Re: Can't get sound to work

[Frédéric Marchal <frederic.marchal@wowtechnology.com>]

On Thursday 15 January 2015 21:28:30, Robert Latest wrote :
> Hi all,
> 
> this is my umptieth Debian installation I've done on various PCs over
> the years, but this time the sound setup really has me stumped. I can't
> hear anything unless I use aplay with -D hw:0,0 but setting that in the
> configuration file doesn't help. No other sound-outputting program
> works. Here's a shell excerpt:
> 
> bl@dotcom:~$ aplay test.wav           # can't hear nothing
> bl@dotcom:~$ aplay -D hw:0,0 test.wav # this plays sound
> bl@dotcom:~$ cat .asoundrc
> cat: .asoundrc: No such file or directory
> bl@dotcom:~$ cat /etc/asound.conf
> pcm.!default {
>         type hw
>         card 0
>         device 0
> }
> bl@dotcom:~$ aplay -l
> **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1984 Analog [AD1984 Analog]
>   Subdevices: 1/1
>   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD1984 Alt Analog [AD1984 Alt
> Analog]
>   Subdevices: 1/1
>   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> bl@dotcom:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
>  0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
>                       HDA Intel at 0xfe9dc000 irq 45
> bl@dotcom:~$

Sound has been missing on my wheezy for some time until your mail prompted me 
to investigate it.

Running aplay test.wav produces no sound.

The output of aplay -l is:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI_1 [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI_1 [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI_1 [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: 92HD91BXX Analog [92HD91BXX Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Running aplay -D hw:1,0 test.wav reports an error and produces no sound:

Playing WAVE 'test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 11025 Hz, Mono
aplay: set_params:1087: Channels count non available

But sound started to work fine after I edited $HOME/.asoundrc like this:

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm "hw:1,0"
  }
}
ctl.!default {
  type hw
  card 1
} 

The symptoms are not the same as yours. aplay doesn't play sound when I select 
the PCM device on the command line. But, with audacity, if I explicitly select 
ALSA as output and device hw:1,0, sound comes out. So, I may have another 
problem that prevents aplay from running when the PCM device is specified and 
the above solution may still help you.

BTW, I have pulseaudio installed in case it matters.

Frederic