Microphones are always muted (Ubuntu 8.10)

Bug #290121 reported by Patrick Balleux
16
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
GStreamer
New
Undecided
Unassigned
alsa-lib (Baltix)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
alsa-lib (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

In Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex...

Open Volume Control, the microphones (all inputs) are always muted.

- Open Volume control
- Select Recording tab
- All inputs are muted
- Unmute microphone/input
- Close Volume control
- Re-open, and microphone/inputs are still muted

It seems to record anyway with some software like Sound Recorder but using Flash, there is no sound capture at all. This is happening on a Dell 1521 AMD64 (HDA-Intel card) and a Averatec 3200 32bits (VIA card).

Note: The Averactec was upgraded to 8.10 several days ago... I managed to record audio in Flash 10 by removing Pulseaudio. The I upgraded my Dell laptop 2 days ago and no succes on this one. So to compare, I went back to my Averatec, validated the sound capture was working in Flash, reinstalled Pulseaudio and "updated at the same time". Now I have no sound capture in Flash on the Averatec and the microphone cannot be unmuted like the Dell.

I did remove Pulseaudio on both computer, rebooted, configure my default sound to pulseaudio/alsa, played with .asoundrc and .asound.conf... nothing worked.

It seems that Flash is considering the muted flag and it is not impossible to broadcast thru Flash Player (blogTV, UStream).

Since it was working on my Averatec before the major update, and it does not work after the update, whatever I do, it looks like something is broken in the alsa layer.

I've looked in my logs, nothing is showing up beside this with Pulseaudio on my Dell...

********************************
Oct 27 20:47:36 mult-pballeux pulseaudio[8297]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Oct 27 20:47:36 mult-pballeux pulseaudio[8297]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Opération non permise
Oct 27 20:47:36 mult-pballeux pulseaudio[8297]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Opération non permise
Oct 27 21:12:38 mult-pballeux pulseaudio[7243]: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
Oct 27 21:12:38 mult-pballeux pulseaudio[7245]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Opération non permise
Oct 27 21:12:38 mult-pballeux pulseaudio[7245]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Opération non permise
********************************

(Operation non permise = Operation Denied)

EDIT: I discovered that the Volume Control (gnome applet) shows that the microphones/inputs are muted, but by monitoring with pulseaudio meter and an external microphone, they were not. The first click "unmute" the microphone (actually does nothing and the icon show unmuted) and the second click will actually mute the mic/input (validated with the Monitor of pulseaudio). But the status is always shown as muted when reloading the volume control...

The Flash player not able to record sound could be a different issue. I found out that instead of using the "pulse" plugin, it is using the "Alsa" plugin to connect to the pulseaudio server. So Flash is always trying to record using the Alsa libraries. With or without pulseaudio (ie only with Alsa), Flash 10 (in i386 or AMD64) is not able to record any sound. This state was validated on two different sound card/laptop (via and hda-intel).

Note: On the i386 (Averatec) I was able to have the Flash player output sound directly to the pulseaudio server without using the ALSA plugin, but the recording was still with the Alsa plugin and not working. I was unable to do the same on the DELL (AMD64)

I'll wait for status on this bug before reporting the Flash problem in case that the two problems are related.

description: updated
Revision history for this message
Patrick Balleux (patrickballeux) wrote :

I did some more investigation.
On the Dell 1521 AMD64 (snd-hda-intel)

Finally, I was able to record with the microphone with Flash doing:

1 - Kill pulseaudio
2 - Set System - Prererences - Sound : Detection and Capture with my (hardware) Sound card HDA (Alsa)
3 - No .asoundrc
3 - No /etc/asound.conf

Muted buttons are still behaving strangely, but I was able to play/record with Flash...

Then I restarded "pulseaudio -D".

When Flashplayer is loaded, I can see that the Alsa plugin is used in Pulseaudio Volume Control for playing and recording. But no sound is capture (sound output works).

The ALSA Plugin for pulseaudio does not seems to be able to record. Also, switching the stream from one source to another sometimes (often) kills the Flash player.

Note: My internal microphone started working again when everything was set to ALSA only. But with Pulseaudio, it does not work (Volume seems to be really low...)

I'll test on the Averatec (32bits) to validate the settings and validate if it will work.

Revision history for this message
Patrick Balleux (patrickballeux) wrote :

Ok, tested on the Averatec laptop and it is working as the Dell laptop.

So the main problem is the Alsa plugin recording thru Puselaudio that is not working at all, making Flash unusable to broadcast over the internet. This was wokring A-1 in Ubunt 8.04.

Revision history for this message
Patrick Balleux (patrickballeux) wrote :

added package probably affected

Revision history for this message
Patrick Balleux (patrickballeux) wrote :

Made more testings...

I finally found out why Flash is not able to record at all.

The alsa plugin for GStreamer is broken (alsasrc).

When launching:

gst-launch alsasrc ! audioconvert ! wavenc ! filesink location=test.wav

You will get several warnings and errors. The file size is also really big (5 seconds = 20 megs)

Compared to:

gst-launch pulsesrc ! audioconvert ! wavenc ! filesink location=test.wav

Which gives expected results.

Revision history for this message
robzor (robban2005) wrote :

i can confirm this on 8.10 32bit version, and kmix does not help me.

I even tried the same microphone on another computer to confirm it was not something wrong with the microphone.
The microphone works perfectly on another computer.

I think i have tried every possible combination of settings in volume-control and kmix but no matter what i try the microphone is always muted after i close/open volume-controller.

And recording produces at best some random "white noise" no matter what i try. Soon i will completely wipe out pulseaudio or maybe ubuntu entirely and use a more stable sound system.

Revision history for this message
Remmo87 (remmo87) wrote :

Hello. Im all new to ubuntu.
I installed it yesterday and i love it so far...

Just have 1 problem. Same as you did.

Siemens Amilo Pi 3540.

Whenever i go to Volume Control Captures are always muted.
Could you help me with the steps you are talking about here;

1 - Kill pulseaudio
2 - Set System - Prererences - Sound : Detection and Capture with my (hardware) Sound card HDA (Alsa)
3 - No .asoundrc
3 - No /etc/asound.conf

Thanks in advanced!

Revision history for this message
Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin) wrote : Re: [Bug 290121] Re: Microphones are always muted (Ubuntu 8.10)

I've found that it's still unreliable even in the newest Ubuntu (9.10). It's
best to install and use the "pavucontrol" program for it, it seems to work
good. You can find it in Synaptic and run it with alt+f2.

Revision history for this message
Remmo87 (remmo87) wrote :

Installed pavucontrol and it didnt fix my problem.

The Capture setting is still muted every time i enter Volumecontrol even though i just unmuted it.

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.