snd_intel_hd ALC268 on Toshiba laptop: Microphone stop working after 9.04 to 9.10 (karmic) upgrade

[Romano Giannetti]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

I hope apport will add all the relevant info. Microphone does not work after upgrading to Karmic form a (working albeit a bit noisy) Jaunty.

On a side note, Skype stopped working completely (sound out get garbled and then skype goes in endless loop, need to kill -9 it).

ProblemType: Bug
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC268 Analog [ALC268 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: romano 3461 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c: romano 3461 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xd0640000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC268'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0268,1179ff50,00100003 HDA:11c11040,11790001,00100200'
   Controls : 18
   Simple ctrls : 12
Date: Tue Nov 3 00:11:51 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=en_GB.UTF-8
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31.5 i686

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

This is with a 2.6.31.5 vanilla (Linus) kernel. I have the same problem with the Ubuntu shipped kernel, which I do not use due to a problem with wireless (see bug#395565)

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Please try installing linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic and rebooting.

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

I am trying this, although I doubt it helps at least with the vanilla kernel. Will try installing this and reboot in ubuntu-provided kernel.

Notice that, however, it all worked with ubuntu 9.04 and exactly the same 2.6.31.5 karmic. The only caveat was that I had to fine tune "capture" and "mic magnification" levels, because this card has a lot of problem with offset
(see https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=3824 for example) and I suspect that the loss of separate capture/mic amplification switches could be the main suspect. How can I have that back?

Ah, BTW: in Vista mics work ok, but I was told that they do some trick with the hardware-generated offset in software and "we do not do it".

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

You will need to use the stock Karmic desktop kernel
(2.6.31-14.48-generic), not a self-compiled 2.6.31.5, when you use
linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic.

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

Result. With linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic and the stock Karmic kernel sound (as per recording/playing with Gnome sound recorder) works, as it did before (noise and offset but that's ok).

Thanks. Could you tell me which driver are in the package? Are they in some vanilla kernel? I suppose they are the drivers for 2.6.32, am I correct?

On a side note, skype still does not work. If I run it with pulse as sound driver, it sort of works for the first time, then it spews out a lot of

bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
RtApiAlsa: underrun detected.

and then sound is totally mangled, but I understand this is a Skype problem, not Ubuntu (although yes, it worked in 9.04).

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

linux-backports-modules-2.6.31 contains a snapshot from 20091012 of the
stable alsa-driver source code generated from Takashi's kernel.org web
space. All of those changes are currently in Linus's linux-2.6 git tree.

On Nov 3, 2009 7:40 AM, "Romano Giannetti" <email address hidden>
wrote:

Result. With linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic and the stock
Karmic kernel sound (as per recording/playing with Gnome sound recorder)
works, as it did before (noise and offset but that's ok).

Thanks. Could you tell me which driver are in the package? Are they in
some vanilla kernel? I suppose they are the drivers for 2.6.32, am I
correct?

On a side note, skype still does not work. If I run it with pulse as
sound driver, it sort of works for the first time, then it spews out a
lot of

bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
RtApiAlsa: underrun detected.

and then sound is totally mangled, but I understand this is a Skype
problem, not Ubuntu (although yes, it worked in 9.04).

-- snd_intel_hd ALC268 on Toshiba laptop: Microphone stop working after 9.04
to 9.10 (karmic) upgr...

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

Grrrrrrrrr.... just noticed that someway my skype was back to 2.0. Reinstalled 2.1 beta and now all is ok.
Thanks.
Will close the bug.

[Romano Giannetti (romano-giannetti)]

Hmmm. Marked invalid, although maybe "fix released" was a better one.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Invalid is the correct Status.

[João Miguel Lopes Moreira (jmlm-1970)]

The only solution to make microphone work is to install linux-backports-modules-alsa-generic...

Just go to:

Menu / System / Administration / Synaptic Package Manager

And search and mark for installation:

linux-backports-modules-alsa-generic

tip: if you have multiple versions click on the first and read the description which should inform what name to install...

If after the reboot and mic mute is off, still does not work, just go to terminal and type:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

and add or change the following:

options snd-hda-intel model=auto enable=yes

Then Ctrl+X, type Y to write and exit, reboot and mic will work.

Bye and have lots of fun with Ubuntu (the best).