Sound intermittently inaudible at boot with Sigmatel STAC9200

[Sikiatriko]

In Hardy, sometimes sound was inaudible at boot, regardless of mixer settings. In Intrepid, the sound inaudible issue occurs much more frequently. Rebooting a few times is the only workaround.

When using multimedia keys in my laptop, something strange is happening, the mute button is working (although sound is muted all the time) with Kmixer but when I press volume buttons, it always shows 80% volume. My laptop is an ASUS Z53F. Volumes in alsamixer seem to be ok.

EDIT: Seems that by closing session and entering KDE again, volume buttons behave as expected with Kmixer, but still no sound.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it without more information. Please include the information requested from the "Reporting Sound Bugs" section of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems as separate attachments.

[Sikiatriko (arturober)]

Ok, sorry for not reading that before. Here is the information generated by alsa-info.sh:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=3e046e88d0102ad4d20a5507428e9c4e5d82bf78

It seems that sound is working one every three or four times I start my laptop, sound is working. It's more or less what happens with Hardy, but slightly worse. Also the problem with multimedia volume keys remains. I have to restart session in KDE to get them working properly (PCM channel in Kmix is missing the first time I start session).

Hope all this helps to get sound work well by final release. Thank you.

[Thom Pischke (thom-pischke)]

Confirm sound broken in intrepid beta with full updates, Dell Inspiron 1420n- intel 82801H rev 02

[patcito (patcito)]

I have the same problem, my ALSA information is located at http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=d2fd3699d73875b4bd473d1cd089561fd6c53c13

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Please mute 'IEC958 Default PCM'.

[patcito (patcito)]

I did mute it but it still doesn't work. To be more specific this is happening with phonon only. VLC and flash on mozilla work good.
I tried both the xine engine and the gstreamer engine for phonon.
With xine I get nothing (it is supposed to be more stable than the gstreamer backend) , with gstreamer I get output but no microphone.

[Richard Elkins (texadactyl)]

No sound at all from every Gnome and KDE application on a circa-October 2007 Intel iMac running ibex as of 2008-10-19 up-to-date. The issue must be below the application and desktop, maybe in module snd_hda_intel.
alsa-info.sh output:

     http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=a3dda34a7a281f46a89ab87c72975601ae499a47

Everything else in ibex works just fine. Installed very clean as an update: update-manager -d.
Looks like an improvement for 8.04 for iMacs.
E.g. Power Management is PERFECT without any local mods to /etc/default/acpi-support for the fglrx driver.

Contact me if you think of a specific experiment you would like me to try with regards to sound.

-Richard, <email address hidden>

[Dario Panico (dariopnc-)]

kde sound is broken on my kubuntu install, too. mplayer works fine but no audio notifications from any kde app, no amarok play, no juk.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Dario,
I think you have something else going on. KDE4, right? I'd guess it's related to Phonon.

[Julio (julio-forums)]

I have the same issue. The alsa-info.sh is here: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=aee942190cb4dee0129b6d6b7a1b248a8e039136
The problem started 2 days ago on Hardy, just after an update. I made a fresh install of Intrepid (Ubuntu) today and still have no sound. I tried all the debug tips I could find on the forums. My laptop is a Dell Latitude D520, the Bios is up to date.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Julio:
Please file your own bug. And in it, mention whether or not the
-proposed repository is enabled.

[czar (czarphanguye)]

Ditto. No sound since 8.10 upgrade. HDA Intel ALC888 (alsa)

[Derek Chen-Becker (dchenbecker)]

Same thing here with a Dell M4200. This worked great in Hardy, so I'm not sure what changed. My alsa-info is here:

http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=378414334829aca25d2431dad329630e02871256

I've tried stopping pulseaudio and using aplay directly. The command runs, and strace indicates that it's writing pcm data out, but I get no sound :(

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Sikiatriko is the filer of this bug. All questions will be directed at Sikiatriko from now on.

The rest of you have different hardware. "No sound" does not make it the same bug. All of you, please go file your own bugs. ALC888 (czar), STAC9205 (Derek), and ALC889A (Richard) are all very different from STAC9200, so they are certainly different bugs.

Julio & patcito: you have similar hardware to Sikiatriko, but your subsystem ID is different. Because it is possible the bug was introduced when the subsystem vendor integrated the sound device, please file a separate bug.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Sikiatriko (and *only* Sikiatriko):
Does this problem persist in the final release?

[czar (czarphanguye)]

@Mackenzie This is clearly a related issue; HDA Intel (czar), HDA Intel (Derek), HDA Intel (Sikiatriko) and HDA Intel (Richard). So, thanks for your "help" but unless you have something valuable to share please keep this conversation on-topic and the multi-replies to a minimum. k, ty.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

No, go file your own bug.

They are separate issues. See where I listed STAC9205, ALC889A, and ALC888? Those are all separate codecs. They all use separate drivers.

I just read all of your alsa-info.sh outputs, and you three *definitely* have very different hardware from Sikiatriko, Jean, and patcito. Those three have similar hardware, but they were integrated into different motherboards, which could have introduced bugs separately.

HDA Intel is an extremely broad specification that is implemented very differently by every hardware vendor and then tweaked when integrated into the chipsets and motherboards. In essence, all being HDA Intel means diddly squat. Hint: it could mean one of 2^256 possible different pin configurations. 2^256 is an incredibly large number. HDA Intel only tells us what directory to look in, the files are still likely different.

And what's with the scare-quotes around help? I do kind of know what I'm doing in this regard. I fixed the sound driver on my laptop, and I've been being taught about how the sound subsystem works by an ALSA developer since Hardy was released.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

By the way, can you file a separate bug for the volume key issue? That's unrelated to the sound driver. It's likely to be related to acpi.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Oops, marked an upstream on the wrong bug.

[Thom Pischke (thom-pischke)]

Just a bit of constructive criticism here. I don't doubt Mackenzie when he says that there are likely multiple bugs. But I think that people reporting a bug which certainly -seems- very similar on the surface should be treated with respect. People reporting bugs should be respectful, and people interacting with bug-reporters should be respectful. It's not reasonable to expect non-experts to know that multiple and widespread problems with sound in HDA Intel devices are all unrelated. That said, the fix for me was the following:

sudo depmod -a
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

[Sikiatriko (arturober)]

Mackenzie:

Yes, the problem still persists. I updated to Intrepid when it was oficially released, and now sound is not working one every three times I start my laptop (more or less). It's the same problem that happened with Hardy . Also,sometimes, sound stops working while it's on and I have to reboot to get it working again.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

When it stops working while it's on, is there anything specific you're
doing? Does it ever stop in the middle of you listening to something?
Any ACPI events in between, like hibernate or suspend?

[Sikiatriko (arturober)]

No ACPI events, I haven't try to hibernate or suspend yet. It just happens when I'm listening to something. For example, when watching a youtube video sound has stopped working in the middle of it. It doesn't stop working in the middle of listening to something very often, though. It's more common sound doesn't work from the beginning and I have to reboot to get it working.

If there's something I should try or check, please, tell me.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

When it works on boot and stops working later while you're running, can
you post the output of:
ps -ef | grep pulse
lsmod | grep snd

Also try "aplay /usr/share/sounds/login.wav" and see if any sound still
comes out that way. I'm wondering if PulseAudio is dying for some
reason or if the driver is being unloaded for some reason.

[Sikiatriko (arturober)]

PulseAudio is not installed in my system (I thought in Kubuntu was not installed by default). So it could be a Phonon problem, but sound is not working in GTK applications, nor aplay either.

output of lsmod | grep snd:

snd_hda_intel 381872 1
snd_pcm_oss 46848 0
snd_mixer_oss 22784 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 83204 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 10884 0
snd_seq_oss 38528 0
snd_seq_midi 14336 0
snd_rawmidi 29824 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 15232 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 57776 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 29960 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 15116 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd 63268 11 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 15328 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 16136 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
arturo@arturo-laptop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/p
pcmciautils powernowd pppd-dns
policykit powernowd.early procps

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

OK, then it's not a (sorry, you're right...I'm used to people blaming
Pulse for um...everything..."PulseAudio ate my lunch!") Phonon issue.
The "aplay doesn't work either" thing means it's almost certainly the
driver.

Hm, will have to see if the quirk you need already exists or if you
need a new one.

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

Could those affected indicate if they are still seeing this behaviour. I see from the report that the problem is transient in that it occurs on some boots and not others. Could we get the alsa information attached to this bug for a boot which has broken sound (not a good boot at this time). You can use the command below to attach the information automatically:

    $ apport-collect -p alsa-base 277339

[kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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