[KDE] Occasionally no audio

[CanyonRoss]

Hi,

Sometimes when I boot up my laptop there is no audio. Rebooting it sometimes fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. Usually after 5 or 6 reboots or shutdowns it seems to work, but not always. It works most of the time but it's happened a few times in the last week or two. I'm using KDE and current kernel is 5.4.0.73-generic, but this has actually been an ongoing problem for quite some time now.

Any thoughts? Just seems strange it is so intermittent.

Thanks in advance.

[don@robertson.net.nz]

Pulse audio is a pita. It just stops for no reason at all. For some reason, it fails to detect the sound card and all you get is 'Dummy Output'. There is a way to fix it but I don't remember what it is at the moment.

Pulse audio has always been a pain, and the developers just go on about how technically amazing it is.

Anyway - I don't have audio at the moment either and don't have time to reboot five or six times.

[oshunluvr]

Do you have more than one audio output? At least here, what I get is after a reboot it seems to randomly pick an audio output - and usually the wrong one. Plasma is still pretty bad at restoring an audio and video configuration. In my case I have two HDMI ports in use, a built-in sound card, and the simulated "simultaneous output". Only one of the HDMI connections has speakers and it almost always chooses the other HDMI or the internal sound card. The stupid thing is, if it were to stick with the "simultaneous output" option it would work every time.

[jglen490]

Sorry guys, but sound works great here. Pulse audio, and everything.

@CanyonRoss, it would be good to know some thing about your hardware.

inxi -Fxxxz

will give a good starting point for that picture.

[CanyonRoss]

System: Kernel: 5.4.0-73-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.5
tk: Qt 5.12.8 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Alienware product: Alienware 15 R2 v: 1.6.1 serial: <filter> Chassis:
type: 10 serial: <filter>
Mobo: Alienware model: 04YD28 v: A00 serial: <filter> UEFI: Alienware v: 1.6.1
date: 07/17/2018
Battery: ID-1: BAT1 charge: 77.2 Wh condition: 87.6/96.5 Wh (91%) volts: 16.7/14.4
model: COMPAL PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Charging
CPU: Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-6700HQ bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake-S rev: 3
L2 cache: 6144 KiB
flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 41599
Speed: 954 MHz min/max: 800/3500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 991 2: 942 3: 972 4: 942 5: 998
6: 981 7: 998 8: 997
Graphics: Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0
chip ID: 8086:191b
Device-2: NVIDIA GM204M [GeForce GTX 980M] vendor: Dell driver: nouveau v: kernel
bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:13d7
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 530 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 direct render: Yes
Audio: Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a170
Device-2: NVIDIA GM204 High Definition Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 10de:0fbb
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-73-generic
Network: Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet driver: alx v: kernel port: d000
bus ID: 3b:00.0 chip ID: 1969:e0a1
IF: enp59s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Bigfoot Networks driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel port: d000 bus ID: 3c:00.0
chip ID: 168c:003e
IF: wlp60s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 1-5:3 chip ID: 0cf3:e300
IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A
Drives: Local Storage: total: 704.24 GiB used: 244.93 GiB (34.8%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: PM951 NVMe 256GB size: 238.47 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s
lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: BXV77D0Q scheme: GPT
ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 840 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
serial: <filter> rev: BB6Q scheme: GPT
Partition: ID-1: / size: 38.20 GiB used: 20.96 GiB (54.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4
ID-2: /home size: 54.31 GiB used: 4.24 GiB (7.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
ID-3: swap-1 size: 9.31 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda7
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 51.5 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 38 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 251 Uptime: 1h 24m Memory: 15.51 GiB used: 1.94 GiB (12.5%) Init: systemd v: 245
runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: N/A Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: konsole inxi: 3.0.38

[CanyonRoss]

Thanks guys. I hope the above provides some useful information.

[exter]

I have a similar problem with a Soundblaster audio card both in Kubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10. In my case it's a motherboard issue not detecting on time during boot the audio card.