echo indigo iox soundcard not recognized

[Susan Cragin]

My echo indigo iox pci-express card does not work properly.
I have kernel 2.6.31-2 and all updates to karmic.

I can enter the following command:
sudo modprobe snd-indigoiox
and I don't get an error message, so I assume the module has been loaded, but aplay -l and arecord -l don't show it.
I have tried inserting the card when the machine is running, and re-booting with the card in the machine.
I have also edited /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf to include snd-indigoiox as follows:
options snd-indigoiox index=0
Nothing works.

[jumba (gioleati)]

this bug affects me too. In Jaunty the sound card worked greatly. I Add a simple information: in Karmic the led doesn't light at all.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Indigo IO needs firmware, and for reasons beyond my knowledge they are not available out-of-the-box, instead they must be manually installed from www.medibuntu.org. If that solution does not work for you, please report back and also add more information with this terminal command: "apport-collect 398468"

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

The medibuntu repository does not add itself properly using the directions on the first page and Lucid.

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

The repository does not correctly do the authentication, but the repository did load and I was able to get alsa-firmware, alsa-firmware-loaders, and alsa-tools-gui.
Now when I run alsamixer it does recognize the card, but I appear to have outgoing sound only. None of the controls relates to recording.
When I run echomixer there is likewise no incoming sound.
FWIW -- When I run winecfg, wine recognizes incoming sound but no mixer.
I will run the apport-collect command.

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

$ apport-collect 398468
"The specified process ID does not belong to a program."

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

You omitted the package: apport-collect -p alsa-base 398468

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

@Daniel: apport-collect works here without the -p switch, so it must be some other error....?

[jumba (gioleati)]

ops! I realized now that this bug is for indigo iox instead of Indigo Dj as in my case....should I open another bug?

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

@jumba: I assume Indigo Dj is also in need of firmware. If the medibuntu solution does not not work, file a new bug, if it does work, well, then there is no bug to report :-)

@Susan: you seem to have run into a bug in apport-collect. :-( Perhaps if you dump dmesg (terminal command: "dmesg > dmesg.txt") and then attach that file to this bug, that'll give us some place to start.

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

Jumba -- also try following bug 394720. This bug is definitely relevant to you, but the other bug has information you might find interesting. You should also submit a dmesg.txt to this bug, like I did.

Here is dmesg.txt

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

I am also attaching a screenshot from the wincfg audio.
Under Alsadriver (which you can't really see) there is no mixer listed at all. (It normally shows up at the end of the list, after MIDI-In Devices.)
But under OSS Driver -- output, input and mixer all show mixerIO, which is correct.

[jumba (gioleati)]

Thank you very much but I've already seen it! I'm a little bit worried about recompiling alsa, but i 'll try, I have not tryed so far because that bugs affected ubuntu 9.04, so I tought it was a bug related to his hardware....
anyway this is my dmesg.txt

in the dmesg file occurred an error saying the indigo_dj_dsp.fw firmware is missing instead i've installed alsa-firmware package....couldn't it be that some firmware are missing in the new version of the package?

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

Oh, good heavens, don't recompile alsa! Leave your configuration as standard as possible. The card is supposed to work pretty much out of the box, if you add the medibuntu packages that I did.
I was just suggesting you read the bug and add yourself to the subscribers list, so you know when changes have been made to it.
You may be right about the firmware being missing.

[jumba (gioleati)]

I managed to make it works!
I don't now why but I've missed that for some reason alsa-firmware was not installed instead of alsa-tools and alsa-firmware-loaders (I don't know why because i used the same command for all of them :S) that had been installed, now the card works fine!

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

Very good jumba! Can you test to see that incoming sound works, as well as outgoing?
Mine still does not work. There is no mixer, and no incoming sound, in alsa.
The mixer is recognized under the OSS option in winecfg, but there is not actually any incoming sound.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

@Susan: Indigo Dj does not have inputs.
Dmesg didn't show anything unusual (but you seem to have had another soundcard in the same slot before inserting the iox, is that correct?).
I looked at your screenshot and your alsamixer seems to show plenty of recording mixers to me...? The errors in the terminal is confusing me though. I'm unsure of how things should work without pulseaudio (I know you usually kill it), but could you have something in your .asoundrc files that is interfering?

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

I don't know. Here it is, and will also attach
.Emixer_Indigo IOx

.asoundrc just has standard stuff, no modifications.

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

I don't know. Here it is, and will also attach
.Emixer_Indigo IOx

.asoundrc just has standard stuff, no modifications.

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

You are correct. I also have a Creative X-Fi soundcard that goes in the same slot.
Because I use wine, I disable pulseaudio by killall pulseaudio when I start each session.
Because wine / Dragon NaturallySpeaking needs to use the default sound card, I have set the default soundcard using asoundconf.
However, wine by itself does not need to use the "default" sound card. All sound cards should display correctly in winecfg, and the Indigo does not. It can't find the mixer.

FYI - I used to use the onboard sound card, but the metal ring surrounding my input jack broke off, taking some of the plastic with it. So I have to rely on either the PCcard slot or USB. (USB produces not-as-good sound.)
I can use the Creative X-fi card without much of a problem, but have been told that the Echo has superior quality.

I just started up Audacity, and set the Indigo IOx on incoming and outgoing. Then I tried to record. It gave me no error messages, but no sound was recorded.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Hmm...I'm out of good ideas, so here are some "far" ones:

1) Just to double-check, you're aware that the input on Indigo iox is a *line* input and not a *mic* input, so you can't connect a mic directly to it, right?

2) I have an indigo io (not iox, but I assume they're pretty similar) but I haven't tried it under lucid yet. If I get time to set it up, we could compare settings.

3) I noticed that in .asoundrc.asoundconf it looks like this:

!defaults.pcm.card IOx
defaults.ctl.card IOx

...does it matter if you put an ! in front of the second line as well?

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

1) Yes I had been aware a while ago, but I'd used a plain microphone today, so thank you for reminding me. I plugged in my powered Sennheiser M62 into the line-in.
Nothing.
3) Solved the problem! Suddenly I had sound -- not great sound, I'll have to adjust settings and so on, but I had incoming sound for the first time.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Quote from the source for this card in alsa-firmware:

// Echo Digital Audio does not disclose the source code from which these

// firmware images are derived. Permission is hereby granted for the

// distribution of these firmware images as part of the Linux kernel or

// other GPL project in text or binary

// form as required.

I believe it could be safely added to linux-firmware.

[Chase Douglas (chasedouglas)]

This should be fixed in linux-firmware_1.33.