[SOLVED] Volume always muted when system is booted

[Snowhog]

It's a minor annoyance only, but every time I boot up my laptop, the System Volume is muted. I can set the volume from the System Tray, but it won't survive a reboot. Thoughts?

[jlittle]

A root owned file or directory? On my Eoan,

$ touch ts
$ # change the audio volume...
$ find .config -newer ts
.config/pulse/a112c35e9614496caa1b3e9cdf66b7f5-device-volumes.tdb

is where the the volume is saved, you might check around there. .tdb files, "trivial database", are some awful (IMO) samba format that pulseaudio uses.

[Snowhog]

Not an ownership problem. All the files in .config/pulse are owned by me, and all have rw attributes.

[GreyGeek]

Have you tried to use alsamixer?

Execute:
sudo alsactl store Set your volume levels and other levels, then hit ESC
This should save alsamixer configurations to /etc/asound.state which gets loaded every startup.

Another option is using "sudo alsactl store" after setting your sound volumes in the system tray.

DISCLAIMER: Some advise against using alsamixer when pulseaudio is installed. It hasn't given my setup any problems. But, if that were the case then why the following:

/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-aux.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-dock-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-fm.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-front-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-headphone-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-headset-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-internal-mic-always.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-internal-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-linein.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-mic-line.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-mic.conf.common
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-rear-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-tvtuner.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-video.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input.conf.common
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-headphones-2.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-headphones.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-lineout.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-mono.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker-always.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output.conf.common
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-0.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-1.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-2.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-3.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-4.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-5.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-6.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/hdmi-output-7.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/iec958-stereo-input.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/iec958-stereo-output.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/steelseries-arctis-output-chat-common.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/steelseries-arctis-output-game-common.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/usb-gaming-headset-input.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/usb-gaming-headset-output-mono.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/usb-gaming-headset-output-stereo.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/cmedia-high-speed-true-hdaudio.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/default.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/dell-dock-tb16-usb-audio.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/force-speaker-and-int-mic.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/force-speaker.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/kinect-audio.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/maudio-fasttrack-pro.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-audio4dj.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-audio8dj.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-korecontroller.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-traktor-audio10.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-traktor-audio2.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-traktor-audio6.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/native-instruments-traktorkontrol-s4.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/sb-omni-surround-5.1.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/steelseries-arctis-common-usb-audio.conf
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/usb-gaming-headset.conf

AND:

/usr/lib/systemd/system/alsa-restore.service
/usr/lib/systemd/system/sound.target.wants/alsa-restore.service

The alsa-restore.service contains:

$ cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/alsa-restore.service 
#
# Note that two different ALSA card state management schemes exist and they
# can be switched using a file exist check - /etc/alsa/state-daemon.conf .
#

[Unit]
Description=Save/Restore Sound Card State
Documentation=man:alsactl(1)
ConditionPathExists=!/etc/alsa/state-daemon.conf
ConditionPathExistsGlob=/dev/snd/control*
After=alsa-state.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=true
ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir -p /run/alsa
ExecStart=-/usr/sbin/alsactl -E HOME=/run/alsa -E XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/alsa/runtime restore
ExecStop=-/usr/sbin/alsactl -E HOME=/run/alsa -E XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/alsa/runtime store

which uses alsactl.

I checked my alsa-restore.service status and was shown this:

$ sudo systemctl status alsa-restore.service
[sudo] password for jerry: 
● alsa-restore.service - Save/Restore Sound Card State
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/alsa-restore.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (exited) since Fri 2020-03-20 11:29:00 CDT; 1h 5min ago
       Docs: man:alsactl(1)
    Process: 916 ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir -p /run/alsa (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 973 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/alsactl -E HOME=/run/alsa -E XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/alsa/runtime>
   Main PID: 973 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Mar 20 11:29:00 Aspire-V3-771 systemd[1]: Starting Save/Restore Sound Card State...
Mar 20 11:29:00 Aspire-V3-771 systemd[1]: Started Save/Restore Sound Card State.

[jlittle]

If Greygeek's suggestions don't help, a workaround could be to set the volume in a startup script.

$ pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ 32768

sets the default volume to 50%, 32768 being 50% of 65536.

[Snowhog]

So, attempting to run sudo alsactl store resulting in:

sudo: alsactl: command not found

Seems that alsa-utils needs to be installed. So, I installed it.

sudo alsactl store then executes; at least, it doesn't present the error; I'm returned to the prompt.

With alsa-utils or without, I still don't have even notification sounds (Configure Notifications - System Settings Module). None of the events that are 'active' play the specified .ogg file. What is interesting, is that if I right-click on the speaker icon in the System Tray and click on Configure Audio Volume... and click on Audio > Advanced and click on Front Left or Front Right, I hear "Front left" and "Front right", so obviously sound functions.

Also of note: After installing alsa-utils and rebooting (ensuring that the volume was not zero (System Tray > Audio Volume), rebooting resulted in the volume not being muted; it retained the volume setting. This was true even after I purged alsa-utils and rebooted.

[Snowhog]

This issue is now 'Solved'. Not sure if it was the installation of alsa-utils (installed it; purged it; installed it again), or following the guidance found here. What ever. alsa-utils is installed, and I followed that links guidance and added options snd-hda-intel model=generic to the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. A reboot and I have system notification sounds.