No sound after upgrading from alsa 1.0.14_rc1 to any later

Message

bitdancer · Post by **bitdancer** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:44 pm

With alsa-lib-1.0.14_rc1, sound works fine. Any version of alsa-lib after that (I've tried up through 1.0.15), I get no sound. I'm using in-kernel drivers, kernel version 2.6.23. alsaconf finds no devices no matter which library version I'm running, but under the old library sound works fine. When I run (for example) mplayer, this is the error message I get using the newer libraries:

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[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: dlmisc.c:118:(snd_dlsym_verify) unable to verify version for symbol _snd_pcm_empty_open
[AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: pcm.c:2109:(snd_pcm_open_conf) symbol _snd_pcm_empty_open is not defined inside (null)
[AO_ALSA] Playback open error: No such device or address

I've searched for that error on google, and came up with one post suggesting the library downgrade because of an ABI change, but I'm a couple kernel revs newer now and so are the libraries, so if it were ABI I'd think it would have resolved itself by now.

So, any clues on offer? What should I look at? The fact that alsaconf can't see the device on either version makes me wonder if the fact that it was working before was just a happy accident...

The device is

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00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

OmSai · Post by **OmSai** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:18 pm

If I understand your problem correctly, you're using both the portage media-sound/alsa-driver and the kernel sound drivers.

You have to pick one way; the two methods don't work together:
Gentoo guide for setting up ALSA

My integrated nvidia HD audio sound card, for example, works with the alsa-driver and not my kernel 2.6.22-r8 drivers.
Though it's always better to enable sound in your kernel.

PaulBredbury · Post by **PaulBredbury** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:27 pm

Follow wiki article carefully.

bitdancer · Post by **bitdancer** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 4:16 am

om wrote:If I understand your problem correctly, you're using both the portage media-sound/alsa-driver and the kernel sound drivers.

Nope. I'm just using the kernel drivers:

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rdmurray@maestro:~>equery list alsa
[ Searching for package 'alsa' in all categories among: ]
 * installed packages
 [I--] [  ] media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.14_rc1 (0)
 [I--] [  ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-alsa-0.10.14 (0.10)
 [I--] [ ~] media-sound/alsa-headers-1.0.15 (0)
 [I--] [ ~] media-sound/alsa-utils-1.0.15 (0.9)

(This is with alsa-lib downgraded so that sound works).

suicidal_orange_II · Post by **suicidal_orange_II** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:22 pm

Is that what the problem is? I just did an emerge -e world (it's been a while) including a kernel upgrade to test a new quad core cpu... and after that no sound. New everything makes it hard to track down the problem, so hopefully you found it. I even tried the -9999 alsa ebuilds in an attempt to get sound back, but no luck. I'm using the ice1724 module so a -lib problem does sound likely.

I'll try downgrading alsa-lib to confirm your findings.

Suicidal_Orange

[EDIT]
Downgraded alsa-lib and alsa-headers to -1.0.14a-r1, using in kernel alsa drivers from 2.6.23-gentoo-r2 and - no sound

I'll keep searching, we can't be the only ones having problems

nordpolcamper · Post by **nordpolcamper** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:49 pm

Are you sure that the alsa-headers/libs cause the problem? On my side it is the kernel. With gentoo-sources-2.6.23-r1 all works fine. With r2 it does not.

Rgds
Bernhard

Unlucky_Alf · Post by **Unlucky_Alf** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:16 am

I have exactly the same problem. I had sound working with alsa 1.0.14 and updating to 1.0.16 broke it. Nothing else has changed but alsa.
I did run revdep-rebuild after the upgrade (it did nothing though).

Jens Pranaitis · Post by **Jens Pranaitis** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 1:10 pm

Adding "empty" to ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS in make.conf fixed the problem for me.

vanten · Post by **vanten** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:55 pm

Jens Pranaitis wrote:Adding "empty" to ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS in make.conf fixed the problem for me.

Yes do check this line. I hade the same problem just a few minutes ago. adding a few options to ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS solved all my problems and I have no more problems with alsa.
Add "empty" and perhaps also "null" as options, just as Jens said.

Joseph K. · Post by **Joseph K.** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:59 am

I'm having problems after upgrading from 1.0.14a-r1 to 1.0.16 too, but not globally. In fact, I only noticed it when playing Baldur's Gate (in Wine), and even then the startup music and menu sound effects worked fine, it was only once it got into the actual game that sound cut out. I tried mucking around with PCM_ALSA_PLUGINS but to no avail. Downgrading just alsa-lib restored sound. This is on my HP nx8220 with an AC'97 device and kernel drivers. I would like to hear if anyone else fixes the same problem just using the PCM_ALSA_PLUGINS and exactly what the procedure is, etc.

Unlucky_Alf · Post by **Unlucky_Alf** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:41 am

I have ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="ioplug dmix empty plug adpcm alaw copy dshare dsnoop extplug file hooks ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null rate route share shm" in my make.conf and it's not working. Probably I'll just downgrade back to 1.0.14.

Joseph K. · Post by **Joseph K.** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:27 am

Just for the record, I did actually write ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS in my make.conf.

And up until now I've never had anything in it.

Joseph K. · Post by **Joseph K.** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:51 am

This may sound obvious, but go into alsamixer and just make sure the channels aren't muted. I just spent hours of emerging and kernel tweaking after everything went silent only to find that something, somewhere had muted them.

vanten · Post by **vanten** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:40 am

Joseph K. wrote:This may sound obvious, but go into alsamixer and just make sure the channels aren't muted. I just spent hours of emerging and kernel tweaking after everything went silent only to find that something, somewhere had muted them.

Okey, glad you get it working again

Joseph K. · Post by **Joseph K.** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:43 pm

I still have the problem of no sound in-game in Baldur's Gate.

Unlucky_Alf · Post by **Unlucky_Alf** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:34 am

Got it working now. Solution was to hunt down all needed ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS one by one from error messages trying to play sounds.

Things like this should be documented before making packeges stable. Now I had to try to play a sound, look for needed plugin in error message, add it to make.conf, recompile alsa-lib and do this n+1 times to find all needed plugins

h0mer`- · Post by **h0mer`-** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:29 pm

downgrading to 1.0.14a solved this for me.

fengalin · Post by **fengalin** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:22 am

According to the HOWTO ALSA Complete (includes dmix), ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS section, on Desktop systems, it is wise removing the ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS from /etc/make.conf.
Solved the problem for me anyway.

Biloute · Post by **Biloute** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:00 pm

I had the same problem.

I had to edit my make.conf and change

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ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS=""

to

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#ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS=""

Resolved after

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emerge -1 alsa-lib

tokugawa · Post by **tokugawa** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 11:54 am

Unlucky_Alf wrote:Got it working now. Solution was to hunt down all needed ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS one by one from error messages trying to play sounds.

Things like this should be documented before making packeges stable. Now I had to try to play a sound, look for needed plugin in error message, add it to make.conf, recompile alsa-lib and do this n+1 times to find all needed plugins

Second that. I have done the "n+1" way too...

KK_r · Post by **KK_r** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 6:51 pm

If the problem is with intel HDA soundcard they changed a thing or two with that driver.

Give the module the argument model=<modelname> as you load it. The correct model name depends on your specific card so i suggest you search the web for a list over the available alternatives. On my laptop model=toshiba did the trick (even though it isn't a toshiba laptop).

Joseph K. · Post by **Joseph K.** » Thu May 15, 2008 2:56 am

Just adding to this to say that I updated ALSA to 1.0.16 on my x86_64 box with an on-board Intel HDA chip today with no problem.

PeterKraus · Post by **PeterKraus** » Thu May 15, 2008 10:17 am

Sorry for opening another thread for this issue, i must have been blind yesterday.

Yeah, the same problem. After upgrading alsa-lib, alsa-tools and alsa-utils to 1.0.16, the dmix is broken in my case. It works between apps using alsa, but the OSS emulation seems to be faulty (FFx flash, wine, skype).

Downgrade to versions alsa-lib-1.0.14-r1 (and 1.0.14_rc1) along with alsa-utils-1.0.14 and alsa-tools-1.0.16 works fine. So, I've masked the 1.0.16 packages for both, alsa-lib and alsa-utils. It would be nice to have it working, though...

Peter

elivaos · Post by **elivaos** » Thu May 15, 2008 12:46 pm

I got the same problem. After upgrading alsa-lib, alsa-tools and alsa-utils to 1.0.16. I also have a HDA intel card.
The downgrade also worked for me.

Joseph K. · Post by **Joseph K.** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:54 am

elivaos wrote:I got the same problem. After upgrading alsa-lib, alsa-tools and alsa-utils to 1.0.16. I also have a HDA intel card.
The downgrade also worked for me.

Out of curiosity, x86 or amd64? Post your emerge --info and the soundcard details from lspci -v here and I/we might be able to help you.