'apt-get upgrade' killed my sound

[David McNab]

Hi all,

I've been running debian sid successfully for some years, and generally
speaking, upgrades have gone smoothly.

However, after an 'apt-get upgrade' last night, my sound has stopped
working.

* sound device - USB audio adapter (worked fine before upgrade)
* everything is un-muted and volume turned up in gnome-volume-control
* pulseaudio volume control shows flickers on the meters when i play
music
* no audio comes out to headphones

Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?

Thanks in advance
David



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[Ross]

Post by David McNab
Hi all,
I've been running debian sid successfully for some years, and generally
speaking, upgrades have gone smoothly.
However, after an 'apt-get upgrade' last night, my sound has stopped
working.
* sound device - USB audio adapter (worked fine before upgrade)
* everything is un-muted and volume turned up in gnome-volume-control
* pulseaudio volume control shows flickers on the meters when i play
music
* no audio comes out to headphones
Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?
Thanks in advance
David

I am not familiar with pulseaudio or gnome but check that Alsa devices
are not muted (they used to be muted by default) check with alsamixer
from console to take pulseaudio and gstreamer etc out of equation. Also
could try playing an audiofile with aplay to see if sound working at
alsa level. If not working at this level then check /proc/asound/cards
to see what the system has detected in the way of soundcards, if not
showing there then look in logs for errors.

HTH
Ross.

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[Nevyn]

Post by David McNab
Hi all,
I've been running debian sid successfully for some years, and generally
speaking, upgrades have gone smoothly.
However, after an 'apt-get upgrade' last night, my sound has stopped
working.
* sound device - USB audio adapter (worked fine before upgrade)
* everything is un-muted and volume turned up in gnome-volume-control
* pulseaudio volume control shows flickers on the meters when i play
music
* no audio comes out to headphones
Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?
Thanks in advance
David

I am not familiar with pulseaudio or gnome but check that Alsa devices are
not muted (they used to be muted by default) check with alsamixer from
console to take pulseaudio and gstreamer etc out of equation. Also could try
playing an audiofile with aplay to see if sound working at alsa level. If
not working at this level then check /proc/asound/cards to see what the
system has detected in the way of soundcards, if not showing there then look
in logs for errors.
HTH
Ross.

To find any hard specific stuff, we'll also need the output of lsusb
with the sound stick plugged in.

Regards,
Nevyn
http://nevsramblings.blogspot.com/

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[David McNab]

Post by Nevyn
To find any hard specific stuff, we'll also need the output of lsusb
with the sound stick plugged in.

Fair call.

Here we go:

...
Bus 008 Device 003: ID 1130:f211 Tenx Technology, Inc. TP6911 Audio
Headset
...

Note - it was working perfectly before my 'apt-get upgrade'.

Cheers
David




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[Nevyn]

Post by David McNab
Fair call.
...
Bus 008 Device 003: ID 1130:f211 Tenx Technology, Inc. TP6911 Audio
Headset
...
Note - it was working perfectly before my 'apt-get upgrade'.
Cheers
David

lsmod? Should tell what modules are being used for it. I know there
was a kernel upgrade in Ubuntu recently - alsa update would probably
do the same thing. I did have a sound card mysteriously stop working
with Debian at one stage. It turns out it had a binary blob where the
license was unknown so support for the card was essentially pulled
from Debian (which aims to be a free distribution).

Regards,
Nevyn
http://nevsramblings.blogspot.com/

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[Ross]

Post by David McNab

Post by Nevyn
To find any hard specific stuff, we'll also need the output of lsusb
with the sound stick plugged in.

Fair call.
...
Bus 008 Device 003: ID 1130:f211 Tenx Technology, Inc. TP6911 Audio
Headset
...
Note - it was working perfectly before my 'apt-get upgrade'.
Cheers
David

Did you test ALSA from console like I suggested?

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[David McNab]

Post by Ross
I am not familiar with pulseaudio or gnome but check that Alsa devices
are not muted (they used to be muted by default) check with alsamixer
from console to take pulseaudio and gstreamer etc out of equation. Also
could try playing an audiofile with aplay to see if sound working at
alsa level. If not working at this level then check /proc/asound/cards
to see what the system has detected in the way of soundcards, if not
showing there then look in logs for errors.

I've checked the ALSA devices - definitely not muted.

aplay gives silence, despite a flickering VU bar showing on pulseaudio
volume control applet.

There's also an unrelated issue with cups - giving a 'cups-client-error'
whenever I try to install a printer.

I'm on the verge of doing a complete system reinstall, since that may
well cost less time and effort than tracking down these issues.

Cheers
David

Post by Ross
HTH
Ross.
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[Ross]

Post by David McNab

Post by Ross
I am not familiar with pulseaudio or gnome but check that Alsa devices
are not muted (they used to be muted by default) check with alsamixer
from console to take pulseaudio and gstreamer etc out of equation. Also
could try playing an audiofile with aplay to see if sound working at
alsa level. If not working at this level then check /proc/asound/cards
to see what the system has detected in the way of soundcards, if not
showing there then look in logs for errors.

I've checked the ALSA devices - definitely not muted.
aplay gives silence, despite a flickering VU bar showing on pulseaudio
volume control applet.
There's also an unrelated issue with cups - giving a 'cups-client-error'
whenever I try to install a printer.
I'm on the verge of doing a complete system reinstall, since that may
well cost less time and effort than tracking down these issues.
Cheers
David

Maybe a pulseaudio problem, you could try removing or disabling pulse or
running aplay again from a runlevel with no pulseaudio to eliminate
that. Either way a reinstall might be the simplest way forward I think.

Ross.

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[Jim Cheetham]

Post by David McNab
aplay gives silence, despite a flickering VU bar showing on pulseaudio
volume control applet.

Do you get any sounds out of your speakers? Can you confirm that they
still work?

-jim

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[Gary Ball]

Possible things to consider assuming this is a Gnome Desktop,

Sound Preferences under Gnome - check Output tab and check that the
Connector setting is set to Analog Headphones rather than Analog Output.

Under System > Preferences > Startup Application Preferences, I have two
references for Pulse Audio. These are,

Pulse Audio Sound System
Pulse Audio Sound System KDE Routing Policy

both these are on by default in Ubuntu and think Debian is the same.

Other thing I thought of (as already mentioned) is the non-free binary
blobs issue which has come about since the release of Debian Squeeze.
You may need to enable the non-free repository in order to see if it
solves it.

Gary Ball

Post by David McNab
Hi all,
I've been running debian sid successfully for some years, and generally
speaking, upgrades have gone smoothly.
However, after an 'apt-get upgrade' last night, my sound has stopped
working.
* sound device - USB audio adapter (worked fine before upgrade)
* everything is un-muted and volume turned up in gnome-volume-control
* pulseaudio volume control shows flickers on the meters when i play
music
* no audio comes out to headphones
Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?
Thanks in advance
David
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[David McNab]

Post by Gary Ball
Possible things to consider assuming this is a Gnome Desktop,
Sound Preferences under Gnome - check Output tab and check that the
Connector setting is set to Analog Headphones rather than Analog Output.

There is no 'output' tab - only 'playback', 'recording' and 'sound
theme'.

Post by Gary Ball
Under System > Preferences > Startup Application Preferences, I have two
references for Pulse Audio. These are,
Pulse Audio Sound System
Pulse Audio Sound System KDE Routing Policy
both these are on by default in Ubuntu and think Debian is the same.

Those were alread switched on for me.

Post by Gary Ball
Other thing I thought of (as already mentioned) is the non-free binary
blobs issue which has come about since the release of Debian Squeeze.
You may need to enable the non-free repository in order to see if it
solves it.

I already have the non-free repos.

Cheers
David



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[Steve Holdoway]

Post by David McNab
Hi all,
I've been running debian sid successfully for some years, and generally
speaking, upgrades have gone smoothly.
However, after an 'apt-get upgrade' last night, my sound has stopped
working.
* sound device - USB audio adapter (worked fine before upgrade)
* everything is un-muted and volume turned up in gnome-volume-control
* pulseaudio volume control shows flickers on the meters when i play
music
* no audio comes out to headphones
Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?
Thanks in advance
David

"sid is subject to massive changes and in-place library updates. This
can result in a very unstable system which contains packages that cannot
be installed due to missing libraries, dependencies that cannot be
fulfilled etc. Use it at your own risk!"

I suggest just waiting until they fix it myself...

Steve

[Bryan Baldwin]

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Hash: SHA1

Post by David McNab
Hi all,
I've been running debian sid successfully for some years, and generally
speaking, upgrades have gone smoothly.
However, after an 'apt-get upgrade' last night, my sound has stopped
working.
* sound device - USB audio adapter (worked fine before upgrade)
* everything is un-muted and volume turned up in gnome-volume-control
* pulseaudio volume control shows flickers on the meters when i play
music
* no audio comes out to headphones
Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?

Debian Sid has sound?
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[Robin Sheat]

Post by David McNab
Any suggestions as to where I can look to track down and fix this?

See what was changed in the upgrade that broke it, and have a look at
the changelogs for anything kernel or sound related?

Sid is prone to throwing its toys out of the cot every so often.

Robin.