Re: Audigy soundcard silent after upgrade to Ubuntu Studio

David Morrell <dsmorrell56@xxxxxxxxxxx> · Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:28:24 +1100

frank pirrone wrote:
> David,
>
> Here's my /var/lib/alsa/asound.state file.  You can try moving yours 
> aside by renaming it, and dropping this in to see if it makes any 
> difference.  I have the Audigy2 card in this ArtistX/Ubuntu 9.10 Dell 
> Workstation, and it is fully functional.

Amazing! Eureka etc. Thanks very much indeed, Frank. I've put about 15 
hours into this problem and you've solved it. Now the question is, how 
did a bad asound.state file get created as a default during 
installation? Does anyone know where I should go to alert someone who 
can look at this?

Here is a comparison of the good and bad asound.state files.

The replacement asound.state file has 227 controls vs 216 for the oroginal.

The following 14 switch controls existed only in the good file.

The Master Playback Switch only existed in the good file. If it exists 
on the sound card and is muted by default, there would be no sound output.

There are 3 possible duplicated controls.

control.1 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Front Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.2 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Surround Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true
}
control.3 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Center Playback Switch'
value true
}
control.4 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'LFE Playback Switch'
value true
}

control.5 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Side Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.7 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'CD Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.9 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Line Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.11 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Mic Playback Switch'
value.0 false
value.1 false

control.12 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Front Mic Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.13 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Headphone Playback Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.15 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Capture Switch'
value.0 true
value.1 true

control.20 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'IEC958 Playback Switch'
value false

control.21 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'IEC958 Default PCM Playback Switch'
value true

control.22 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Master Playback Switch'
value true

-----------------

The following controls existed in both files.

Bad file, Good file
Control 29 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'Tone Control - Switch'
value.0 false
value.1 falseiface MIXER

Bad file, Good file
control.31 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 2
iface MIXER
name 'IEC958 Optical Raw Playback Switch'
value.0 false
value.1 false

Bad file, Good file NB also see control 13, an apparent duplicate
control.35 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'Headphone Playback Switch'
value true

Bad file, Good file
control.39 {
comment.access 'read write'
comment.type BOOLEAN
comment.count 1
iface MIXER
name 'PC Speaker Playback Switch'
value true

Bad file, Good file
control.41 {There is a file that describes the state of the sound card 
in /var/lib/alsa/asound.state. When the original (bad) version was 
replaced with one from a working Audigy2 sound cared (good version) the 
card started working.