Recent Pulse Audio output oddity
Running (K)Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on HP Elitebook 8440p dual boot with Win10. PulseAudio, everything installed via Discover.
Play audio with nothing connected - sound through internal speakers - ok Plug headphone in, all software shows the headphones are now connected - no sound at all Change output from Headphone to Speaker and I get sound in the headphones as desired. Unplug or reboot and have to repeat process. This is a consistent anomaly that after 12+ months of working ok has just manifested itself in the past few weeks and first notices on a Zoom session when I couldn't hear anybody. The last Zoom session was fine once I forced headphone=speaker. There has to be a configuration system file that has a stuck/corrupt setting and help would be much appreciated. |
Try removing the existing user pulseaudio config...
Code:
rm -r ~/.config/pulse; pulseaudio -k https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio#U...28and_later.29 Any difference? |
Unfortunately not. I had already a week or so ago executed:
Code:
mv ~/.config/pulse/ ~/.config/pulse_old/ |
It is a strange issue. Is it just a simple case of speaker/headphone outputs transposed?
What is shown by the following command Code:
pactl list | grep 'Active Port.*output.*' b) after the headphones are plugged in? You might also be able to generate some useful diagnostic info in a terminal with Code:
pulseaudio -k && pulseaudio -vvv |
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Outputs of tests: 1) Nothing connected: ~$ pactl list | grep 'Active Port.*output.*' Active Port: analog-output-speaker 2) Headphone connected ~$ pactl list | grep 'Active Port.*output.*' Active Port: analog-output-headphones But no sound either from speakers or headphones 3) Now set output to Speakers in System Settings ~$ pactl list | grep 'Active Port.*output.*' Active Port: analog-output-speaker Sound comes out of headphones I'm not sure that I'm seeing any differences in the outputs of: Code:
pulseaudio -k && pulseaudio -vvv Code:
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted |
This maybe off the track but I note I have a whole load of new .conf files in /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths.
The files are dated 14/05/2020 06.20 but I don't know when they were installed but my Headphone issue started towards the end of May. |
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It is what I'd expect for a functioning system, so we need to look elsewhere. A likely PullseAudio issue though. Quote:
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IMHO, the files in question (based on your pactl output) are /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conf and /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-headphones.conf perhaps. They're lengthy, so best shared via pastebin or similar. I'll share mine for reference (they're dated Dec 18 2018)...
https://pastebin.com/ep8EsdVt https://pastebin.com/emHVZ1Mh See if anything differs with yours. |
I've uploaded the two files as suggested:
https://pastebin.com/wGaG0PRp https://pastebin.com/S5Y8g10V There are of course many other similarly name .conf files in that folder. I'll try and compare with yours later in the day but I thought I'd get this out whilst you antipodeans are awake. At the risk of obfuscating the issue, which has happened when I've posted on other forums, I'll add some background as there may be more clues in there and you may also be in a position to comment. Firstly I'm a fairly recent Linux user and I'm not young - not a good combination. I have a project in hand to convert all my analogue (Reel-Reel, Cassettes & Vinyl) to digital and had capture all into Audacity projects on a Windows machine. I've copied all the Vinyl projects to Linux, albeit to a Shared NTFS partition which contains most of my data. So a few weeks ago I started testing cataloging and outputting as mp3 (though Audacity has inconsistencies in ID3 tags), and trying to determine which player I'd prefer over and above VLC (Rhythmbox is winning). All this started about 6 weeks ago and coincided with my hobby group trying to setup a Teams meeting and then swapping to Zoom and I was delighted that both installed fine. My internal mics and speakers aren't brilliant and I prefer earphones so I used those. I also have the USB sound card (quite old) that I used to digitise the analogue and I tried that which gave better sound through the headphones. Sometime during the course of all this I've had Audacity hang. I can't be sure I've always managed to put the right jack in the right socket (whatever happened to the nice Pink and Green; black isn't cool!). One Zoom session failed as people complained about my sound (might have had mic volume too high, don't know) and then I hit the can't hear through headphones and finally I used a Windows Zoom. Somehow I stumbled on switching the setting to Speaker to get sound out of the headphones. There then was a recent update which I noted had a whole load of PulseAudion files and I was hopeful that this would fix the issue but unfortunately not. Diverting again I would have like to have had a backup strategy that would have enabled me to revert and if there is a preferred forum to discuss this I'll post there. I then did the moving of .config/pulse and that seemed to tidy up a lot, though probably only removed references to the USB sound card. After hitting a block on other forums someone suggested I post here and here I am. I intend to install 20.04 which might provide the solution for this and also for an IMAP issue with Evolution. But I am nervous about losing my boot/grub and in particular when Windows updates and takes command of the machine (I'm still on MBR). I'll do more once I have a backup strategy that is a bit more sophisticated that a simply (though useful) Gparted partition copy. Apologies for dumping all this on you and I don't expect dialogue here but pointers for further discussion welcomed and there may still be some clues in there for this topic's issue. |
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Having said that, I did find an interesting HP support page detailing "...plugging in external speakers or headphones does not cut off/route audio from the internal speakers to the external speakers/headphones connected to audio jack of the notebook. Therefore, there is no audio output from the external speakers/headphone." This was with respect to Windows 7, but ultimately due to a hardware quirk that needs to be handled by the hardware driver. Now, this would apply to the Linux (alsa) driver too. Since it was working up until a few weeks back, perhaps it is an alsa-related regression that you've encountered? Hard to say. (A distro/kernel upgrade might therefore be worth trying.) Let's see any driver-specific options configured here... Code:
cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf Code:
systool -vm snd_hda_intel https://askubuntu.com/questions/1328...litebook-8440p |
alsa-base.conf
https://pastebin.com/ftXpvcpH snd_hda_intel https://pastebin.com/mNiEsatj I needed to install systool. I would have concerns over the hardware if it didn't all work under Windows 10 (and as best I recall previously under Win7). Last week I did a Zoom session in Windows 10 with all my headsets and Earphones to confirm that the devices and sockets were ok and didn't have random disconnects/broken cables etc. |
The alsa-base.conf shows no sign of any custom config for the 'snd_hda_intel' driver (and confirmed by the systool output).
It might be interesting to see if the following makes any difference. Create a custom file eg /etc/modprobe.d/10-custom.conf and add Code:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto, enable_msi=1 Code:
sudo alsa force-reload Check behaviour again. |
1 Attachment(s)
Neither forcing reload or rebooting made any difference. Should I now remove the file?
I've noticed another oddity and that is the System Settings shows Speaker placement for Headphones. Attachment 33385 I suspect that amending a setting to always use Speaker might well work if I knew how to do that. |
I haven't used KDE 4 for a few years now (openSUSE Leap has been using KDE Plasma 5 since last several versions now), so can't really offer specific advice unfortunately. It might be worth reaching out to the Kubuntu community...
https://kubuntu.org/community/ |
Thank you for your efforts. I had the "brainwave" of trying 20.04 under Virtualbox but the sound ouptuts follow the Host.
I've followed your suggestion and posted the following with the suggestion to refer here for more detail: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...179#post438179 |
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