Microphone stopped working!

Message

Apopatos · Post by **Apopatos** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 3:48 pm

Hi guys, I was using my external microphone via Skype or for recording sounds without problem. Suddenly it stopped working without apparent reason. Probably I installed something that caused this?
I tried hundreds of combinations in gnome-alsamixer in vain. Also, I don't use any sound daemons.
I have a sound blaster live 5.1 and here are the mixer's pics. Could you help me?
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/1015 ... shotcr.png
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/9977 ... hot2ah.png

note* I tried my microphone with an Ubuntu live cd and it worked, so is not a hardware problem.

thanks in advance

Roman_Gruber · Post by **Roman_Gruber** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:00 pm

did you try alsamixer in console??

and esound and alsa started?

Apopatos · Post by **Apopatos** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:06 pm

Yeah, I tried alsamixer but it had even lesser options than gnome-alsamixer. So it didn't help at all.
Also, I don't use sound daemons since my sound works fine as it is. Even my microphone used to work fine until yesterday.

thanks for your help

dahoste · Post by **dahoste** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:12 pm

I just encountered this problem as well. I don't use skype every day, so I don't know precisely when the mic quit, and am thus unable to associate it with any specific portage activity I've done.

I know the mic works -- audacity records just fine.

Tried lots of different stuff in alsamixer to no avail (not that it should be necessary -- everything worked great a week or two ago).

Clad in Sky · Post by **Clad in Sky** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 8:45 am

Χαιρε!

Did you try checking the Mic-Boost checkbox and Mic-select? I had some problems with my mic as well. Here's a pic of my ALSA-mixer:
Alsa settings
Also, your alsa-mixer looks a bit different from mine but perhaps it helps nevertheless.

In the "Record" tab you can see small black squares due to a lack of some graphics. this is actually the on switch - try experimenting with it.

Apopatos · Post by **Apopatos** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:20 pm

Clad in Sky wrote:Χαιρε!

Did you try checking the Mic-Boost checkbox and Mic-select? I had some problems with my mic as well. Here's a pic of my ALSA-mixer:
Alsa settings
Also, your alsa-mixer looks a bit different from mine but perhaps it helps nevertheless.

In the "Record" tab you can see small black squares due to a lack of some graphics. this is actually the on switch - try experimenting with it.

Χαίρε και σε 'σενα

Hmm indeed your mixer looks much better than mine. I'm sure that input source in the options tab would make the difference but I hadn't such an option.But for now I have switched to KDE just to try something different and the microphone works fine.
Actually what mixer is this one you use? I used gnome-alsa-mixer.

Apopatos · Post by **Apopatos** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:24 pm

dahoste wrote:I just encountered this problem as well. I don't use skype every day, so I don't know precisely when the mic quit, and am thus unable to associate it with any specific portage activity I've done.

I know the mic works -- audacity records just fine.

Tried lots of different stuff in alsamixer to no avail (not that it should be necessary -- everything worked great a week or two ago).

I had the same problem with Skype as well. One day it stopped to work. My mic worked everwhere but this specific program (well later it stopped work everywhere but anyway).
The problem was solved by using the newer beta version of Skype. That's what I use almost a month and it's more stable than the stable one.

Clad in Sky · Post by **Clad in Sky** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:01 am

Hi again.

I'm using gnome volume manager - it was the default one on my gnome system.
You can access it via System -> Preferences -> Volume control (whatever that is in Greek), at least I hope so.

On the other hand, if you're lucky with KDE all's fine I think.

Apopatos · Post by **Apopatos** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:06 pm

Hmmm think I should have installed gnome-media

andriy155 · Post by **andriy155** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:21 pm

Hi everyone, I am getting a weird problem with the upgrade to kernel 2.6.32.

Under 2.6.31, my external mic was working fine and specifically 'mic' column showed up in alsamixer. After the upgrade, I receive no audio from my mic and mic column has disappeared. Any ideas?

My sound-card is Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02) and all alsa intel hda modules in the kernel are enabled (they are the same for both kernels).

Apopatos · Post by **Apopatos** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:05 am

Maybe bad configuration of your kernel?
Post your /usr/src/linux/.config file here.

andriy155 · Post by **andriy155** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:20 am

Apopatos wrote:Maybe bad configuration of your kernel?
Post your /usr/src/linux/.config file here.

Thank you for volunteering to look at it. I posted my .config file here: http://www.sfu.ca/~abaransk/config

I've just realised that the 'mic' bar is missing in alsamixer. I am guess,this has something to do with the fact that the mic is not working.

andriy155 · Post by **andriy155** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:41 am

I have fixed the issue by writing
options snd_hda_intel model=3stack
in
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf

I am guessing there was some problem with auto-detecting the type of my sound card.