sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

[dochawk]

Sound *used* to work on this machine (An Acer 5002WLMi).

At some time in the past weeks, it stopped, and for reason beyond my comprehension, the kids didn't tell me.

Now there's a red X through the speaker icon, and the message "Mixer cannot be found"


I've seen references to this on older versions, but I'm running Jaunty.

thanks

hawk

[lmilano]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

This typically means there is no sound device. What do you see in System Settings -> Multimedia?

[dochawk]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

Hmm, where did m last reply go

I'm using the kde3 remix, so I don't seem to have a multimedia section there, but I do have sound.

Under general, it sas enabled and run with the highest priority.

Under hardware, it's autodetect with nothing checked below that.

I've tried setting it to alsa and rebooting, but still no change.

Could I be missing necessary packages? WHat should I be looking for?

hawk

[lmilano]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

* Maybe try "sudo service alsa restart". But a reboot should also re-start alsa. (Or is it "service alsa-utils"? Please check)

* I just had a similar issue in KDE-4.3. I did this: in Synaptic, searched for alsa, and chose all the supported packages, and installed them. I added the ansupported alsa-osd (for osd emulation, just in case), and the unsupported (why?) alsa utils.

I would hope these steps would, at least, restore the mixer ...

[dochawk]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

I have them all installing. And,


gemini pts/1:hawk>sudo service alsa restart
$alsa: unrecognized service


I suppose that that isn't good?

thanks

hawk

[lmilano]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

Well, I spoke too fast. Sound is gone in my system. AGAIN! (but I am running an unsupported KDE version, so it's my fault. Sound was fine here in KDE 4.2.*)

My bad, the right command is

 sudo service alsa-utils start

Sound has been the most common hekp request in Jaunty. I think it's Pulse audio getting in the way, but you can't completely remove it, because a large majority of packages depedend on libpulse0. Oh well! I'll let you know if I get it to work ... AGAIN!

[lmilano]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

I was thinking of installing Kernel 2.6.30 from Karmic, but today there was a kernel update (2.6.28-15), which fixed my alsa issues, at least for now. I thought I'd let you know.

[dochawk]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

I'll give it at try on that machine. On this one, my permanent 1+ load problem went away again on Saturday, only to return with the first boot after the new kernel installed (but I do have sound)

hawk

[rvsjimbo]

Re: sound has stopped, now "mixer cannot be found"

Hi,

I have a slightly different problem. With me sound used to work, but now it doesn't. Unlike you I still have the mixer and the machine still thinks its playing music under vlc or Amarok - I can even get visualisations to run. I have tried new kernels and old-ish (2.6.28-11 - which I'm fairly sure sound has worked under) kernels, to no avail. Hardware is a Dell E5500 laptop, using the HDA Intel module. lspci returns with the following for the sound hardware:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Device 0263
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
Memory at f6afc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link <?>
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Hope I'm not the only one with this particular problem!!

TTFN!

Paul
~~~~

[lmilano]

Re: sound has stopped, now &quot;mixer cannot be found&quot;

Paul,

That's exactly how it was for me. Actually, yesterday my sound died _again_, even after one more kernel upgrade (it seems there were two kernel updates, but the second one really a small incremental fix of the previous one, so it overwrote it).

Anyways, I installed alsa (just alsa) from karmic and now I have sound in my Jaunty+kde-4.3 install, but I learned from experience in Jaunty not to declare victory too early, I'll keep you posted.

[rvsjimbo]

Re: sound has stopped, now &quot;mixer cannot be found&quot;

Hi,

Thanks for the info! Okay, I'll have a bash at uninstalling alsa (apt-get remove alsa ?) and I'll get back to you - I doubt it can make things any worse :-)

TTFN!

Paul
~~~~ (just woke up after getting to sleep at 5am)

[lmilano]

Re: sound has stopped, now &quot;mixer cannot be found&quot;

Mmm. No need to uninstall, you can just upgrade to the one in Karmic. Here is how:

1. kdesudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

2. Add a repo line similar to the main source, but pointing to karmic
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic main restricted

3. Open synaptic, and refresh sources

4. Search for alsa, see all the alsa packages you have installed, and try one by one to mark them for an upgrade. DO NOT select anything that will trigger unrelated, massive upgrades, as this could break your system.

5. Upgrade these packages, and then disable the karmic repo so you odn;t use it by mistake.

That's all, hope it helps. Also, I made sure to install all the official/supported alsa packages (they show the Ubuntu logo in a special column in synaptic). I also added a couple more (unofficial): oss support and the firmware package, which prompts a couple more installs.

If this fixes it for you and/or Hawk, I'll post a mini howto and see if it helps other folks, sound has been a hassle in jaunty for very many people.