No audio in Mint

[LostInTheSauce]

Hello friends. First-time poster and general newbie here.

I've got a relatively fresh install of Mint (some good but not strictly necessary background here) but no matter what I do, I cannot get any audio output (almost) whatsoever (more background detail that is necessary but too long to recount here here).

In quick summary, I am using a 1st gen Scarlett 18i20. It should be class compliant. Mint sees the device properly, knows it exists, what kind of device it is, but does not send any audio to it. I borrowed a PreSonus Audiobox USB96 from a friend to test to see if it was just my unit that Mint was having a problem with, but I got the exact same results with that. I had a sudden brain wave and tested my old Razer Kraken 7.1 headphones. Interestingly, the two audio interfaces are obviously USB, but so are the Kraken headphones, and I was able to get sound from them just fine (in addition to some weird accessibility narrator? I have no idea where that came from).

As I mentioned in the Mint forum post on this issue, I've been waiting for the Mint v22 setup script from Brendan Ingram on GitHub. I tried to adapt his Mint v21 script as best I could and I was largely successful, bar a few minor errors that I didn't think were critical (though at this point, who knows? I sure don't), but I only got as far as Line 108 before I couldn't continue. Regardless, my suspicion is that I have to at least have some level of audio output before any of that script even begins to be useful, so adapting the script could've just been an exercise in futility.

So, am I the only one to have this problem? Am I the only one who doesn't know how to solve it? Am I shouting into the void, never to receive so much as an echo of my own voice? Or is there some kind soul out there, maybe even on this forum, who might be able to guide me?

[Axel-Erfurt]

Have you tried this? alsa-scarlett-gui
Github Releases

[LostInTheSauce]

I had seen it in my research, but I hadn't tried it because of a very important point: the article and github page both point out that Scarletts are class compliant devices, meaning they should work to some degree out of the box. Clearly, mine does not. Not in Mint, anyway. I did give the asla-scarlett-gui a try, but I'm still not getting anything. There was no indication on the gui that any signal was going anywhere (though I think I read that that might not be supported functionality) and in my own tests trying to play music files and putting signals through my hardware inputs, there was absolutely no sound coming out the other end.

[Natelok]

Just to be sure, you've turned the mix knob all the way to the right? Also check the gain levels on your inputs. I know it's obvious, but I have been caught with that a few times on my Presonus.

FWIW, I never had any issues with Mint and XFCE, but often had to open pavucontrol and change the output device.

[LostInTheSauce]

Just to be sure, you've turned the mix knob all the way to the right? Also check the gain levels on your inputs. I know it's obvious, but I have been caught with that a few times on my Presonus.

FWIW, I never had any issues with Mint and XFCE, but often had to open pavucontrol and change the output device.

I have cranked every knob in alsa-scarlett-gui to max. The routing window is entirely unresponsive, so I kinda have to hope it's set up correctly. I have tried both headphone outputs on my Scarlett and cranked them both to max (although I know headphone out 1 is broken, and I don't have monitors, just my headphones). I have tried cranking the input gain on my primary input on the Scarlett and while the on-unit display shows plenty of signal in, I still get nothing out. I don't fully understand pavucontrol, to be honest, but from what I can tell, the Scarlett is selected as the primary output device.

Just... nothing works. Including the default music player, Celuloid, by the way, so I had to install VLC to actually be able to play any media. I mean, I was planning on doing that anyway, but I would have like to have not been forced to.

[sunrat]

Check alsamixer to make sure it is unmuted with levels up, "M" means muted. Press F6 to choose sound card.

[LostInTheSauce]

Check alsamixer to make sure it is unmuted with levels up, "M" means muted. Press F6 to choose sound card.

I'll give that a shot and report back if I have time tomorrow, but I did note in my original post on the Mint Forums that I linked in my original post here that whenever I try to select my Scarlett as the sound card in alsamixer, it immediately exits back to the terminal window, saying "cannot load mixer controls: No such device".

[LostInTheSauce]

Check alsamixer to make sure it is unmuted with levels up, "M" means muted. Press F6 to choose sound card.

Just double checked. Alsamixer is definitely set properly. aside from it crashing when I select my Scarlett as the sound card. Unfortunately, I don't have a good way to attach screenshots for you, but all levels are at 100, none muted.

[tobiasch]

Alsamixer should work with the device as it was detected as you show in the post in the Mint forum.
use

Code: Select all

aplay -l 

to detect the card number.

then

alsamixer -c CARDNUMBER

post output.

Another issue i had, was that when using Pro Audio Profile in pavucontrol, the audio jack for the headphones will not automatically switch.
Try using Analog stereo Duplex profile, if available for this device.

[LostInTheSauce]

Alsamixer should work with the device as it was detected as you show in the post in the Mint forum.
use

Code: Select all

aplay -l 

to detect the card number.

then

alsamixer -c CARDNUMBER

post output.

Another issue i had, was that when using Pro Audio Profile in pavucontrol, the audio jack for the headphones will not automatically switch.
Try using Analog stereo Duplex profile, if available for this device.

I'll do this as soon as I can and report back. Unfortunately, I have an extremely busy week this week and likely won't have time to tackle it until sometime next week.

[LostInTheSauce]

Alsamixer should work with the device as it was detected as you show in the post in the Mint forum.
use

Code: Select all

aplay -l 

to detect the card number.

then

alsamixer -c CARDNUMBER

post output.

Another issue i had, was that when using Pro Audio Profile in pavucontrol, the audio jack for the headphones will not automatically switch.
Try using Analog stereo Duplex profile, if available for this device.

Found some time and ran these commands. Running

Code: Select all

aplay -l

results in the following:

Code: Select all

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 1: CODEC [USB AUDIO  CODEC], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC1150 Analog [ALC1150 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC1150 Digital [ALC1150 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [KG271U]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [Acer X34 P]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [VG245]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 4: USB [Scarlett 18i20 USB], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I ran

Code: Select all

alsamixer -c 4

afterwards and got the same error message as when trying to select the Scarlett in the Alsamixer interface (

Code: Select all

alsamixer

>F6>manually select Scarlett):

Code: Select all

cannot load mixer controls: No such device

.

Opening pavucontrol, I navigated to the Configuration tab. For the Scarlett there are five configuration options: Pro Audio (which is what it's normally on), Multichannel Input, Multichannel Output, Multichannel Duplex, and Off. I tried them all and still didn't get any output.

[tobiasch]

Sorry for the late reply, was a bit offline.
The issue seems here:

Code: Select all

card 4: USB [Scarlett 18i20 USB], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1

The device doesnt have a subdevice.
http://delogics.blogspot.com/2014/11/un ... e-and.html
Dont know how to fix it.
Good luck

[FxLinux]

To add to the mix and may have nothing to do with it.

I noticed lately the Minifuse 2 does not work with Alsa any more and had to switch to pipewire!
If only Arturia did a Linux Driver manager - how difficult is it?
It has only to manage Firmware updates and have a basic driver... just a guess.

I am currently setting up my PC... still testing now...

I do not use JACK, but may try it soon (again).

[LostInTheSauce]

To add to the mix and may have nothing to do with it.

I noticed lately the Minifuse 2 does not work with Alsa any more and had to switch to pipewire!
If only Arturia did a Linux Driver manager - how difficult is it?
It has only to manage Firmware updates and have a basic driver... just a guess.

I am currently setting up my PC... still testing now...

I do not use JACK, but may try it soon (again).

I'll be honest, being very new to the LInux game, especially where audio is concerned, I don't fully understand what Alsa, Pipewire, JACK, nor Pulse Audio/pavucontrol really are, nor the differences between them, how they can work together, etc. I do know that when I run

Code: Select all

alsamixer

in the terminal, the first selected sound card, the one selected by default, is Pipewire. And then, as you can read above, there's the whole issue with alsamixer crashing back to the terminal when I try to select my Scarlett, apparently because it has no subdevices, whatever that means.

Speaking of which, if you know anything about subdevices, I'd love to hear it, because basically the only information I can find is what tobiasch said, the link he posted.

[FxLinux]

I wish I could help you as I am kind of frustrated now... I replied to help raise importance to your call for help.

Hopefully somebody that was in your same situation will chip in.

I strongly suggest you to also see the Scarlet forum - if they have one... in my case I have a MiniFuse and there are many using Linux. MiniFuse works fine and without Arturia driver... but - as in my 'this morning' Thread, WINE started to misbehave and did not even did anything with WINE.

so, PC probably back to Windows for the time being - I wasted 2 months and done no music at all!

ADDITION:

Put my PC is back into Windows - after 2 months of almost no music at all!

Will play with Laptop or a external HDD Mint install