[USB-Audio - UAC3553B, playback] No sound at all

[ChrisiPK]

Bug occured after upgrading to 11.10. Previously, I was able to plug in the usb audio (or turn it on, if it was alredy plugged in) and select it as an output device in the sound settings dialogue (or via pavucontrol). Now, the device only shows up in the hardware list (listed with 1 output), but no longer in the output list.

USB audio device is a Philips FW-M567 compact stereo system.

If it is any help: apport performed two sound tests. The first one played correctly on the USB audio device, the second one, however, played on the Intel sound card, which is why I hit the "not played back correctly" button.

Another interesting fact: It worked yesterday after I upgraded a few packages. I didn't change anything after that. Today I turn on my computer and it's non-functional again.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:1.0-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: chrisipk 2562 F.... pulseaudio
                      chrisipk 3170 F.... xfce4-volumed
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf7ff8000 irq 47'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC888'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,14627522,00100001'
   Controls : 34
   Simple ctrls : 20
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'UAC3553B'/'Philips UAC3553B at usb-0000:00:1a.1-1, full speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB0471:0110'
   Controls : 6
   Simple ctrls : 5
Date: Wed Oct 19 11:26:13 2011
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE:de:en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Symptom: audio
Symptom_AlsaPlaybackTest: ALSA playback test through plughw:UAC3553B successful
Symptom_Card: UAC3553B - UAC3553B
Symptom_DevicesInUse:
 2562 3170 2285 chrisipk F.... pulseaudio
                      chrisipk F.... xfce4-volumed
 /dev/snd/seq: timidity F.... timidity
Symptom_PulsePlaybackTest: PulseAudio playback test failed
Symptom_Type: No sound at all
Title: [USB-Audio - UAC3553B, playback] No sound at all
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-17 (1 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 06/19/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: V3.5
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: MSI X58 PLATINUM SLI(MS-7522)
dmi.board.vendor: MSI
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO.,LTD
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrV3.5:bd06/19/2009:svnMSI:pnMS-7522:pvr1.0:rvnMSI:rnMSIX58PLATINUMSLI(MS-7522):rvr1.0:cvnMICRO-STARINTERNATIONALCO.,LTD:ct3:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: MS-7522
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: MSI

[ChrisiPK (chrisipk)]

It's been working for a week in a row now. I have no idea, what has changed.

[ChrisiPK (chrisipk)]

And no longer working today. This problem is still coming and going and I have no idea why.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Xj9zxyrt (xj9zxyrt-deactivatedaccount)]

I have a similar problem - when I plug my USB mic in, it only shows up in the 'Hardware' tab, and not in the 'Input' tab. If I kill pulseaudio with 'pulseaudio -k' it works as expected again.

I debuged pulseaudio to find out that the problem is in function 'rd_acquire' - pulseaudio can't connect to DBus. The reason it can't connect is that the DBus session no longer exists.

Here's what's really happening: When an user logs in, everything works as expected. When the user logs out, the DBus process is killed, but the pulseaudio process keeps running. When the user logs in again, a new DBus session is started, but the pulseaudio proccess is still the old one with an invalid DBus reference. The connection thus fails.

The clear solution would be to kill pulseaudio on logout. However, it seems pulseaudio was designed not to exit on logout ( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=484969 ). The pulseaudio should be able to reconnect to a new DBus session eventually.

Related:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=593952
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=594001

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 11.10 (oneiric) reached end-of-life on May 9, 2013.

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.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Closed due to no response.