Sound missbehaving K 14.4 64bit . HDMI/Sonar DG

[millusions]

Hi,

could someone help me sort my sound out please?
It's kinda working, but sometimes it's not working and im not sure what i'm doing wrong..

I've got two audio devices on Linux anubis 3.13.0-39-generic #66-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 28 13:30:27 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux with latest updates as of today.

1. 03:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8788 [Oxygen HD Audio]
that's an Asus Xonar DG PCI output to a Sony stereo with a bit of oompf (when you're watching Apocalypse Now Redux it helps if the floor is vibrating, honestly!)
2. 01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
HDMI output from Nvidia 210 1GB output to Sony TV video/audio.

root@anubis:/etc# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: DG [Xonar DG], device 0: Multichannel [Multichannel]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: DG [Xonar DG], device 1: Digital [Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

from aplay output I tried all devices and this one works:
aplay -D plughw:1,7 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Left.wav

i have no idea what the others are and why they are there

so i added : load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:1,7 to /etc/pulse/default.pa
which gave me volume control to HDMI.. well , sort of. its not in the panel but if i start kmix its there..

so that dodgy setup kinda works, but not every boot for some reason..

last boot with NO SOUND:



with a reboot it shows everything seemingly working ok:




what am I doing wrong here?

[SteveRiley]

I've seen this before... The first image is what you'd see when PulseAudio isn't running. Here, Phonon gets its information from Alsa, and lists the various hardware sound devices that Alsa recognizes. The second image is what you see when PulseAudio is running. Here, Phonon gets its information from the PulseAudio devices, which are abstracted from the underlying hardware.

Unfortunately, Linux sound is a real beast to try to tame. The best source of troubleshooting information for PulseAudio is Arch's wiki page.

[millusions]

Thanks for your reply.
Honestly, i was in the dark as where to even start besides the usual googling error codes..

I think I can get on top of it now


later on:

have added pulse audio to start up services with rcconf, not sure why it was unchecked.
seems to be working fine AND there is a volume in taskbar for HDMI now, it wasnt there before.

will read up on Pulse audio at some stage,
nothing puts me to sleep faster than reading linux books. i mean you read about login and its like a whole chapter of dense information.
it's a pity all thorough admin linux books are mostly out of date

[millusions]

btw.
switching audio ouputs on the spot does not seem to work. from K panel.
possiblyl needs pulseaudio service restart. havent tried it as the workaround is to use Smplayer where in audio options u can toggle outputs on the fly - awseome!

[millusions]

thought i'd post a follow up.this was driving me nuts. couldnt get on top of it.Basically it's impossible, a little bit hazy as it's been a while now, but ive spent few solid hours trying to get it to work.when you set an audio card preference through KDE audio settings, it re-arranges the hardware order of physical cards as seen by pulse(?)so when you load alsa sink hw 1.7 it loads HDMI output correctly, but then when you make HDMI primary card for everything in KDE it will stop working on reboot because the HDMI card will be hw 0.7 , so the loop starts again, you put hw 0.7 in alsa sink load and it boots to HDMI being secondary. I then decided to see how Suse handles this - and it's perfect. Suse correctly only ever shows 2 hardware sound cards in KDE control panel. And switching between the two just works. Just thought i'd add that in case someone runs into the same issue.