Re: [gentoo-user] sound stopped working [media-sound/pulseaudio-7.1]

[Alexander Kapshuk]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:10 PM, Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@××××××××××××××.com>
wrote:

> I use pulseaudio without ALSA, for what it's worth. I also don't use VLC
> or mplayer.
>

That's interesting. I didn't know one could use pulseaudio with ALSA left
out.

I set the global USE flag to '-alsa' in '/etc/portage/make.conf' and ran
'emerge -aU' to see what would be pulled in/unmerged. Here's a list of
packages emerge wanted to pull in:
Calculating dependencies  . ... .... done!
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-x-0.10.36-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-xvideo-0.10.36-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-vorbis-0.10.36-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-ogg-0.10.36-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/gst-plugins-bad-0.10.23-r2  USE="nls orc"
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/faad2-2.7-r3  USE="-digitalradio -static-libs"
[ebuild  N     ] media-sound/cdparanoia-3.10.2-r6  USE="-static-libs"
[ebuild   R    ] net-misc/rdesktop-1.8.3  USE="-alsa*"
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.19-r1  USE="nls orc"
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/gst-plugins-good-0.10.31-r1  USE="nls orc"
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-resindvd-0.10.23-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-dts-0.10.23-r1  USE="orc"
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-faad-0.10.23-r2
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-xvid-0.10.23-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-cdparanoia-0.10.36-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-a52dec-0.10.19-r1  USE="orc"
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-x264-0.10.19-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-mad-0.10.19-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-flac-0.10.31-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-dvdread-0.10.19-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-pulse-0.10.31-r1
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-ffmpeg-0.10.13_p201211-r5
USE="orc -libav"
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-mpeg2dec-0.10.19-r1
[ebuild   R    ] media-video/mplayer-1.2_pre20150214-r1  USE="-alsa*"
[ebuild  N     ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-meta-0.10-r10  USE="X a52 aac
cdda dts dvd ffmpeg flac mp3 mpeg ogg pulseaudio vorbis x264 xv xvid -alsa
-dv -dvb -http -jack -lame -libass -libvisual -mms -modplug -musepack -opus
-oss -taglib -theora -v4l -vcd -vpx -wavpack"
[ebuild   R    ] xfce-extra/xfce4-mixer-4.11.0  USE="-alsa*"
[ebuild   R    ] media-video/vlc-2.2.1-r1  USE="-alsa*"

Is this what you use, 'media-pugins/gst-plugins'?


>
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 06:33:41PM +0200, Alexander Kapshuk wrote:
> > Recently, sound has stopped working on one of my Gentoo systems. I have
> > checked the kernel, package and pulseaudio set-ups across all of my
> systems
> > in an attempt to pin down the problem, but so far to no avail. The sound
> > works fine on the other systems I have.
>
> Are they any changes you just made that may have caused the problem? Do
> all the systems have the same configuration?
>

I did not make any changes to alsa, or pulse audio that I'm aware of. Just
been pulling in whatever updates portage had for me on a regular bases.
Running a 4.4.0-vanilla kernel on all my systems, so that can't be the
culprit.


>
> >
> > Having 'alsa-sink' enabled, generates the following output in
> > '/var/log/messages'.
> > # grep 'Jan 19.*pulseaudio' /var/log/messages
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3686]: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to
> > load module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: ""): initialization failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3686]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Module load
> > failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3686]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to
> > initialize daemon.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3638]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon
> startup
> > failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3706]: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to
> > load module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: ""): initialization failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3706]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Module load
> > failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3706]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to
> > initialize daemon.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3703]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon
> startup
> > failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3719]: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to
> > load module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: ""): initialization failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3719]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Module load
> > failed.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3719]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to
> > initialize daemon.
> > Jan 19 17:58:23 box1 pulseaudio[3716]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon
> startup
> > failed.
> >
> > My sound card details are.
> > lspci -k
> > ...
> > 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio
> > Controller (rev 02)
> >     Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio
> > Controller
> >     Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
> > ...
>
> Have you looked at dmesg and/or any ALSA logs to see why ALSA-related
> stuff can't be initialized? Intel hardware and drivers have always
> treated me well, so this is strange.
>

'/var/log/dmesg' has this:
[    1.361704] ALSA device list:
[    1.361991]   No soundcards found.

While 'aplay -l | grep HDA' says this:
card 1: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog]
card 1: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC662 rev1 Digital [ALC662 rev1
Digital]



>
> Alec
>
> P.S. Is there a particular reason you are using pulseaudio as a layer
> above ALSA? If not, you might just use PA in my opinion.
>
>
I seem to have a number of packages installed on my system that depend on
pulseaudio:
equery d pulseaudio
 * These packages depend on pulseaudio:
dev-java/icedtea-sound-1.0.1 (>=media-sound/pulseaudio-0.9.11)
media-libs/libcanberra-0.30-r5 (pulseaudio ?
>=media-sound/pulseaudio-0.9.11[abi_x86_32(-)?,abi_x86_64(-)?,abi_x86_x32(-)?,abi_mips_n32(-)?,abi_mips_n64(-)?,abi_mips_o32(-)?,abi_ppc_32(-)?,abi_ppc_64(-)?,abi_s390_32(-)?,abi_s390_64(-)?])
media-libs/libsdl-1.2.15-r9 (pulseaudio ?
>=media-sound/pulseaudio-2.1-r1[abi_x86_32(-)?,abi_x86_64(-)?,abi_x86_x32(-)?,abi_mips_n32(-)?,abi_mips_n64(-)?,abi_mips_o32(-)?,abi_ppc_32(-)?,abi_ppc_64(-)?,abi_s390_32(-)?,abi_s390_64(-)?])
media-libs/openal-1.15.1-r2 (pulseaudio ?
>=media-sound/pulseaudio-2.1-r1[abi_x86_32(-)?,abi_x86_64(-)?,abi_x86_x32(-)?,abi_mips_n32(-)?,abi_mips_n64(-)?,abi_mips_o32(-)?,abi_ppc_32(-)?,abi_ppc_64(-)?,abi_s390_32(-)?,abi_s390_64(-)?])
media-plugins/alsa-plugins-1.0.29 (pulseaudio ?
>=media-sound/pulseaudio-2.1-r1[abi_x86_32(-)?,abi_x86_64(-)?,abi_x86_x32(-)?,abi_mips_n32(-)?,abi_mips_n64(-)?,abi_mips_o32(-)?,abi_ppc_32(-)?,abi_ppc_64(-)?,abi_s390_32(-)?,abi_s390_64(-)?])
media-sound/mpg123-1.18.1 (pulseaudio ? media-sound/pulseaudio)
media-sound/pavucontrol-3.0 (>=media-sound/pulseaudio-3[glib])
media-video/ffmpeg-2.6.3 (pulseaudio ?
>=media-sound/pulseaudio-2.1-r1[abi_x86_32(-)?,abi_x86_64(-)?,abi_x86_x32(-)?,abi_mips_n32(-)?,abi_mips_n64(-)?,abi_mips_o32(-)?,abi_ppc_32(-)?,abi_ppc_64(-)?,abi_s390_32(-)?,abi_s390_64(-)?])
media-video/mplayer-1.2_pre20150214-r1 (pulseaudio ? media-sound/pulseaudio)
media-video/vlc-2.2.1-r1 (pulseaudio ? >=media-sound/pulseaudio-1:0)
net-im/skype-4.3.0.37 (media-sound/pulseaudio)
www-client/firefox-38.5.0 (pulseaudio ? media-sound/pulseaudio)
xfce-extra/xfce4-volumed-pulse-0.2.0 (>=media-sound/pulseaudio-0.9.19[glib])

Thanks for your reply. I'll keep on looking.