I'm working on an Acer Aspire E 15 on which I installed Ubuntu Studio 14.04.
I have some issues regarding the audio.
In particular:
The left speaker is not working at all. If I plug some external speakers, though, the sound works perfectly on both of them.
If I mute the audio from this cascade menu: the audio actually gets muted. But if I mute it by using the keyboard option (Fn + F8), even though I receive this popup which informs me that the audio is now muted, actually the sounds keep on coming out of the speakers (wherever they are internal or external).
I can't raise or lower the volume. However I do it from the previously seen cascade menu or by using the keyboard shortcuts the volume just stands still, at the maximum volume I suppose.
I tried to follow this guide I found on the italian Ubuntu website, even though it is not updated, and got some results through the terminal.
First of all, I think that the audio card has been correctly detected:
alex@Sargon:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI
HDA Intel HDMI at 0xb3610000 irq 67
1 [PCH ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
HDA Intel PCH at 0xb3614000 irq 66
alex@Sargon:~$ lspci | grep -i audio
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 0b)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
The audio test doesn't make any sound at all, though.
alex@Sargon:~$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
Riproduzione in corso WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Frequenza 48000 Hz, Mono
I tried to use Alsamixer to check the audio settings, but honestly I didn't understand anything in it. I also tried to reset it trough the commands I found in the previously linekd page, but those commands refer to Ubuntu 10.10, and don't work in Ubuntu Studio 14.04.
The most interisting thing is that according to that page another program might be occupying the Audio Card and, as a consequence, this might lead to issues. And apparently there may be several programs running: I wonder if this may be part of the problem.
alex@Sargon:~$ lsof | grep pcm
plugin-co 5106 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
Chrome_Ch 5106 5107 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5132 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5133 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5134 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5135 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5190 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5191 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5192 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 5193 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
plugin-co 5106 6111 alex mem REG 8,7 27256 7080521 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so
I don't know how to proceed further.
EDIT:
After disabling automute the left speaker started to work. Yet the other issues remained. So I tried to terminate and restart the various audio processes through sudo killall pulseaudio
and sudo alsa force-reload
, after which the audio stopped to worked completely.
If I use the command this is what I get:
alex@Sargon:~$ sudo alsa force-reload
[sudo] password for alex:
Terminating processes: 1871 (failed: processes still using sound devices: 6840(pulseaudio)).
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hda-codec-realtek snd-hda-codec-hdmi snd-hda-intel snd-hda-codec snd-hwdep snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-rawmidi snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-timer (failed: modules still loaded: snd-hda-codec-realtek snd-hda-codec-hdmi snd-hda-intel snd-hda-codec snd-hwdep snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-timer).
Loading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hda-codec-realtek snd-hda-codec-hdmi snd-hda-intel snd-hda-codec snd-hwdep snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-rawmidi snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-timer.
I wonder if those failed processes have something to do with the issue.
EDIT 2:
Working with Alsamixer I was able to solve the main problem: now the speakers work.
Still wondering about the other issues though.
sudo killall pulseaudio
thensudo alsa force-reload
and see if that helps. Sometimes,sudo service pulseaudio stop; sudo alsa force-reload; sudo service pulseaudio start
does the trick as well