My first sound problem

[worker201]

Well, I upgraded ALSA through Synaptic today, and my sound quit working. I checked the volume and muting in the ALSA mixer, and they were all good.

Here is a list of all the modules I have listed in /sys/module:
8250
ac
apm
autofs4
battery
button
cpufreq
dm_mod
e100
ehci_hcd
ext3
fat
floppy
hw_random
i2c_core
i2c_i801
i8042
ide_cd
ip_conntrack
iptable_filter
ip_tables
ipt_REJECT
ipt_state
ipv6
jbd
longhaul
lp
md5
mii
parport
parport_pc
pci_hotplug
powernow_k7
snd
snd_ac97_codec
snd_intel8x0
snd_mixer_oss
snd_page_alloc
snd_pcm
snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer
soundcore
sunrpc
uhci_hcd
usbcore
vfat
video

Any hints as to how I should proceed would be very helpful.

[Void Main]

Do you have write permission to your /dev/sndstat /dev/mixer* /dev/audio* /dev/dsp* /dev/sequencer* /dev/sound/* /dev/snd/*, etc sound files? Knowing what modules you have installed doesn't really help without knowing what kind of sound card you have:

# lspci

[worker201]

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio (rev 04)

total 0
crw------- 1 lholcombe root 116, 0 Jan 24 12:06 controlC0
crw------- 1 lholcombe root 116, 24 Jan 24 12:06 pcmC0D0c
crw------- 1 lholcombe root 116, 16 Jan 24 12:06 pcmC0D0p
crw------- 1 lholcombe root 116, 25 Jan 24 12:06 pcmC0D1c
crw------- 1 lholcombe root 116, 33 Jan 24 12:06 timer

Never seen a 'c' in that position before...what does that mean?

[Void Main]

The "c" means "character device". Now what about all the other files I asked about? Do they not exist?

[worker201]

from /dev/:
sndstat - does not exist
mixer - crw-------
audio - crw-------
dsp - crw-------
sequencer - does not exist
sound - crw-------
audio - crw-------

/dev/sound/ - does not exist

When I run system-config-soundcard, it says:

The following audio device was detected.
Vendor: Intel
Model: Corp.82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio
Module: snd-intel8x0

I take it this is some sort of onboard soundchip thing? It's a Dell, with no real sound options to speak of - but we did get speakers.
Of course the sample sound would not play.

Sound has always worked before, unless I had just installed Fedora itself, in which case the Alsa mixer had to be unmuted. So this is kinda weird.

[Void Main]

from /dev/:
sndstat - does not exist
mixer - crw-------
audio - crw-------
dsp - crw-------
sequencer - does not exist
sound - crw-------
audio - crw-------

I assume these are all owned by the user you are logged in as?

Sound has always worked before, unless I had just installed Fedora itself, in which case the Alsa mixer had to be unmuted. So this is kinda weird.

Is this FC3? Where did you get your ALSA update from? What exact version is it (rpm -qa | grep alsa)?

[worker201]

Here's all my alsa stuff:
gnome-alsamixer-0.9.6-3.1.fc3.fr
alsa-utils-1.0.6-3
alsa-lib-devel-1.0.6-7.FC3
balsa-2.2.4-1.FC3.1
alsaplayer-0.99.76-2.1.fc3.rf
alsa-lib-1.0.6-7.FC3

I couldn't help but notice that the alsa-utils is not specifically said to be FC3, which irks me. This package came from Freshrpms.

As far as owner of the dev files goes, I don't know which is the owner.
On all the files listed above, lholcombe (me) is the first name, and root is the second name (in an ls -l). Except for /dev/sound, which is root for both first and second. This is probably incorrect, isn't it?

[Void Main]

Yep, all the file permissions and package versions look good. And you did make sure PCM was not muted in gnome-alsamixer right? All the basics look good. I'll do a little digging. It might not hurt to also post a message on www.fedoraforum.org. There are a lot more eyes there and maybe someone who has the same card as you has also run into this.

[worker201]

Looks like there is a bit of a conflict between Alsa, the Intel AC'97, and kernel 2.6.10-1.741. I got a couple suggestions - If nothing else, I still have an older kernel (like a couple weeks older) I can use.

Thanks for pointing me over there - just by doing a search for 'snd-intel8x0', I found some info.

[Stryker]

from /dev/:
mixer - crw-------
audio - crw-------
dsp - crw-------
sound - crw-------
audio - crw-------

Is it possible the install recreated those files, and they are now owned as root (I assume you're not trying to use sound as root). Why not 777 those files?

erm, or would the sound server take care of that. Its worth a shot, could always undo it.

[Void Main]

When someone logs on to the console those devices should automatically get chowned to the user who logged on, which they probably are, he just didn't list that info. So the permissions are correct if they are owned by him. You don't want to 777 them because they shouldn't have executable permissions. If anything you would 666 them (r/w for everyone) but still they should return to "600" next time you log on. He's probably on to it with the kernel. My guess is something has been changed in the included kernel module for his card that is causing him problems.

[Tux]

Do you have an "Headphone Jack Sense" control in gnome-alsamixer?
If so, turn it off.

[ZiaTioN]

You may be a victim of the quirk setting. I know that most via sound devices are susceptible to this and some intel also.

See this post.

[worker201]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Backing out the kernel seemed to do the trick. Alsa and the 2.6.10 kernels seem to be clashing. Neither 2.6.10-1.741 or 2.6.10-1.737 worked with the new Alsa. But 2.6.9-1.724 returned the sound to normal. Hopefully, the new kernel issues will be ironed out. Probably, they just didn't compile in a module or something, and if I had the time, I could probably use the kernel source to make my own custom 2.6.10 that would work. But for now, I just want to have gaim and xmms functioning smoothly again.

[Void Main]

At least you got it working again and pinned it down. Just curious if you tried that quirks mode with the new kernels? I know my ALSA sound works fine with the new kernels so it has to be card specific.