audio surround 5.1 stopped working after updating

[maxadamo]

I upgraded to Karmic and I got 5.1 working with surround effects.
After a further upgrade the 5.1 stopped working, and the configurations didn't change.

This is my Audio device:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

based on this codec: Realtek ALC662 rev1

I've always used this option to load the module: model=3stack-6ch

I am not able to state where is the problem: pulseaudio, alsa, whatever else.

I tried to use the command "speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6 -l1 -twav" and I can clearly state that 5.1 is not working.

Please let me know how can I give you much more information.

Here is the output of cat /dev/sndstat:
Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.20 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux yasna 2.6.31-13-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 10 15:27:55 UTC 2009 i686
Config options: 0

Installed drivers:
Type 10: ALSA emulation

Card config:
HDA Intel at 0x902c0000 irq 22

Audio devices:
0: ALC662 rev1 Analog (DUPLEX)

Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Timers:
31: system timer

Mixers:
0: Realtek ALC662 rev1

[maxadamo (massimilianoadamo)]

I have found the "problem".
I have run "alsamixer" and only from there is possible to re-enable 6 channels.
It's not possible to fix it from pavucontrol

Anyway, before closing the bug think about the following and try to see things from a newbie perspective:
it seems that gnome-alsa-mixer does not belong to default installation anymore. And that's fine, as we don't want so many tool doing almost same things, but we want ONE tool: pavucontrol
How can the newbie enable the 6 channels? Should he use "alsamixer" from console? He has no idea what console and alsamixer are.
Furthermore, why newbie, should search google to find out that he has to write "model=3stack-6ch" alsa-base.conf

Enabling the 6 channels during module load, should be done thru some tool.
Enabling 6 channels from alsamixer should be avoided if you don't want to use these tools anymore.

[maxadamo (massimilianoadamo)]

Update:
from gnome-alsamixer it doesn't work
it works only from console, using alsamixer

[maxadamo (massimilianoadamo)]

reproduced again:
after having upgraded the kernel the audio rolled back to "2 channels" mode, and it was not possible to change it from pulseaudio tools.

Workaround:
$ run alsamixer (.... and enable 6 channels)
$ killall pulseaudio

pulseaudio will restart automatically and you'll get the 6 channels.

[maxadamo (massimilianoadamo)]

this command will set the channel mode to 6 channels:
amixer cset numid=18 1
I think 18 is valid for my card, but it's detected running: amixer controls|grep 'Channel Mode'

I have put it into /etc/rc.local, waiting for this issue to be fixed.

[Macarena (marcoaasilva)]

maxadamo

sorry, but where on alsamixer did you change the Channel Mode?
I'm not really a newbie, but i'm not an expert too.
I bougth a new computer, so i dont know if it worked before, i've just installed 10.10 on it, and it did not work.

[maxadamo (massimilianoadamo)]

Hi Macarena,

This is issue is solved, and I am changing its status to "fix-released".

Anyway, in the file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf I have the following statement:
options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N model=3stack-6ch
I think "power save" options where not inserted by me, but the last one tells to the peripheral to use 5+1 channels.
And this sound card, in order to switch from 2 channels to 5+1, required for me some jumper setting on the motherboard (which of course I don't remember exactly).

[maxadamo (massimilianoadamo)]

well: perhaps karmic is still affected and I don't have karmic anymore. I'll leave the issue as is