After not much luck trying to find a solution. I did check the Wiki page on ALSA and read the part on how to get S/PDIF working...
It didn't work.

Anyway I lost patience and removed alsa-utils and it worked for a while and now it doesn't work again.
I though I'll just ask why would this happen but given it again doesn't work the real question is why is this (keep) happening?

Last edited by Primoz (2010-08-23 19:02:46)

Primoz · 2010-08-19 21:03:05

To keep anyone that's interested up-to-date...
Doing the same as previoulsy; meaning that I would just reinstall alsa-utils, use alsa-ctl store and it would magically work; didn't work.
Now I'm starting to doubt that it worked first time round, but it did. Becuase I did tests to see if it really works.
I was muting S/PDIF on and off and quality of sound changed instead of stop working.

I don't know why it worked previously, I doubt it was the reinstalling of alsa-utils.
I have no idea what it actually was the reason.

I'll do more research.

Primoz · 2010-08-19 21:25:51

OK this is just getting strange now...
Now I managed to make it work again. And I still don't know what was the cause nor how did I make it go away.

I mean I tried everything - I even built alsa with ABS and it didn't work. Then I played with alsamixer and I think I rebooted with S/PDIF unmuted and it worked.
I rebooted several times after that just to be sure. I saved the alsamixer settings with S/PDIF unmuted and so far so good.

But I fear this isn't over yet.

Primoz · 2010-08-23 13:09:02

I might have found the reason for my problems. ALSA and S/PDIF worked then suddenly stopped after I watched something in VLC and then turned it off. So maybe it's VLC that's causing problems.
I've (temporarily) removed itnow I just need to get ALSA working again... And when I do reinstall VLC and use it, the same thing happens I have my culprit.

Primoz · 2010-08-23 19:04:39

OK now I did solve this for good. The real problem was in new KDE, which had "advanced settings" for audio devices and instead of S/PDIF as default it was set to analog.
Now it works. (I think...)
Additional to this it was also Phonon backend. I've changed it from gstreamer to VLC and now it works flawlessly.

Last edited by Primoz (2010-08-23 22:28:16)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-19 20:12:14

How can S/PDIF just stop working? [Solved! this time for good!]

#2 2010-08-19 21:03:05

Re: How can S/PDIF just stop working? [Solved! this time for good!]

#3 2010-08-19 21:25:51

Re: How can S/PDIF just stop working? [Solved! this time for good!]

#4 2010-08-23 13:09:02

Re: How can S/PDIF just stop working? [Solved! this time for good!]

#5 2010-08-23 19:04:39

Re: How can S/PDIF just stop working? [Solved! this time for good!]

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