LinuxMusicians

Hi,

My Dell XPS 13 runs Ubuntu 23.04 with Pipewire. I use a RME Babyface Pro class compliant, both as an alternative general output and as a pro sound card in Bitwig Studio or other digital audio workstations. For the latter use, I usually configure the sound card as 'Pro Audio' in pavucontrol, which allows me to benefit from its multiple inputs and outputs.

This interface has always worked very well, albeit with the occasional regulatory configuration hassle, and the arrival of Pipewire has simplified things quite a bit in this respect.

For some time now, the interface has not been available in the audio output choices, either in the system settings or in the Bitwig Studio preferences. However, it is recognised as a USB device:

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 025: ID 2a39:3fb0 RME Babyface Pro (Class Compliant Mode)

ALSA does not recognise it (it does not appear in the output of $ aplay -l).

Any idea what I can do to solve this problem?

Thanks in advance for your help.

If you start your machine (or a new login session with the Babyface unplugged, I would run the following in a terminal:

$ sudo dmesg -w

and then plug the Babyface into your USB port / hub: the messages that appear when you plug the device in might give you (or us) some clue about what your computer thinks is happening.

If you start your machine (or a new login session with the Babyface unplugged, I would run the following in a terminal:

Code: Select all

$ sudo dmesg -w

Here it is. Just showing the last lines that appeared after I plugged the Babyface:

$ sudo dmesg -w
...
[   92.645650] usb 1-1.3.2: new high-speed USB device number 11 using xhci_hcd
[   92.746137] usb 1-1.3.2: New USB device found, idVendor=2a39, idProduct=3fb0, bcdDevice= 0.01
[   92.746150] usb 1-1.3.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   92.746156] usb 1-1.3.2: Product: Babyface Pro (71962658)
[   92.746159] usb 1-1.3.2: Manufacturer: RME
[   92.746163] usb 1-1.3.2: SerialNumber: 4274B204EE244C8

@artsun Oof! I was hoping for something unexpected, to help diagnose the problem, but that output looks very .... expected.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the device to help more.

Try burning an AVLinux live dvd from an iso at www.bandshed.net

It won't have pipewire, but has an excellent blend of jackd and pulseaudio preconfigured,
and testing without pipewire and bitwig will eliminate some possible variables. It has reaper and mixbus daw demos installed.
The qjackctl patchbay should list a working card, and if not, different cables/usb-ports should be tried.
Cheers

Hallo artsun,

Could you post the output of the following commands:

• aplay -l with the interface attached

• cat /proc/cmdline

• lsmod | grep usb with the interface attached

Thanks all for your suggestions.

I just remembered I had another interface lying around, a Behringer UCA222 USB interface. I know that it used to work seamlessly under Ubuntu, so I just tried and plugged it. As I suspected, it's detected but not as an audio interface. It probably means then that the issue comes from the computer, not the interface.

Thanks for the data! Seems like the USB sound driver does not get loaded. Maybe your computer can't provide enough current on the USB ports. Did you try different ports or different cables? No changes in /etc/modprobe.d/ that could cause this?

@artsun

Seeing @autostatic's post made me think: I have recently (this week) begun seeing my "desktop" Focusrite Solo come "on" briefly (when first plugged in) and then "go dark." Turns out that something changed in my system such that my tweaks to disable the usbcore.autosuspend kernel option got moved aside; the device was still "present", but seemed to drop out (including crackles in my headphones as the on-board audio tried to snatch control).

At any rate, the fix for me was to add usbcore.autosuspend=-1 to my GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= variable in /etc/grub/default.

Likely this isn't your issue, but just in case....

artsun wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 8:21 pm

Code: Select all

$ lsmod | grep usb
usbnet                 65536  2 r8153_ecm,cdc_ether
mii                    20480  2 usbnet,r8152
btusb                  69632  0
btrtl                  28672  1 btusb
btbcm                  28672  1 btusb
btintel                53248  1 btusb
btmtk                  16384  1 btusb
bluetooth            1036288  40 btrtl,btmtk,btintel,btbcm,bnep,btusb,rfcomm
usbhid                 77824  1 hid_logitech_hidpp
hid                   176128  6 i2c_hid,usbhid,hid_multitouch,hid_generic,uhid,hid_logitech_hidpp

I guess snd_usb_audio is missing. Maybe it's blacklisted in /etc/modprobe.d/

Try "sudo dmesg -w" in one terminal window and "sudo modprobe snd_usb_audio" in another.

Try "sudo dmesg -w" in one terminal window and "sudo modprobe snd_usb_audio" in another.

Probably worth to try "sudo modprobe snd-usb-audio" in case the "_" version doesn't grip

Thanks for the input everyone! Following up:

autostatic wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 9:23 pm

Thanks for the data! Seems like the USB sound driver does not get loaded. Maybe your computer can't provide enough current on the USB ports. Did you try different ports or different cables? No changes in /etc/modprobe.d/ that could cause this?

jeremy@arcadell:~$ cd /etc/modprobe.d/
jeremy@arcadell:/etc/modprobe.d$ ls 
alsa-base.conf                  blacklist-ath_pci.conf  blacklist-firewire.conf     blacklist-modem.conf  blacklist-rare-network.conf  dkms.conf            intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
amd64-microcode-blacklist.conf  blacklist.conf          blacklist-framebuffer.conf  blacklist-oss.conf    bluetooth-tweaks.conf        hid-magicmouse.conf  iwlwifi.conf
jeremy@arcadell:/etc/modprobe.d$ ls -la
total 68
drwxr-xr-x   2 root   root    4096 sept. 26 14:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 154 root   root   12288 oct.  30 09:58 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root    2507 sept. 26 14:45 alsa-base.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     154 août  23  2022 amd64-microcode-blacklist.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     325 août  22  2022 blacklist-ath_pci.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root    1700 juin  11 23:39 blacklist.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     210 août  22  2022 blacklist-firewire.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     677 août  22  2022 blacklist-framebuffer.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     156 févr. 22  2021 blacklist-modem.conf
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root      41 avril 29  2023 blacklist-oss.conf -> /lib/linux-sound-base/noOSS.modprobe.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     583 août  22  2022 blacklist-rare-network.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root      33 juin  26 21:59 bluetooth-tweaks.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     127 juin  14  2022 dkms.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 jeremy jeremy   241 juin  26 22:43 hid-magicmouse.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     154 août  15  2022 intel-microcode-blacklist.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root   root     347 août  22  2022 iwlwifi.conf

Not sure about this blacklist-oss.conf up there?!
(Not sure about much here to be honest , but this file/symlink dates back right from when the issues started.)

bluebell wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 10:03 am

Try "sudo dmesg -w" in one terminal window and "sudo modprobe snd_usb_audio" in another.

Alright! Plugging the interface after sudo modprobe snd-usb-audio and it's detected and working. Here's the most recent output of sudo dmesg -w:

[15727.139439] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
[16062.094504] usb 2-1.3.2: new high-speed USB device number 22 using xhci_hcd
[16062.194830] usb 2-1.3.2: New USB device found, idVendor=2a39, idProduct=3fb0, bcdDevice= 0.01
[16062.194844] usb 2-1.3.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[16062.194850] usb 2-1.3.2: Product: Babyface Pro (71962658)
[16062.194854] usb 2-1.3.2: Manufacturer: RME
[16062.194858] usb 2-1.3.2: SerialNumber: 4274B204EE244C8
[16062.205667] usb 2-1.3.2: unit 2 not found!

Do I need to add snd-usb-audio manually at every startup or is there a (more) permanent fix?

artsun wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:49 pm

Do I need to add snd-usb-audio manually at every startup or is there a (more) permanent fix?

Try to find a file in /etc/modprobe.d/ with a line like "blacklist snd_usb_audio". Then comment this line out.

Or write a line into /etc/modules like "snd_usb_audio".

Maybe you could find it with:

rgrep snd-usb-audio /etc/modprobe.d/

It should output all the files with references to snd-usb-audio. If there's a blacklist reference you could try commenting it out.