How Do I Get Pulseaudio To Change The Default Sound Card?

Dear all,

I have recently upgrade my distribution, everything worked fine except for the sound system.

The audio stops working after a while. I lose the sound after several minutes of Skype use or while watching videos in my browser, it just happens....

But not only Skype or video audio stops, all sounds stop as well. I need to reboot the system to get the sound back, and then the same, at certain point all sounds disappear.

I tried many things that I found (reinstall alsa, kill and restart pulseaudio, install pavucontrol) but none of them seems to work.

This is the result of aplay -l

card 0: MID [HDA Intel MID], device 0: ALC889 Analog [ALC889 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: MID [HDA Intel MID], device 1: ALC889 Digital [ALC889 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

The weird thing is that the audio meter of the output sound from pavucontrol shows signal. The bar moves when receiving sound but no sound can be listened.

Typing pulseaudio with or without sound gives me:

E: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.

I though the second line was telling that something went wrong, but the sound works at the beginning even with that message.

I do not know what else to do. Any help would be more than welcome since I'm really frustrated.

Thank you very much for your help.

I am trying to open pavucontrol in debian with the xfce desktop.
The error message is:

Code:

Connection to Pulseaudio failed. Automatic retry in 5s
In this case this is likely because PULSE_SERVER in the Environment/X11 Root Windows Properties or default-server in client.conf is misconfigured.

I am having trouble getting sound and configuring the settings.
There is no sound setting in the Settings Manager of xfce.
Also, every time I change alsamixer to my hdmi sound card it keeps going back to the default analog sound card when I exit the program.

How can I access the system settings on the desktop or do I need to change a file setting from the terminal?

Hi I a running Ubunto 12.04 on a HP PC with an onboard intel analaog sound card

(ALC662) and a HDMI connection into my TV.
I use this PC for Mythtv and Kodi using the sound over HDMI which works a treat in MythTV however I cannot get the sound to work on Kodi, Firefox or any other app which I presume is down to misconfigured ALSA setup, I had this working previously but it stopped and I am not sure why, possible updates.


sudo aplay -L lists;

Home directory /home/tomc not ours.
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
PulseAudio Sound Server
hdmi_complete
sysdefault:CARD=Intel
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
dmix:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=Intel,DEV=1
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Digital
Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=Intel,DEV=1
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Digital
Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=Intel,DEV=1
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Digital
Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Analog
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=Intel,DEV=1
HDA Intel, ALC662 rev1 Digital
Hardware device with all software conversions
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=2
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=7
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=8
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=9
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=NVidia,DEV=7
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=NVidia,DEV=8
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=NVidia,DEV=9
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=7
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=8
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=9
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=7
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=8
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=9
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
Hardware device with all software conversions

aplay -D plughw:1,7 /home/tomc/adios.wav will play my sample wav file though the

HDMI.


Heres my /etc/asound.conf


pcm.hdmi_hw {
type hw
card 1 # <--- card number
device 7 # <--- device number
}

pcm.hdmi_complete {
type softvol
slave.pcm hdmi_hw
control.name hdmi_volume
control.card 1
}

pcm.!default hdmi_complete


Any help would be greatly appreciated as I dont fully understand ALSA and its

driving me up the wall :-)

Thanks
TomC

I tried setting my FiiO-Dac as default alsa sound device using changes in my alsa.conf, but after a reboot, alsa always went back to my broken onboard sound. Help would be appreciated.

cat /proc/asound/modules
0 snd_hda_intel
1 snd_hda_intel
2 snd_usb_audio
3 snd_usb_audio

cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [SB ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
HDA ATI SB at 0xfe600000 irq 16
1 [NVidia ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
HDA NVidia at 0xfe080000 irq 59
2 [Device ]: USB-Audio - USB PnP Sound Device
C-Media Electronics Inc. USB PnP Sound Device at usb-0000:00:12.2-2.3, full spe
3 [Audio ]: USB-Audio - DigiHug USB Audio
FiiO DigiHug USB Audio at usb-0000:00:12.2-2.4, full speed

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC892 Analog [ALC892 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC892 Digital [ALC892 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Audio [DigiHug USB Audio], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Audio [DigiHug USB Audio], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

lsmod | grep snd
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 53248 1
snd_hda_codec_realtek 65536 1
snd_hda_codec_generic 65536 1 snd_hda_codec_realtek
snd_usb_audio 151552 0
snd_hda_intel 28672 0
snd_usbmidi_lib 28672 1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi 28672 1 snd_usbmidi_lib
snd_seq_device 16384 1 snd_rawmidi
snd_hda_controller 28672 1 snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_codec 114688 5 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller
snd_hwdep 16384 2 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 90112 5 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_controller snd_timer 28672 1 snd_pcm
snd 69632 12 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_usb_audio,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_h da_codec_generic,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device
soundcore 16384 2 snd,snd_hda_codec
usbcore 200704 11 uas,snd_usb_audio,usb_storage,ohci_hcd,ohci_pci,snd_usbmidi_lib,ehci_hcd,ehci_pci,usbhid,xhci_hcd,xh ci_pci

Hello

I have linux mint 17.1 cinnamon installed on my computer, but the surround sound is not working (I only get stereo from two speakers)

When I run lspci I can see that my card is called

C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio (rev 10)

there is another embeded card that came with my computer called

[AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller

but I have my speakers hooked up to the first one and I have selected this card in the "output device" option on the lower right hand side of the screen, and I have selected the sound setting "analgog 4.0 surround".

My surround sound used to work when I had windows xp and xubuntu installed on an older computer with the same surround sound card attached. So I can't understand why it is not working now.

Can anyone help me with this?

when I run

aplay -l

I get:

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 0: CMI8738 [C-Media PCI DAC/ADC]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 1: CMI8738 [C-Media PCI 2nd DAC]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 2: CMI8738 [C-Media PCI IEC958]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

inxi -Fzx
System: Host: rene-linuxmint Kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine: System: Gigabyte product: N/A
Mobo: Gigabyte model: F2A58M-DS2H version: x.x Bios: American Megatrends version: F1 date: 04/28/2014
CPU: Dual core AMD A4-4000 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 11977.2
Clock Speeds: 1: 1400.00 MHz 2: 1400.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity [Radeon HD 7480D] bus-ID: 00:01.0
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1600x900@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD ARUBA GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
Card-2: C-Media CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio driver: snd_cmipci port: d000 bus-ID: 03:06.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-37-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath9k bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 820.2GB (35.7% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD3200AVCS size: 320.1GB
2: USB id: /dev/sdc model: MQ01ABD050 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 290G used: 21G (8%) fs: ext4
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 0.4C mobo: N/A gpu: -3.0
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 169 Uptime: 4:07 Memory: 1209.9/3068.3MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4


aplay -L
default
Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
PulseAudio Sound Server
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
dmix:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3
HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
Hardware device with all software conversions
sysdefault:CARD=CMI8738
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
Front speakers
rear:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI 2nd DAC
Rear speakers
surround40:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
iec958:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
dmix:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=1
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI 2nd DAC
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=2
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI IEC958
Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=1
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI 2nd DAC
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=2
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI IEC958
Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=1
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI 2nd DAC
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=2
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI IEC958
Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=0
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=1
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI 2nd DAC
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=CMI8738,DEV=2
C-Media CMI8738, C-Media PCI IEC958
Hardware device with all software conversions

Hello Everyone,

I installed Linux Mint about four days ago, after a few hitches that I was able to figure out on my own, I got everything up and running and am enjoying my experience. There is one problem however, that I haven't been able to fix myself, so now I'm asking for the communities help. Since day 1 I haven't had any sound from Mint. I've tried videos through Firefox, music on Banshee, and system sounds but nothing is working at all. I have spent the better part of the last three days ripping my hair out and jumping from source to source looking for an answer and so far nothing has worked. I have tried a lot of things including forcing ALSA to reload, and even uninstalling and reinstalling ALSA and Pulse all together. Therein lies my next issue, I followed a guide off of the forums to try uninstalling and reinstalling ALSA and Pulse and it seemed all went according to plan, I reveived no errors during the process, but now my little sound icon in the system tray is missing.

Here is the info on my audio device:

Code: Select all
Audio: Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Device 9840 driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-37-generic


Any help is greatly appreciated as having no sound, while not vital, is a major inconvenience.

Thank you!

Hi,

Although I've been using linux several years back. I am not a fast learner so here goes a question I should understand long ago.

I have installed fresh Ubuntu 15.04 netinstall.

After that install xorg and windows manager.
Sound was working.
Then I wanted to check the mixer and I used to alsamixer, and strange the app was not there.
I have tried all alsa* binaries but none of them was installed.

How can I findout what sound system is running?

Thanks

I have installed a new Debian OS to try out the xfce desktop.
My radeon hdmi sound card needs non-free drivers and so I have no sound.
On my previous debian install with gnome desktop, I found a number of changes I had to make to get the sound working.

I have done all this with this new install with xfce.
However, one thing I haven't done yet is to change the System settings-Sound settings to use the hdmi sound card.
The problem is the xfce desktop doesn't have an icon for sound settings under System settings.

This is a bit weird. So I'm wondering if xfce has installed correctly or if it's missing a package so the System sound settings will show up.
Does anyone know what's going on?

hello,
I installed an ATI card into my pc, now the sound is gone. I suppose this is due to the position of that new card which is now "0" (when I start alsamixer, I see the sound default is "HD-Audio Generic" with "Chip: ATI R6xx HDMI". I dont have a screen on the HDMI. I just want to take the "Intel ICH6" with "Chip: Analog Devices AD1981B" as the default card as per previous installation.

What should I do?

cat /proc/asound/cards
Code:

 0 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xf0620000 irq 42
 1 [ICH6           ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH6
                      Intel ICH6 with AD1981B at irq 21

Thanks.

I have made a change to GRUB2 bootloader in etc/default/grub.
Now I need to run 'update grub' for the change to take effect.
However, the 'update grub' command on the terminal is giving this error message:
Code:

root@debian:/# update grub
bash: update: command not found

Can someone please explain why this command is no longer working?

I've had to make a change to grub because I tried to install a new distro which meant I had to alter grub.
The install wasn't successful so I deleted the grub file and then re-installed it.
The re-installed grub needs a change so I can get sound on my pc.
However, I can't add these changes because the 'update grub' command doesn't work.

I've checked the grub file with another debian distro and they are both the same.
So now I don't know if I need to check if a different grub file is the problem or anything else.
Can someone help?