[Resolved] Sound sytem troubles HELP NEEDED

[baconature]

And the saga continues as full on unpleasant. Where now I can get the scarlett 18i20 working via its appropriate connection through Cadence/Claudia, now the rest of the sound system fails to work at all (see that situation via this link viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16879. What I mean is the pulse audio system is froze, locked or otherwise not working as I believe it should. When looking at the sound settings (via system tray) it won't show the volume controls and it shows the main sound system as muted. I am unable to unmute it. and the hits keep on rolling. I don't know wtf to do! I can't do my normal day, without the computer working to feed my desire for hearing news, seeing video with audio, hearing is the most important. I can't access the text to speech reader, the audio doesn't work now.

This current situation is full on I can't continue with it as is. I'll have to reload to something else if I can't resolve it and then I am back to square one with the music studio situation or forced back to a duel boot system where I can use the computer for regular function on "side A" but have to boot to another, "side B" for music work.

I experienced a similar situation last week which caused me to reload the OS, as stated in viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16879. I couldn't fix it then so I reloaded, only to find that the Scarlett 18i20 issue was fully resolved when things were temporarily finished. Now today I got up in the morning, started the computer and the audio is not working. I can't fix it, can't do my regular morning routine, can't read the news even, since I can barely read, and the audio won't allow the text to speech reader to function. It works but no audio, equivalent to nothing.
Some oddities to state that I am aware of, but don't know if they are the source or coincidences.

When this situation arose last week, exactly the same symptom, I was able to correct it, until the next reboot. In checking this situation is exactly the same at present. That is, when I corrected it then, I loaded (via synaptic) xfce-pulseaudio-plugin. I have not done that with this current situation. And it remains available. The reason I have not done that is that it worked only through the duration of that boot session. The next time I booted, it was back to a muted audio system.

Yesterday morning the same happened, and I resolved it (temporarily) by changing the 'JACK Bridges' in cadence. I really don't understand Jack Bridges at all, but I had changed this the previous day from what ever the default (original ((personal memory issue, I don't recall what the original setting was)) to "Bridge Type: ALSA -> Jack (Plugin)." Recalling this, I switched that setting to ALSA ->PulseAudio -> JACK (Plugin), which resolved the situation for the remainder of the day. I though all was fine, but NO. The reboot so to say, after shutting down for the night and now the sound system is again stuck in MUTE with no known functional means to remove the muted function.

Screenshot_2017-04-18_10-36-19.png (69.22 KiB) Viewed 1531 times

One more thing to note, something that has never occurred in my history of using this type of OS (linux). In this mornings adventure through the nightmare, when switching the bridge type, I followed that by reconfiguring Cadence. The idea, based in my assumptions, was to make hopefully get cadence back to a neutral influence when not in use. So I tried changing the Input Device: and Output Device of the Cadence Driver (ALSA) back to the native hardware. When I did this a pop-up appeared (the first time I've seen this pop-up) called "Removed Sound Devices" stating: KDE detected that one or more internal devices were removed. Do you want KDE to permanently forget about these devices? This is the list of devices KDE thinks can be removed: (bullet) Capture: Unknown, (bullet) Output: Unknown. Followed by an unchecked radio radio button stating: Do not ask again for these devices followed by three buttons "Manage Devices," "No," and "Yes."

Removed sound devices.png (33.35 KiB) Viewed 1531 times

Having never seen this popup before I looked through what was presented in via its "Manage Devices" button but my ignorance told me to in no way alter the possibilities contained there in. I then tried to find the source of this popup, "Audio and Video Settings - KDE Control Module," having no success in trying to access it via a different method. I have no conficence that if I changed anything there that I could regain access to it for returning any changes back to what it previously showed. So I backed out of this set of pop-ups, altering nothing due to not knowing how to get back to this place if any changes screwed things up further!!!!!!

KDE Control Module.png (174.36 KiB) Viewed 1531 times

I remain ignorant. Without audio I downright handicapped where it comes to text and the information contained there in.

[wjl]

Tom,

I have it like this:



After testing that everything works, including the pulseaudio-jack bridge, just set these two checkboxes, and everything will connect within a second or two after you log in.

Oh, and according to your first screenshot: I have that differently; my hardware - both in and out - is the Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 2nd gen on USB.

Works like a charm for me, even if Cadence doesn't show my 4.9 realtime kernel as "lowlatency".

I think the same can be done with QJackCTL and a few scripts, as described in the (very good) AVLinux manual.

Hope that helps,
Wolfgang

[wjl]

Hi again Tom,

forgot to add a few links which probably could help:

Stefano has a very good explanation of what he calls "The Linux Audio Anatomy" on his crocoduck's pond blog at https://thecrocoduckspond.wordpress.com ... o-anatomy/.

The AVLinux User Guide for the latest version 2017.3 can be found on Glen MacArthur's pages at http://bandshed.net/pdf/AVL2017.3UserManual.pdf - his blog is at http://www.bandshed.net/. You might want to read his Audio & MIDI setup in case Cadence doesn't work for you - tho he shows it using QJackCTL, he also provides those scripts I wrote about earlier.

Lots more tutorials and help can be found on the Libre Music Production sites, starting here: http://libremusicproduction.com/articles-and-tutorials.

Again, I hope that some of this helps. It did help me, and I'm old as I wrote already

Cheers,
Wolfgang

[baconature]

Since writing, I deleted all pulseaudio via synaptic, then rebooted. At least the basics are again functioning. I can get normal regular everyday audio to work again. So at least the text to speech system is functional with cadence disconnected and off. I say disconnected but that is looking through assumptions again. If I have cadence outputs set to the usb sound card nothing audio works whether cadence is on or off. So I have cadence set with it's output and inputs both at the native sound card, the focusrite scarlett is off when I shut cadence off via the Quit function in the system tray settings functions for cadence.

This is driving me to my wits end.

Wolfgang, thanks for the input. I don't use the automatic start button in cadence for my own reasons. It isn't very difficult to push the start button. As to the pulseaudio bridge setting, my system has thus far shown that this bridge won't activate. At present, with pulseaudio fully removed from the system, it is a moot point. For the moment I can at least use the computer for things other than music production. At present I need to step away from the frustration of being engaged with this problem.

Thanks for the input in any case. I will come back to the problem soon enough.

[baconature]

I am back at it now. The past many of hours I've gone through the suggested reading that Wolfgang presented. I had a basic understanding of most of it before hand, and learned a few minor setup things having to do with jack. Now all these hours later I am left with no idea of why pulseaudio went mute on me, nor if I should re-install it. I have noticed over the years that when one removes a software package, that doing so may not remove that software's settings, thus when it is installed again, it can pick up where it left off. In this case I suspect that were I to load pulseaudio again, it would likely go straight back to its previous muted condition, which is fully unacceptable. Then in my reading of https://thecrocoduckspond.wordpress.com ... o-anatomy/ there are statements that the system can do okay without pulseaudio. I simply don't know what to believe about pulseaudio, its workings or the problem I am experiencing as it relates to pulseaudio. I believe that there must be advantages in having it, things like control of native system audio is more than a convenience, there are times when it is necessary for some of the computer tasks I use often. Thus I need to figure out why pulseaudio went (or may again) mute the native audio system. I don't know where to begin to troubleshoot the situation. I only know enough to be dangerous to the system. I continue learning about it but... it isn't what I want to do with life really.

Thanks Wolfgang and all the others whom take the time to read.

[baconature]

It seems no further assistance is coming forth. I will document what the experience provides in the least, as doing so may assist someone, some time, somewhere. I realize there is no money in providing assistance.

As expected, I reloaded pulse audio, to find it again muted, which will lead to my next likely move, that of removing it yet again. But while the sound system is in mute, which prevents my gaining written information since I can't read well enough to obtain information without the assistance of the screen reader, I did go through all the options in cadence in regards to bridges, with a hope that I would be able to reestablish the non-muted condition of pulseaudio. I went through these one at a time, in the following manner. (now comes a startlingly odd situation which I will tell after writing the process I am going through to evaluate the pulseaudio status post Jack use, because pulseaudio seems to fail after using cadence, upon the following reboot)

The process of elimination.

steps
1. Open Cadence, make sure it is stopped.
2. Configure Cadence settings, being sure that both its inputs and outputs are the native sound card (because the USB interface is working correctly, and pulseaudio and the native soundcard is the problem).

Step 3.
a. Open Cadence, make sure it is on the stopped position.
b. Change the 'JACK Bridge' setting ALSA Audio: to 'none,'.
c. Start Cadence.
d. Look at the status of 'JACK Bridges' "PulseAudio" option, to verify its shown status and if it can be started by its provided start button. (this condition seems to always refuse starting. With the radio button checked for "auto-start at login, the start button is never grayed out, and manually ticking it does not change the visual status of its start button.
e. Stop Cadence.
f. Check result of pulseaudio state, is it muted or is it unmuted.
4. Repeat step 3, altering the selection of step 3b.
5. Systematically going through all the possibilities.

Now several minutes later, I glance down at the pulseadio icon in the system tray and it shows it to be working correctly unmuted again (wtf ????????). The current settings of Cadence's 'JACK Bridges': ALSA Audio is 'ALSA -> Loop -> JACK,' While in the process listed above, pulseaudio was always muted, now having left things alone for >5 minutes it is working. This makes no sense at all! Why the delay in status of Pulseaudio? And again I fear when I reboot, it will again. be back to muted. I am living in a circular nightmare.

So yes, the reboot produced pulseaudio being muted again. So I repeate the steps above trying to figure out what will cause the change.

I went through the process of elimination as shown above to find that there is no change in the status of pulseaudio. The difference between before reboot and after reboot is this. I had removed pulseaudio from the system, rebooted finding no icon for pulse audio in the system tray. I then reloaded pulseaudio, yet the icon of pulseaudio remained absent in the system tray. I then thought to reboot with the hope of getting the pulseaudio icon to return to the system tray. That too failed. I then removed the "indicators" add-on in the panel, then reloaded it and rebooted again. This brought the pulseaudio icon back into the indicators add-on in the system tray. It was muted at that time. This is the status I was at when I went through the process as listed above the first time which resulted in pulseaudio becoming un-muted yet seemingly after a time delay of several minutes. Currently pulseaudio is again muted. The loop could go on forever were I willing to play that game, but... that would be insanity. I'd have to boot 3 times to get one session of a working system, then have to go through the process again the next time I boot the system. As I said, a nightmare.

I am missing something. The mystery is what am I missing?

I will delete pulseaudio now so I can have audio again but this condition is blocking to my work flow of the everyday computer system, while the DAW of preference seemingly works fine (I've not tested it completely with pulseaudio removed).

[El Bajista]

Pulseaudio always restarts itself unless it is told not do so, by putting a lign

Code: Select all

autospawn = no

into the file
~/.config/pulse/client.conf

By altering to "yes" you can get back the default behaviour.

This is a nice way of controlling (if one knows it ): Just edit the file by script when stopping/starting jackd.

One more thing, have you ever looked at QjackCtl for controlling Jack? It features a nice control of doing tasks on/after start/stop of jackd. And you can save different setups there, which is nice e.g. if one uses different soundcards.

[baconature]

Thanks for the input El Bajista. I will try that and see. Of course I will have to reinstall pulseaudio to see what that does.

Yes I have used qjackctl, pretty much consistently the past two years, and with your suggestion of its ability to retain setups via its gladish counterpart, I missed that function since switching things up with my choice of using KXstudio software as my base rather than UbuntuStudio native software.

I will let all whom read this know the results. I may also switch back to qjackctl singularly for the functionality you mention. Because I often have no need to use the external card when editing midi or hydrogen, there is benefit in moving back to qjackctl.

Thanks again,

[baconature]

El Bajista,
the file your directions point to does not exist in this directory.

Code: Select all

name@me:~/.config/pulse$ ls
26f7cfd1ee8e45bfa08acf9d85b1c670-card-database.tdb
26f7cfd1ee8e45bfa08acf9d85b1c670-default-sink
26f7cfd1ee8e45bfa08acf9d85b1c670-default-source
26f7cfd1ee8e45bfa08acf9d85b1c670-device-volumes.tdb
26f7cfd1ee8e45bfa08acf9d85b1c670-stream-volumes.tdb
cookie

Otherwise entering

Code: Select all

~/.config/pulse/client.conf

results in

Code: Select all

:/$ ~/.config/pulse/client.conf
bash: /home/top/.config/pulse/client.conf: No such file or directory

scratch head

[baconature]

This situation may be resolved, more later.

[baconature]

Well, well the negative hits keep on rolling it seems. I tried to work with an audio recording project last night to find the audio system messed up again. Suddenly the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, ceased connecting its monitoring function again. I had done nothing with this for a few days, and finding this change after doing nothing (it worked correctly that last time I tried using it) pushed me over the top of my tolerance. To me it makes zero sense. I am giving up on this install, and will move on to something else. I have been considering trying a debian system and began some research into it a few times in this past week, and have concluded to try out AV Linux. There might be advantages to this conclusion. I'll see what it is all about soon enough. Currently the download of the iso is in progress. I am hopeful. I am pretty familiar by now with xfce and prefer it to other desktop versions I've dealt with over the years. I am uncertain as to what is said to be the option for installing the low latency kernel. I hope I can recognize it when that option is placed into the time of selecting. With the information always in some form of text, it is difficult for me because there is never an option to hear what the words say during the install process.

Thanks to all who have provided their input about this pulseaudio, alsa, jack, issue. As I said, many times now, it makes no sense to me. I am merely a musician trying to get my music recorded well. This computer stuff it the only path that I am able to take toward gaining the goal, yet it is difficult. Being fiscally poor, physically isolated (very rural area), and unable to read well enough to gain through what most humans find natural, leaves me to figuring out what is best, without very much chance for assistance.

Onward and upward!

[baconature]

I got AV Linux installed and setup on a different ssd over the past couple of days. It does have a rather odd install process but in computing some things will likely always seem odd the first time through. I put that system through some of its paces last night late, to find it performing as I would believe it should. It could be that I'll find AV Linux my preference as we continue into the future. It is truly a good feature having a users manual, supplied within an install, a surprise and a good tool that promotes results through an avenue for users to gain understanding.

[baconature]

I gave up on this one! Had to reload system.