Not restoring volume levels

[Michael Monreal]

For some time now after each boot I have to manually unmute master and pcm and set the volume level because Ubuntu does not seem to restore the settings. Initially I thought this was due to my new usb webcam (which also has a mic) but now I tested without the cam plugged and same problem, so it has to be a change introduced in a recent (2-3 month) kernel module updates or alsa tools.

I now found out that I can restore the volume/mute state "manually" with "alsactl restore" (which I put into my gnome session) but I guess just this *should* be run by the system at some point?

Note: I do not use pulseaudio.

[Luke Yelavich (themuso)]

What sound card are you having this issue with?

[Michael Monreal (mimox)]

Right, I should have mentioned this, it's onboard (Asus P5NSLI) sound using the snd_hda_intel module.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Something in the alsa-utils's initscript or the alsactl invocation seems awry. According to /etc/udev/rules.d/85-alsa.rules, /etc/init.d/alsa-utils is called with the "start" parameter, and alsactl restore is invoked therein. Please try the following commands:

$ sudo dpkg -P --force-depends alsa-utils && sudo apt-get --reinstall install alsa-utils

[Michael Monreal (mimox)]

Daniel, I tried what you said but after restarting the PCM channel was at 0% and muted again.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this symptom reproducible in 9.04? (Testing in a vm or live cd is sufficient.)

[Iain Lane (laney)]

I just dug this report out because I am seeing the same symptoms in an up to date 9.04. I'm using the onboard sound on my Asus P5B deluxe which is apparently "AD AD1988B" according to google. Uses snd_hda_intel.

On rebooting, the master channel is always muted in the alsa mixer under gnome-volume-applet.

I am available for any debugging fun. Get me on IRC.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

alsa-utils (1.0.23-2ubuntu2) maverick; urgency=low

  * debian/init: Restore change from 1.0.21-1ubuntu2 lost during merge
    that skips muting and zeroing levels prior to shutdown/reboot,
    which was a hack for broken drivers. This change closes LP: #21804,
    LP: #208920, #227505, #360108, #432660, #449783, #553132, #564472,
    LP: #584609, #592016, #596360, #613054, #617516, #622487, #632019.
  * debian/patches/alsactl_init_update_to_52bd2f8a_head.patch: Add
    upstream git changesets:
    dcb90a77 - Use "Found hardware:" instead "Unknown hardware:"
    7f6a55e2 - use "generic method" instead "guess method"
    52bd2f8a - Handle "Capture Source" and "Mic Boost"
    ef919a47 - Initialize also "Master Front Playback Volume" & "Switch"
    (yes, this last changeset is included despite the patch filename)

 -- Daniel T Chen <email address hidden> Sun, 05 Sep 2010 11:57:59 -0400