Microphone bug in Ubuntu HDA_Intel

[Trip]

Posted in forum here.. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=153840

It seems that the microphone on my machine needs some messing about to get it to work after a restart. I can hear it through my speakers when I talk, but it won't register in the recording level monitor or any other programs.

External microphone(s) on a Sony VAIO laptop VGN-FS215E,
Dapper Drake 6.06 upgraded from Breezy,
Some problems with KDE trying to take over Gnome, but apart from that all seems well.

Every time I restart into Gnome, I have to follow these steps before my microphone will work as it should..

Open volume control,
Find input souce in the options tab,
Change the top one from Mic to Front Mic,
Change it back again,

Here's a small low quality vid to show it..
http://www.filelodge.com/files/hdd6/122509/bug.avi
http://www.filelodge.com/files/hdd6/122509/IMAG0001.ASF
The bug.AVI file has been converted from the IMAG0001.ASF file.
The AVI will play in totem & the ASF will play in mplayer.

Hope that helps to solve the problem.

Note: the original reporter indicated the bug was in package 'gnome-desktop'; however, that package was not published in Ubuntu.

[Trip (djturner)]

Just done a clean install of Dapper Beta2 & the problems the same i'm afraid.

[Uphaar Agrawalla (uphaar)]

Can you reproduce this on the current Dapper release?

[Trip (djturner)]

Yep.. the problems still there I'm afraid :(.
This is with the full new version of Dapper downloaded on the 1st June.

[Chewi (afuchs)]

If found out the following with my SoundBlaster Live!:
If I mute AC97 in Alsa-Mixer, the Microphone is silent. But I must not mute AC97 Capture...

The Problem is, that gnome-volume-control does not recognize the difference between those 2 channels.

The preferences show AC97 twice, but whichever I check to be shown, it allways shows AC97Capture... Even if I check both, it shows only one AC97 and it's capture.

[Markus Kienast (elias1884)]

I confirm this bug.

I have the same problem on vaio vgn-s560p.

[Alexandre Vassalotti (avassalotti)]

changed to confirmed

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Did anybody try on edgy or feisty?

[Trip (djturner)]

I've got Feisty installed & I need to give it a go sometime this week.
Just can't find my damn mic at the moment lol

[Trip (djturner)]

Found it & Yep.. it's still in Feisty :(

[Trip (djturner)]

Just though I'd better mention that I wrote a quick tutorial on how to get around this bug on my Ubuntu-FS site a while ago.

http://ubuntufs.wordpress.com/2006/06/08/trouble-with-your-microphone/

I keep a keen eye on the sites stats & this still seems to be one of the most read articles on the whole blog. I think that it effects quite a few different types of laptops, not just Sony VAIO's.

[Toufik (toufik2)]

I spend some hours understanding what was wrong with my mic before a friend of mine tells me the trick explained here. Therefore I confirm that it still exists in Feisty on a Sony and on a Dell (hda_intel both)

[AlfyBoy (alfonsociologo)]

On a Vaio VGN FS 715F, I hope that the new driver for alsa 1.0.14 takes care of it.

[edschofield (schofield)]

This bug is still present on Gutsy (which currently has alsa-base-1.0.13-3ubuntu1).

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

Don't know if a bug I recently reported may be related...
bug 148970
reported it as a bug related to that soundcard being recognized, but perhaps the problem is more generic.

[mabovo (mabovo)]

Microphone HDA intel on MacBook doesn't work as well.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

I've own a macbook intel and the microphone works pretty fine on Hardy with latest packages.

[Hans Deragon (deragon)]

The input line and microphone do not work on the HP Compaq 6510b, equipped with the following device:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

This on Hardy Heron Beta 1 (08.04 B1).

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

My microphone records at a very low level. Hardy Beta 5 updated as of today.

susan@ubuntu:~$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC861VD Analog [ALC861VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 6: Si3054 Modem [Si3054 Modem]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

[Achim Schaefer (achims)]

it was working with 7.10 on my DELL Latitude D420 but after upgrade to 8.04 Microphone doesn't work anymore

[thom (tsk)]

Hi there,

It might me related to

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/212663

If it is then you also can find the cause and the solution there. :-)

[Hans Deragon (deragon)]

Since recent upgrades, I noticed that input line receives a good signal. The recording level gui tool shows activity consistent with the input source.

However, the sound is not redirected back to the headset. Seams that the sound server is not making the connection between the input line and the output line.

[Sauli (saulik)]

In my Silverstone SG01 Sugo case + Gigabyte G33M-DS2R motherboard based system with Ubuntu 8.04 beta the microphone input does not work with High Definition Audio (HD). The line output does work though.

I have not used other operating system versions on this system so I don't know whether they work or not.

The SG01 case has audio connectors in the front panel and in the back panel. The motherboard supports both AC97 and HD by the same connector for the front panel and AC97 for the back panel. According to the motherboard manual HD is the default for the front panel. I have not changed the setting for it. I don't even know how it can be done in Linux. With the HD cable on the motherboard audio connector the microphone does not work from the front panel. With the AC97 cable for the front panel the microphone works.
From the back panel the microphone input works always.

This suggests to me that
the motherboard manual is wrong in telling the default audio mode for the front panel is HD, or
my hardware (motherboard, case internal cable or the front panel) is faulty, or
Ubuntu 8.04 has a bug in HD support.

[Sauli (saulik)]

About the Gigabyte selection of HD or AC97.

After checking once more the BIOS settings I found that in Award BIOS the selection of audio function is in "Integrated Peripherals" under "Azalia Codec".
The default value is "Auto" which obviously can determine whether HD or AC97 is used by sensing certain pins in the connector. The other value that can be set for "Azalia Codec" is "Disabled" which probably means that AC97 usage is forced.

Based on this I would rule out the motherboard manual error from my previous post. This leaves me with either
my hardware (motherboard, case internal cable or the front panel) is faulty, or
Ubuntu 8.04 has a bug in HD support.

[Sauli (saulik)]

After getting the official 8.04 I decided to give an other try to HD audio in my Gigabyte G33M-DS2R system. Now it seems to work. The mic input has quite a bad static hissing noise but that is an other story. In my previous posts I forgot to mention I use ALSA.

Why does it work now, what fixed it? My explanation candidates:
1. I did change some settings in the Volume Control (version 2.22). If this is the explanation I still wonder why the mic did work with the same settings in AC97.
2. The official 8.04 fixed something. I haven't noticed any fixes in this area though.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

If anything, this is a linux issue (due to being driver-related), but it's intractable. Perhaps PulseAudio can twiddle the "mess o' mixer elements" (?) ...

[me (register-10-yasmin)]

I have exactly the same problem in Hardy 8.04. None of the suggested fixes helped me so far.

[me (register-10-yasmin)]

Not even the one mentioned by the reporter of this bug; even when I change to Front Mic and back to Mic my microphone still doesn't work.

[warjowuch (lulkoek)]

Yep, I have this problem too!
On Lucid, but also appeared on Karmic.

My microphone works only after I do the following:
I go to sound-preferences, tab "Input".
I find the connector drop-downlist.
I switch to another connector and then back to the "microphone" (the one I started with).

After this I can see the input-level getting active, responding to sounds I make.

This is on Nvidia hardware though: An MCP51 onboard card on an AM2 motherboard.