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20

Hello I have tryed out the programm "EarCandy", now I had/have a lot of problems. At first I did not get any sound and now it is very low volume. PS Earcandy is now deleted from my harddisk.

When Im opening the Alsamixer with:

alsamixer

I see that the volume for the speakers is zero. Now I push it to the max volume. But after every restart, I have to open alsamixer again and have to set the volume to max again. Can I save the settings for alsamixer or is there any other way to fix the problem ? enter image description here

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up vote 55 down vote

Execute:

sudo alsactl store

This should save alsamixer configurations to /etc/asound.state which gets loaded every startup.

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11  
My laptop continues to reset my configuration, even after running the above command. It claims to be storing it to /var/lib/alsa/asound.state. Is there any other reason for it not working? – Azmisov Aug 31 '13 at 3:35
1  
I have exactly the same problem, and exactly the same behaviour when I try sudo alsactl store. – JeanSibelius Oct 18 '14 at 19:15
1  
@Azmisov: You can further experiment with the system like following: (1) store the configuration (2) start alsamixer and change master level (2) restore the configuration (3) check that master level was restored. If above is as expected, check that restore is actually triggered at system boot (chkconfig alsa-utils should display alsa-utils on). – dma_k Mar 12 '15 at 10:54
    
This answer solved my SPDIF problem: askubuntu.com/questions/541847/… – neves Dec 5 '15 at 17:04
    
When I run sudo alsactl store it gives me the following error alsactl: get_controls:567: snd_ctl_open error: Invalid argument. – user2513149 Nov 8 '16 at 20:36
up vote 16 down vote

You could also save the mixer settings into a custom file with alsactl:

alsactl --file ~/.config/asound.state store

Reloading:

alsactl --file ~/.config/asound.state restore
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2  
The top answer didn't work for me but this did! I created a config file and placed it at /etc/asound.state and added the reload line to my /etc/rc.local. – John Aug 31 '15 at 13:21
up vote 7 down vote

Seppo Erviälä's answer is right but not complete. As dma_k already noted, man alsactl clearly states at the end that,

/var/lib/alsa/asound.state (or whatever file you specify with the -f flag) is used to store current settings for your soundcards.

palacsinit appropriately noted that you can store config into your file with

alsactl --file ~/.config/asound.state store

and reload with

alsactl --file ~/.config/asound.state restore

This can be further improved with placing the second line, the restore command into a .desktop file.

You will need to run nano ~/.config/autostart/alsarestore.desktop, which will open nano text editor and create ~/.config/autostart/alsarestore.desktop file. Entries in ~/.config/autostart/ directory are used to autostart programs and services for specific user on startup/graphical login.

The contents of the .desktop file should be the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=alsarestore
Exec=alsactl --file ~/.config/asound.state restore

Among other things, you could store your config in /etc/asound.state and symlink it to /var/lib/alsa/asound.state, but this one is more of a suggestion rather than tested solution

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This was the only way I worked for me on Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 – Francisco Tomé Costa Mar 18 '16 at 19:23
1  
The "store" and "restore" command work fine for manual control. However, when I set up the autostart file with the "restore" command, I see the mic setting in alsamixer is being rewritten to mute and the result is static. If i manually do the restore command, all is fine. Why is the mic setting changing and not being corrected by an appropriately stored configuration file by autostart??? – Brad Horn Oct 8 '16 at 11:40
    
@BradHorn it's possible you have something else overwriting your command. It runs, but then something else undoes its changes – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Oct 8 '16 at 11:43
    
any ideas what that could be? – Brad Horn Oct 8 '16 at 11:44
    
@BradHorn not of the top of my head, no. Try changing the Exec line in the .desktop file to be Exec=bash -c "sleep 5 && alsactl --file ~/.config/asound.state restore" . That will introduce a 5 second delay, so whatever is overwriting your settings will run first, and then your restore command will run after that. Try playing with the sleep values if that still overrides your settings. – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Oct 8 '16 at 11:49
up vote 2 down vote

After 2 months of trying to make "sudo alsactl store" to work, I finally managed to do it. Firstly type in terminal "alsamixer" to enter the alsamixer UI. Then make the configurations you need(e.g increase speakers/headphones level or unmute something pressing "m" on keyboard). Now the most important part. Before you exit alsamixer, open a new terminal and do : "sudo su" to get high privileges (Be very careful with commands you use in "sudo su" mode because you may destroy your system) and then do "alsactl store" to save alsa settings. Then close both terminals and restart your computer. This will do the job.

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up vote 0 down vote

After running sudo alsamixer the mixer should should retain the changes you make.

See Sound does not work once my profile loads on which answers you can find a clue also.

Good luck!

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up vote 0 down vote

Alsa-Json-Gateway https://github.com/fulup-bzh/AlsaJsonGateway supports store/restore of sound card sessions from JSON/REST API

  • list sessions /jsonapi?request=session-list&cardid=hw:0
  • store session /jsonapi?request=session-store&cardid=hw:0&args=MySoundConfig
  • restore /jsonapi?request=session-load&cardid=hw:0&args=MySoundConfig
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