Sound card is muted or mute being constantly toggled when no audio is played

[Lasse Kärkkäinen]

For a long time, Ubuntu has muted the sound card whenever no audio is played, presumably to save power. On my laptop this has two nasty side effects. First of all, the mute button LED lights up, even though the the volume control is not set on mute (in the user interface). Thus, pressing the lit button does not have the expected effect of unmuting but the opposite. Secondly, the audio device takes about two seconds to start up after unmuting, causing short sounds not being heard at all and the beginning of longer sounds being missing or garbled.

Lately this has getting worse, with the mute status getting toggled roughly once per second all the time when no audio is being played. This makes the mute button LED blink in a highly annoying manner, and it also causes the laptop speaker to click constantly.

On this particular sound device, at least, it would seem best if the device was never muted for power saving reasons but only when the user actually has muted audio output.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:1.1-0ubuntu15.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-26.41-generic 3.2.19
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-26-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: tronic 4776 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xe0644000 irq 46'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981'
   Components : 'HDA:11d41981,103c30c9,00100200 HDA:14f12c06,103c1379,00100000'
   Controls : 12
   Simple ctrls : 10
Date: Tue Aug 28 08:53:31 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-13 (106 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 11/04/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68MSP Ver. F.0E
dmi.board.name: 30C9
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 75.28
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CNF7516B1Y
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68MSPVer.F.0E:bd11/04/2008:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaq2510p(RU537EA#AK8):pvrF.0E:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30C9:rvrKBCVersion75.28:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq 2510p (RU537EA#AK8)
dmi.product.version: F.0E
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

1838.748079] hda-intel: azx_get_response timeout, switching to polling mode: last cmd=0x00170500
[ 1839.752094] hda-intel: No response from codec, disabling MSI: last cmd=0x00170500
[ 1840.760077] hda_intel: azx_get_response timeout, switching to single_cmd mode: last cmd=0x00170500

[Daniel Letzeisen (dtl131)]

Raymond, thans for your help with debugging audio issues. This text is relevant to this bug:
Codec-Probing Problem
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A less often but a more severe problem is the codec probing. When
BIOS reports the available codec slots wrongly, the driver gets
confused and tries to access the non-existing codec slot. This often
results in the total screw-up, and destructs the further communication
with the codec chips. The symptom appears usually as error messages
like:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
  hda_intel: azx_get_response timeout, switching to polling mode:
        last cmd=0x12345678
  hda_intel: azx_get_response timeout, switching to single_cmd mode:
        last cmd=0x12345678
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first line is a warning, and this is usually relatively harmless.
It means that the codec response isn't notified via an IRQ. The
driver uses explicit polling method to read the response. It gives
very slight CPU overhead, but you'd unlikely notice it.

The second line is, however, a fatal error. If this happens, usually
it means that something is really wrong. Most likely you are
accessing a non-existing codec slot.

Thus, if the second error message appears, try to narrow the probed
codec slots via `probe_mask` option. It's a bitmask, and each bit
corresponds to the codec slot. For example, to probe only the first
slot, pass `probe_mask=1`. For the first and the third slots, pass
`probe_mask=5` (where 5 = 1 | 4), and so on.

Since 2.6.29 kernel, the driver has a more robust probing method, so
this error might happen rarely, though.

On a machine with a broken BIOS, sometimes you need to force the
driver to probe the codec slots the hardware doesn't report for use.
In such a case, turn the bit 8 (0x100) of `probe_mask` option on.
Then the rest 8 bits are passed as the codec slots to probe
unconditionally. For example, `probe_mask=0x103` will force to probe
the codec slots 0 and 1 no matter what the hardware reports.

http://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-kernel.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt;hb=HEAD

[Daniel Letzeisen (dtl131)]

So, from the text above, have the user add this to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=8

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto#Playing_with_probe_mask

[Lasse Kärkkäinen (tronic+mb48)]

probe_mask=8 causes "no soundcards". probe_mask=1 works apparently the same as no probe_mask at all. However, it seems that the bug has been fixed elsewhere as I am no longer seeing mute toggling at all (card does not get muted when inactive) but I'll give it some more testing before closing this bug.

[Lasse Kärkkäinen (tronic+mb48)]

Constant mute toggling is back. I am not exactly sure why it was working properly for a short while but the bug is certainly not fixed.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) reached end-of-life on April 28, 2017.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]