On 04/03/2017 07:47 PM, Fred Smith wrote: > On Mon, Apr 03, 2017 at 12:53:54PM -0400, ken wrote: >> On 04/02/2017 01:31 PM, Kay Schenk wrote: >>> >>> On 03/29/2017 06:43 AM, ken wrote: >>>> On 03/28/2017 08:53 PM, ken wrote: >>>>> The www has failed me with this, so I'm trying you guys. Sound worked >>>>> great out of the box when I installed 7.2... Yay! I could watch all >>>>> kinds of videos, like on facebook and youtube. And I could listen to >>>>> most podcasts too. But then something happened. It was either a >>>>> kernel upgrade or that I installed vlc (for watching videos on DVD) >>>>> and the whole stack of codecs for it... I don't know exactly when, but >>>>> at some point I no longer had sound with youtube and other web >>>>> videos. The videos played fine, just no sound. Note that using vlc, >>>>> both video and the audio with it play just fine. I need to select the >>>>> audio driver (from a list in a vlc menu), however, else the sound >>>>> won't work in vlc either. >>>>> >>>>> If I go into the Applications menu, then System Tools -> Settings -> >>>>> Sound, under "Choose a device for sound output:" there are no devices >>>>> listed. There used to be. >>>>> >>>>> If I run "aplayer file.wav", nothing plays (no sound at all) and I get >>>>> the error "main:786: audio open error: No such file or directory". >>>>> If, on the other hand, I run "aplay file.wav -D plughw:0" (i.e., >>>>> specify the/a device), I do get sound, the file does play. >>>>> >>>>> I ran alsa-info.sh and it posted tons of info from it on my setup at >>>>> http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=1dba91886be054df4816000768a0f5b109947a48. >>>>> >>>>> Yet it still doesn't tell me what's missing. >>>>> >>>>> Anyone here have an idea...? or thoughts about where to look next? >>>>> >>>>> tia, >>>>> ken >>>> Still poking around my system for a solution, I found this comment at >>>> the top of /usr/lib/systemd/system/alsa-state.service and two other >>>> files in the same directory: >>>> >>>>> # Note that two different ALSA card state management schemes exist and >>>>> they >>>>> # can be switched using a file exist check - >>>>> /etc/alsa/state-daemon.conf . >>>> The /etc/alsa/state-daemon.conf file consists of one line: >>>> >>>>> # Remove this file to disable the alsactl daemon mode >>>> I understand that a daemon continually runs, waiting for an event and >>>> then acts in some way in response, but it has to mean something more in >>>> this context. Anyone familiar with the internals of this? >>>> >>>> >>> I am not on systemd right now. I'm on CentOS 6.8. However, on an >>> openSUSE version I was. Sound problems were the bane of my >>> existence forever it seemed. So it maye take you a while to >>> troubleshoot this. Using JUST alsa you should be able to play >>> sound files at the command line. See: >>> http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page >>> >>> >>> I think I may have installed pulse-audio to get things working >>> under systemd with my GUI. What is your GUI? This may be a factor. >>> >> Thanks for the thought. This is quite plausible. I did a little >> reading at the site you suggested and then at another which was >> linked off of that. I didn't find anything helpful at either place >> yet... well, except that in the audio stack alsa is just one layer; >> jack and pulseaudio ride on top of it. Apparently sound on linux >> can use all of them-- and others on both of the same layers-- all at >> the same time. This is probably what makes the configuration of >> them all so challenging. >> >> In the middle of reading those sites I decided to see if audacity (a >> quite sophisticated and solid program) could somehow handle sound. I >> installed it and fired it up. Out of the box it didn't work. But I >> simply had to choose the correct device from audacity's drop-down >> menu and, viola, it would produce sound from a loaded file. Cool. >> >> Right after that, I tried running "aplay >> /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Right.wav" and that worked. Previously >> it didn't, although (as noted above) that same command when >> specifying the device did (i.e., "aplay >> /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Right.wav -D plughw:0"). So apparently >> installing and/or running audacity fixed something, but not >> everything. >> >> Another trippy discovery: I used rpm to verify all the files >> installed with all the alsa* packages and there were absolutely no >> changes to any of them... they're all exactly as they were when >> first installed. Since sound worked exquisitely when I first >> installed 7.2 on this box and no alsa files have been changed since >> then, it's hard to find the fault with alsa. >> >> Although aplay is back to working without having to specify the >> device, I still don't get sound out of youtube videos (even though I >> checked the settings and restarted Firefox), and gnome3's System >> Settings -> Sound still lists no devices at all. These are two >> major failures. > Are you, perchance, using Firefox-52? At version 52, they switched > Firefox to use Pulse instead of Alsa. So you'll probably need to > fire up pavucontrol and mess with its sliders to get firefox audio > working. Good call, Fred. Just today I got a message when, doing testing, a message came up in Firefox that I needed to install pulseaudio.* Well, I never installed pulseaudio, but it's already installed,** so it must have been installed when I first installed 7.2 on this machine. So then I tried, as you suggested, to start up pavucontrol and play around with it. However, pavucontrol was not installed. So yumd'd it down and installed, then clicked on it in the Applications -> Sound & Video menu, but I just got a window pop with the message, "Fatal Error: Unable to connect to PulseAudio: OK". Well, at least I finally have an explicit statement from the system that there's a problem. *Okay, now we know you're a psychic. Along with that Firefox message was a button for more info. I clicked and it went to a webpage which basically said the same thing in more detail and with a link (allegedly) to more info, https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Videos-sound-pictures-and/Fix-common-audio-and-video-issues/ta-p/401. **As I did a day or two ago with alsa packages, I used rpm to verify all the pulse* packages (rpm -qaVv pulseaudio*) and found that none of the files in any of the packages had been altered at all. > I'm on Centos-7.3, and when I switched from 7.2 I found that some > things now are controlled by pavucontrol, and not by the volume > control in the top panel (I'm using Mate, not Gnome,... Gah, how can > anyone stand Gnome 3.x??) It's kind of a pain, I haven't yet found > a way to localize controls for all the various audio-producing tools > in one place. Does anyone know how to do that? Sorry, I've never seen anything like that. >> Does anyone know how to restart audio in systemd? That might still >> be worth looking into. # systemctl list-unit-files --type=service ... alsa-restore.service static alsa-state.service static alsa-store.service static ... The above command showed the three alsa services, but nothing for the other audio software I've been poking around in: pulseaudio, jack, oss. Nor did I see anything else listed which told me it had anything directly to do with the system's audio. Moreover, I don't have alsa running as a daemon. So unless I'm misunderstanding what systemd does, I don't think it's playing a role in my sound problems. >> Before doing audacity, I tried gnome's mplayer. Geez, is that a >> stinky pile of code. Just selecting a directory where a file could >> be selected ended up locking up the app; I had to do a kill to get >> it off my screen. Does that actually work for anyone? If so, what >> kind of files or net locations does it work for? >> >> Thanks once more for your thoughtful suggestions.