Hi

I'm running a Thinkpad T430 with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD.

On it I am running Arch 5.5.8-arch1-1 and openbox 3.6.1 window manager, and many other softwares.

All software is the latest up to date versions.

This is a fast flawless machine.


Some time ago video playback stopped working.

This machine currently won't play downloaded .mp4 files, or, any video embedded in a web page, except for VLC which will play a .mp4 file but with no sound.

All these video playback problems started at the same time AFAIK.

I don't want to have to do a fresh install as this is a highly customised machine.

The hardware is fine - I know becasue I booted a live Manjaro distro from a usb stick and video playback and sound was working perfectly.

I have cleared all web browser cache. This did'nt help embedded page video play back at all.

I have searched fairly endlesly and already posted up previously (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=253680) and have so far got no where, except that I have discovered that if I do

then all video plays back but with no sound. I did manage to get video and sound going by somehow fiddling with alsa mixer settings, but then I forgot what I did and after a reboot I was back to square one.

ideas which package or configuration setting is messing things up?

check its default mute settings. Some distros like making it mute so it bugs the hell out of users trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the sound. That's my theory.

you got pulseaudio, so look for or install its gui control panel, pavucontrol to manipulate its settings.

I feel this is inherently a video playback issue.

I have always had pavucontrol installed, and I've tried everything I can see on that gui.
Nothing I change seems to make a difference.

My feeling is this is not intrinsically a pulseaudio problem.
I think when I kill pulseaudio it somehow frees up something else.

I have an identical set-up on another identical machine.
It also has pulseaudio installed and there are no problems.

See if mpv works with --ao=null. If that's a go, you have sound server issues.

$ pulseaudio --kill

A little nicer than pkill. Perhaps some journalctl info might help ID why pulse and alsa are not playing well together. The aforementioned --kill does require "autospawn=no" in the client.conf or it will restart itself again. You might also try pavucontrol and see if it selected the wrong sound option. Various $HOME/.config/pulse/client.conf ways to network pulse to another machine. And $HOME/.asoundrc ways to give alsa some guidance. Or delete/move those things and see if things improve. Sometimes the permissions in /run/user/$UID/ can get messed up, like if you accidentally run pulseaudio as root. Web browsers now require pulseaudio or no sound in the browser. Some ways to bypass that, but best just to use pulseaudio if you have enough resources for it, which you appear to have.

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This might be the problem
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._Driver_(i965)

Here is the output
I havent used mpv before.
It seems to be a command line version of MPlayer and/or mplayer2.
I can't remember if these form a part of the core of media playing within the system.
ffmpeg could also be a part of the core media play back stack .. I'm not sure though

The options available are given by
But I saw nothing that would nullify the operation of MPlayer or mplayer2 in the help output

That command seemed to work. Becasue it threw back a "0" from "echo $?"

However right afterwards
so somethings keeping it going

I've been able to get video to play afterwards, after killing pulseaudio, as previously mentioned, but not sound.

autospawn was already set to no in /etc/pulse/client.conf.
See below

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Configuration#Advanced_configuration


Here is what is inside /etc/pulse/client.conf
I don't think I've ever been in there

I did'nt know this
I intend to keep using pulse audio. If I can't resolve this I will have to do the dreadful system re build on this highly customised system.

Here is journalctl. I reckon the problem may have developed in Janurary.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybn62rxmvnhriku/out.txt?dl=0

I will have to come back to the below bit later - I have run out of time. I will post here when I look at this bit

Here are the possibilities. I'm not sure which one you meant

Below is what have managed to establish so far

1. i do a reboot ..

2. then i test video play back, and mostly no play back works apart from in VLC player, and in VLC there is no sound play back

3. i then issue the command "$ pulseaudio --kill", after which ..

a. video playback works in all players, including web embedded video, but with no sound

b. if i then play an embeded video on the bbc news site,
and open pavucontrol, the volume meter shows itself flickering up and down,
under the "playback" for "Chromium: Playback".

This indicates that sound is working somewhere.
However on the "Configuration" tab in pavucontrol it says "No cards available for configuration"


4. So pulseaudio must be running even though
"/etc/pulse/client.conf"
has option
"autospawn = no"
set


yep, it's running ...

$ ps -ax | grep pulse
3771 ? S 0:00 s6-supervise pulseaudio
3774 ? S<sl 0:00 pulseaudio --system -vvv --disallow-exit --exit-idle-time=-1 --disable-shm
5436 ? S<sl 0:13 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
5437 ? Sl 0:00 /usr/lib/pulse/gsettings-helper
13615 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep --color=auto pulse

5. .. and becasue it's running I can't restart it ..

$ pulseaudio &
[1] 13620
$ E: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.

pulseaudio by default runs PER USER. And by defaults auto respawns. Also it's --ao=null that's EQUAL null, not DASH/TAC/MINUS.

That was step one to see if video plays when using that, pulse doesn't need to be stopped with --ao=null as it doesn't try to use audio and flounder because it cannot.

It's possible that you have/had TWO pulseaudio's running. So keep doing the --kill until it complains that it's not running.

$ pulseaudio --kill
$ pulseaudio --kill

Also to start it, you do:

$ pulseaudio --start

When it doesn't auto start. Otherwise run pavucontrol to configure it and set levels.

$ speaker-test -c 2 -l 1 -D default

To hear audio. When using alsa the default device is hw:0,0, where if you're expecting HDMI audio that is something different like hw:0,3 and NOT the default. If pulse is in play (and working), then pavucontrol should let you set things up.

$ speaker-test -c 2 -l 1 -D pulse

can also be:

$ speaker-test -c 2 -l 1 -D hw:0

Just to see if audio even works. Some snd-hda-intel chipsets can be quirky or non-functional depending on kernel version and module parameters. Most times it works out of the box, if the hardware isn't particularly new. Or your kernel particularly old.

$ cat /proc/asound/cards

To see what drivers and index numbers have been assigned to what cards. Sound basically has routing since having just ONE soundcard is a rarity these days. Motherboard, Videocard, Webcam, usb audio options, and such. A lot of applications let you select devices explicitly. And pulseaudio can keep settings on a per application level. Basically lots of toes and lots of stepping on them when things get out of whack.

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Here's what I've done

1. sucessive kill pulseaudio commands given
$ pulseaudio --kill
$ pulseaudio --kill
$ pulseaudio --kill
$ pulseaudio --kill

$ps -ax | grep pulse
3771 ? S 0:00 s6-supervise pulseaudio
3774 ? S<sl 0:00 pulseaudio --system -vvv --disallow-exit --exit-idle-time=-1 --disable-shm
5436 ? S<sl 0:13 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
5437 ? Sl 0:00 /usr/lib/pulse/gsettings-helper
13615 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep --color=auto pulse

.. still it's running

2. another attempt

pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --kill;
..
etc

$ps -ax | grep pulse
1000 8199 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000180000400 S+ pts/0 0:00 grep --color=auto pulse

ok it's dead. Embedded web video plays inside Chromium but no sound.


3. reboot


4. right after re-boot
$ ps -ax | grep pulse
1000 8199 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000180000400 S+ pts/0 0:00 grep --color=auto pulse

.. ah, looks like I permanently killed pulse

$ pavucontrol &
.. pavucontrol gui opens

"Configuration" tab shows "Built-in Audio" and "Profile: Analog Stereo Duplex"

I then play an embeded video on the bbc news site, and nothing plays. Video not working at all.

5.

Sorry I did'nt see = before, apologies.

$ mpv --ao=null


mpv 0.32.0 Copyright © 2000-2020 mpv/MPlayer/mplayer2 projects
built on UNKNOWN
ffmpeg library versions:
libavutil 56.31.100
libavcodec 58.54.100
libavformat 58.29.100
libswscale 5.5.100
libavfilter 7.57.100
libswresample 3.5.100
ffmpeg version: n4.2.2

Usage: mpv [options] [url|path/]filename

Basic options:
--start=<time> seek to given (percent, seconds, or hh:mm:ss) position
--no-audio do not play sound
--no-video do not play video
--fs fullscreen playback
--sub-file=<file> specify subtitle file to use
--playlist=<file> specify playlist file

--list-options list all mpv options
--h=<string> print options which contain the given string in their name


6. video does not play at all for web embedded video on bbc news site using chromium

7. reboot

8. try web embeded video again. Video play back not working ...

9. repeat step 2 above to kill the hell out of pulseaudio ..

10. try web embeded video again. Video plays but no sound.

11.

$ pavucontrol &
.. pavucontrol gui opens

"Configuration" tab shows "no cards available for configuration"

Results of sound tests below

$ speaker-test -c 2 -l 1 -D default
.. shows test for left and right. No white noise heard

$ speaker-test -c 2 -l 1 -D pulse
.. shows test for left and right. No white noise heard


$ speaker-test -c 2 -l 1 -D hw:0

speaker-test 1.2.2

Playback device is hw:0
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy

Seems like your permissions are messed up or something. Or your config files are mis-named. Could also be that you're not in the audio group.

$ groups
You should have audio in there and maybe pulse. If you used a distros installer you likely do. Or if you previously had audio.

$ ls -l /run/user/$UID/*
It should match your user for owner and group. If you accidently sudo or run pulseaudio as root, it'll change those on you and break things.

Check the permissions on the /etc/pulse/ stuff too. The autospawn = no should let you --kill it and have it STAY down.

Meanwhile:
$ pkill pulseaudio

might be simpler and quicker than thousands of --kills. There's also killall and kill -9 $(pgrep pulseaudio), many roads....

1 members found this post helpful.

.. for user
$ groups
wheel autologin kes

(the same result as the identical laptop that has video & sound fully working)

.. for root
$ sudo groups
root

(the same result as the identical laptop that has video & sound fully working)

..
/run/user/1000/pulse:
total 4
srwxrwxrwx 1 kes kes 0 Apr 23 08:46 dbus-socket
srw-rw-rw- 1 kes kes 0 Apr 23 08:46 native
-rw------- 1 kes kes 4 Apr 23 08:46 pid
..

$ sudo usermod -aG audio kes

See if it makes a difference. Some distros, or older versions of distros have a pulse group as well. Debian added pulse to the audio groups so you only need audio.

$ ls -al /dev/snd/*

Should list your sound options and their permissions, if you don't have permission, you cannot use it. Otherwise look at /etc/group and see why one same permission set differs from another.

$ grep -i auto /etc/pulse/client.conf

autospawn = no need to be without the "; " in front of it. Or it will autospawn (autospawn = yes is the default). The "; " is the comment method of pulse .conf files.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for your help


$ sudo usermod -aG audio kes
$ echo $?
0

It took the command and returned no error. Tried embedded video on bbc web site with pulse audio running. It wouldn't play.
So I killed pulse audio and it played but with no sound, as before.


With Arch, which i'm using, apart from the packaging manager and rolling updates, I think much is the same as the Debian distros..

$ ls -al /dev/snd/*
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 9 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/controlC0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 7 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 8 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D3
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 3 Apr 25 09:59 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 2 Apr 25 09:59 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 4 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/pcmC0D3p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 5 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/pcmC0D7p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 6 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/pcmC0D8p
crw-rw----+ 1 root 18 116, 1 Apr 23 08:46 /dev/snd/seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root 18 116, 33 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/timer

/dev/snd/by-path:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 Apr 23 08:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 260 Apr 23 08:46 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Apr 23 08:47 pci-0000:00:1b.0 -> ../controlC0

I changed the permissions to give the execute flag to just me, user, to see if that helped.. it made no difference

$ sudo chmod u+x /dev/snd/*
$ ls -al /dev/snd/*
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 9 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/controlC0
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 7 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D0
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 8 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D3
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 3 Apr 25 09:59 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 2 Apr 25 09:59 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 4 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/pcmC0D3p
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 5 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/pcmC0D7p
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root audio 116, 6 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/pcmC0D8p
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root 18 116, 1 Apr 23 08:46 /dev/snd/seq
crwxrwx--x+ 1 root 18 116, 33 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/timer

/dev/snd/by-path:
total 0
drwxr-x--x 2 root root 60 Apr 23 08:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 260 Apr 23 08:46 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Apr 23 08:47 pci-0000:00:1b.0 -> ../controlC0

Ok, then I thought, go the whole hog, so I gave everything 777, this made no difference

$ sudo chmod ugo+rwx /dev/snd/*
$ sudo ls -al /dev/snd/*

crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 9 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/controlC0
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 7 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D0
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 8 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D3
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 3 Apr 25 11:16 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 2 Apr 25 11:16 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 4 Apr 25 11:16 /dev/snd/pcmC0D3p
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 5 Apr 25 11:16 /dev/snd/pcmC0D7p
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root audio 116, 6 Apr 25 11:16 /dev/snd/pcmC0D8p
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root 18 116, 1 Apr 23 08:46 /dev/snd/seq
crwxrwxrwx+ 1 root 18 116, 33 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/timer

/dev/snd/by-path:
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 60 Apr 23 08:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 260 Apr 23 08:46 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Apr 23 08:47 pci-0000:00:1b.0 -> ../controlC0


..so I put it all back to how it was before, as shown below ..
$ sudo chmod ug-x,o-rwx /dev/snd/*
$ sudo ls -al /dev/snd/*

crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 9 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/controlC0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 7 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 8 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/hwC0D3
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 3 Apr 25 11:28 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 2 Apr 25 11:28 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 4 Apr 25 11:28 /dev/snd/pcmC0D3p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 5 Apr 25 11:28 /dev/snd/pcmC0D7p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 6 Apr 25 11:28 /dev/snd/pcmC0D8p
crw-rw----+ 1 root 18 116, 1 Apr 23 08:46 /dev/snd/seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root 18 116, 33 Apr 23 08:47 /dev/snd/timer

/dev/snd/by-path:
total 0
drw-rw---- 2 root root 60 Apr 23 08:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 260 Apr 23 08:46 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Apr 23 08:47 pci-0000:00:1b.0 -> ../controlC0




Ok - will do when I get a moment


$ grep -i auto /etc/pulse/client.conf
autospawn = no
; autospawn = yes
; auto-connect-localhost = no
; auto-connect-display = no

.. as you can see it already is set

It occurs to me that the result is not insignificant. I would suspect that either the audio out is not being detected and set, or there is a sound device driver issue.