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No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:31 am
by rotindo
Hello,

Despite a slight problem, I used to have sound on my Debian Stretch boosted by KXStudio. Since the last KXStudio package updates, I cannot hear a thing. Could you help?

I think it might be related to PulseAudio as the aforementioned “slight problem” is. To have sound on my computer, I had to manually fire up PulseAudio, with the command

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pulseaudio -D
That was weird as, in Cadence, the ALSA -> PulseAudio -> JACK bridge is selected (and supposedly Always on) and PulseAudio is supposed to Auto-start at login (the corresponding Start button is clickable but to no avail). This “slight problem” is still there but running the command does not solve it anymore.

BTW, I'm using a daily updated Debian Stretch (linux 4.9.0-6-amd64) on a (old but still rocking) Intel Core2 Quad Q8300 with 4Go RAM.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:08 pm
by rotindo
falkTX wrote:Check in Catia if the pulseaudio jack client is actualy there, and if it the "sink" connected to the system outputs.
Could you tell me more how to do so? I'm not familiar with Catia. In fact, I only know the basics of KXStudio as it was recommended to me in order to setup a system that should use each part of ALSA+PulseAudio+JACK triumvirate for some apps.

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:43 pm
by lilith
You open you Cadence Window, then Tools, then Catia. In there you check your connections.
I should look like this:

Image

Pulse Audio Jack Sink should appear there and it must be connected to System Playback.

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:23 pm
by rotindo
Thanks for you reply.

When I boot my computer, only two boxes system show in Catia: one with 2 capture_* items, the other with 8 playback_* items. There are no connection whatsoever.

If I restart JACK, nothing changes. Nor if I pulseaudio -D. The only way I fond to get some connections in the Catia window, is by changing and starting the ALSA Audio bridge to ALSA -> Loop -> JACK. Then I get two new boxes: jack2alsa (with 2 playback_*) and alsa2jack (with 2 capture_*)

So no PulseAudio…

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 5:00 pm
by sysrqer
What happens if you do pulseaudio --start? Any errors?

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:06 pm
by rotindo
What happens if you do pulseaudio --start? Any errors?
Nothing happens. I get no error but there are no change in the Catia schema and I still get no sound.
As far as I can see/hear, I get the same (absence of) results with

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$ pulseaudio --start
$ pulseaudio -D
# pulseaudio --system
# pulseaudio --system -D
Not sure what I should get as differences either.

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:49 pm
by sysrqer
Remove jack from the equation, does pulseaudio work on it's own? Is it running as a process?

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:15 pm
by Aleks
Do you folks always run Jack on your system? I do it only when dabbling with music, otherwise it's just pulseaudio...Anyhow, when something like this happen to me, the first thing I do is I delete the "pulse" folder inside the /home/.config folder. Sometimes I also delete the Cadence folder. Then I reboot and restart Cadence. Usually it helps.

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:13 pm
by rotindo
sysrqer wrote:Remove jack from the equation, does pulseaudio work on it's own? Is it running as a process?
JACK stopped and disabled (so it does not start at login), then reboot…
— at login: PulseAudio does not show in the processes despite the “Auto-start at login” radio button being ticked, no sound, ALSA does not work
— after manually starting PulseAudio (with --start or -D) : it shows in the processes but still no sound, ALSA works but aplay/speaker-test render no sound

So I checked if something was muted in alsamixer but it is not the case :-(

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:30 pm
by rotindo
Aleks wrote:Do you folks always run Jack on your system? I do it only when dabbling with music, otherwise it's just pulseaudio...Anyhow, when something like this happen to me, the first thing I do is I delete the "pulse" folder inside the /home/.config folder. Sometimes I also delete the Cadence folder. Then I reboot and restart Cadence. Usually it helps.
Tried but to no avail :-(

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:42 pm
by rotindo
To investigate further, I'd like to know if there exists
— a VU Meter app dedicated to ALSA
— a VU Meter app dedicated to PulseAudio
— a VU Meter app dedicated to JACK
— an audio equivalent to WireShark that let's you hear/see what happens at each input and output of a chained/piped/bridged audio configuration (something like Catia but where you can click somewhere and check what happens at this point in the diagram/workflow) and that works whatever the audio configuration (Catia seems to only work if JACK is up and running)

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:27 pm
by rotindo
I did a few further tests, forced reinstalled the concerned packages and here's what I got:

Everything seems fine when only ALSA is installed. Or when PulseAudio and JACK are installed but not running. (Except obviously for applications needing PulseAudio or JACK, but that's to be expected.)

When running PulseAudio with ALSA (JACK still shutdown), almost everything goes wrong. That's confirm my first impression from my original post. The only clues I have are thanks to VLC:

1. if I configure it so that the “Audio Preference Output Module” is “PulseAudio audio output”, VLC proposes me two “Audio Devices” but I get no sound whichever I use

2. if I configure it so that the “Audio Preference Output Module” is “ALSA”, VLC proposes me many “Audio Devices”
2.a. with the “Playback/Recording through PulseAudio server” (which it selects by default) I get no sound
2.b. with “HDA Intel ALC889 Analog Default Audio Device” and most of the others (except Loopbacks) I get sound

The only thing I'm able to conclude from this is that there definitely is a problem with PulseAudio on my computer. But I cannot go further by myself…

Any help?

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:10 pm
by Aleks
Well. I guess this is not much of a help, but several times I decided that the least complicated solution is to reinstall the whole OS. That's why my home folder is always on a separate partition.

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:51 pm
by sysrqer
Could you post the output of

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pacmd list-sinks | grep -e 'name:' -e 'index'
Unless I'm reading your post incorrectly it seems that the hardware works when you choose the correct output so I would guess that pulseaudio is set to use the wrong output - see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pu ... put_source

This would make sense because if you're getting no errors from pulseaudio then it it would suggest that there isn't a problem with it running as such.

Did you check in alsamixer to see if anything is muted? I scanned the posts but didn't see any mention of it but sorry if you already have.

Re: No more sound after update, probably related to PulseAudio

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 9:45 am
by rotindo
Aleks wrote:Well. I guess this is not much of a help, but several times I decided that the least complicated solution is to reinstall the whole OS. That's why my home folder is always on a separate partition.
Yes, I know this could be a solution. Indeed, I use it quite regularly. But now is not a good time for me to be that radical :(