Wrong or no soundcard in Pulseaudio

[Keantoken]

I am running 10.10 on an Intel Core 2 Duo.

Right now Pulseaudio only shows null outputs.

A few days ago, it would have shown the CA0106 (X-Fi Extreme Audio) on a good day. That is, when I reboot my computer enough times that pulseaudio detects it. Most of the time it would only detect my STAC9227 soundcard. Rebooting the computer once or twice would make it detect the CA0106 instead. I thought it might be the snd_hda_intel drivers causing problems, so I disabled it through the BIOS after I found a page showing me how to blacklist those drivers. Now pulseaudio detects no soundcards and only shows Null output.

Here is the output of various commands:

$ pulseaudio -vvvv
I: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
D: core-rtclock.c: Timer slack is set to 50 us.
D: core-util.c: RealtimeKit worked.
I: core-util.c: Successfully gained nice level -11.
I: main.c: This is PulseAudio 0.9.21-63-gd3efa-dirty
D: main.c: Compilation host: i686-pc-linux-gnu
D: main.c: Compilation CFLAGS: -g -O2 -g -Wall -O3 -Wall -W -Wextra -pipe -Wno-long-long -Winline -Wvla -Wno-overlength-strings -Wunsafe-loop-optimizations -Wundef -Wformat=2 -Wlogical-op -Wsign-compare -Wformat-security -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wformat-nonliteral -Wold-style-definition -Wpointer-arith -Winit-self -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wfloat-equal -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes -Wredundant-decls -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-noreturn -Wshadow -Wendif-labels -Wcast-align -Wstrict-aliasing=2 -Wwrite-strings -Wno-unused-parameter -ffast-math -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fno-common -fdiagnostics-show-option
D: main.c: Running on host: Linux i686 2.6.35-30-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jun 7 18:40:23 UTC 2011
D: main.c: Found 2 CPUs.
I: main.c: Page size is 4096 bytes
D: main.c: Compiled with Valgrind support: no
D: main.c: Running in valgrind mode: no
D: main.c: Running in VM: no
D: main.c: Optimized build: yes
D: main.c: All asserts enabled.
I: main.c: Machine ID is be03b35d2adcc1ea5f4f57ad0000000c.
I: main.c: Session ID is be03b35d2adcc1ea5f4f57ad0000000c-1309419309.716591-31404977.
I: main.c: Using runtime directory /home/keantoken/.pulse/be03b35d2adcc1ea5f4f57ad0000000c-runtime.
I: main.c: Using state directory /home/keantoken/.pulse.
I: main.c: Using modules directory /usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules.
I: main.c: Running in system mode: no
E: pid.c: Daemon already running.
E: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: CA0106 [CA0106], device 0: ca0106 [CA0106]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CA0106 [CA0106], device 1: ca0106 [CA0106]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CA0106 [CA0106], device 2: ca0106 [CA0106]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CA0106 [CA0106], device 3: ca0106 [CA0106]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

$ hwinfo --sound
36: PCI 702.0: 0401 Multimedia audio controller
  [Created at pci.318]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1102_7
  Unique ID: kYBq.e8MIsdg8Ku6
  Parent ID: 6NW+.58ok3_fgx7A
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:07:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:07:02.0
  Hardware Class: sound
  Model: "Creative SB0790 X-Fi XA"
  Vendor: pci 0x1102 "Creative Labs"
  Device: pci 0x0007 "SB Audigy LS"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1102 "Creative Labs"
  SubDevice: pci 0x1012 "SB0790 X-Fi XA"
  Driver: "snd_ca0106"
  Driver Modules: "snd_ca0106"
  I/O Ports: 0x2000-0x201f (rw)
  IRQ: 18 (154203 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001102d00000007sv00001102sd00001012bc04sc01i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: snd_ca0106 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe snd_ca0106"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #25 (PCI bridge)

$ sudo alsa force-reload
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
Terminating processes: 1251 1667lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
 2834 2907lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
 2917lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
 2927lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
 (with SIGKILL:) 2936lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
 (failed: processes still using sound devices: 2945(arecord)).
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/keantoken/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
/sbin/alsa: Warning: Processes using sound devices: 2945(arecord).
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hrtimer snd-ca0106 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-seq-midi snd-rawmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-page-alloc (failed: modules still loaded: snd-ca0106 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-rawmidi snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-page-alloc).
Loading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hrtimer snd-ca0106 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-seq-midi snd-rawmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-page-alloc.

running "fuser /dev/snd/" doesn't help.

Also possibly of interest:

1: my microphone wouldn't work even if the output was working.

2: My client.conf file in my home folder has one line: "autospawn = yes"
If this is set to "no", the pulseaudio server will fail to connect. If I quickly turn it back with Gedit and start pulse again with paman, it will succeed.

The purported fixes on forums use asoundconf or alsa-utils, but neither of these are installed!

Thanks,
 - keantoken

[Keantoken (keantoken)]

I must amend the first post. Right now, if I disable autospawn, the connection will not be refused. This was not the case before I disabled the STAC9227.

 - keantoken

[falkTX (Old) (falk-t-j)]

Please note that, for KXStudio, PulseAudio is bridged through JACK, so the autospawn=no is on purpose.

You should focus on JACK instead.
Open up 'cadence' and configure JACK to your liking. Set ALSA and PulseAudio bridges to JACK.
Then [re]start JACK.

Your system setup seems fine, so if you're able to start JACK, PulseAudio will work nicely on it.

[Keantoken (keantoken)]

Autospawn is actually set to yes by default on my system. Jack does not run by default since I haven't used it yet. I have not heard of cadence or KXStudio. As I said, my system is 10.10, not the newer version. Maybe you are confused?

I discovered today that if I disable autospawn and and do

$ fuser -v /dev/snd/*
$ pulseaudio -D

paman reports "connection refused", whereas before it connected fine.

There is nothing fine about my system, I still get no sound no matter what I do. I upgraded pulseaudio today with the auto updater and it is still broken.

Should I report this as a pulseaudio bug?

 - keantoken

[falkTX (Old) (falk-t-j)]

ah sorry, I got confused between UbuntuStudio and KXStudio bugs... :(

can you try adding yourself to the audio and pulseaudio group?
(then re-login)

[Keantoken (keantoken)]

Nope, still Null output.

 - keantoken

[Keantoken (keantoken)]

If you google this, you will see that this error is constantly associated with unsolvable sound issues and Pulseaudio:

lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system

It doesn't look like anyone has bothered to try to fix this source of errors. It has been this way for TWO YEARS. The closest we get is this:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=258299

There also also a few search results discussing errors which happen "every few days" which is how I would describe my soundcards switching back before I disabled my onboard Intel chip.

Should I report this as a Pulseaudio bug?

 - keantoken

[Evan Langlois (uudruid74)]

This may be related to my own problems. I usually can get alsa to recognize a new USB sound device, but pulseaudio doesn't. If I do "alsa force-reload", then everything starts working! I can't tell anything different from the alsa side of things. Some drivers will behave differently - like the volume control on one device will control the global volume until I do the reload, then it does its own volume after. I have a second USB audio device that has media prev/next keys and these work, but the device is only detected after the reload, not before. Both have odd issues and inconsistencies if connected to a USB 3 port. The USB 2 port seems to be more reliable (this is a known issue though).

Pulseaudio also doesn't always get sub-devices right and just about always fails to get the name (what Alsa calls "Amp", pulseaudio calls "1.1 Hub" - technically it is, but that's not very descriptive!