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Re: Audio - Dummy Output, except for root





On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 10:57 AM, Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
On Mon 25 Jun 2018 at 09:58:29 -0500, Kent West wrote:

> I recently dist-upgraded my Buster/Sid box, and lost:
>  - networking temporarily (got it back, but not exactly sure how)
>  -video (black screen; no obvious local terminal response, but could ssh
> in; it's an NVidia bug apparently, worked around with
> "slab_common.usercopy_fallback=y" added to kernel parameters at start-up)
>  - audio as a normal user.
>
> So I've fixed the first two issues, but still have no audio when I log into
> X as a normal user (or at least as my normal user; now that I think about
> it, I'll try as a different normal user as soon as I get this email sent
> off).
>
> In both X11/Cinnamon and X11/Plasma Desktop, the audio button on the panel
> shows "Dummy Output" as the audio device when I log into X as my normal
> user. I added my user to the "audio" group and logged out/in and tried
> again; no change.
>
> I then Ctrl-Alt-F1'd to TT1, logged in as root, "systemctl stop sddm", and
> "startx &" as root, and the DM was a simpler DM (maybe XFCE? maybe LXDE? it
> wasn't obvious, at least to me), and there was not volume control on any
> panel, so I just fired up Audacity and played a .m4v file, and audio worked
> successfully.
>
> So audio works for root, but not for my normal user (even after being added
> to the "audio" group).
>
> Any ideas/suggestions?

A user being in the audio group is made redundant by systemd installing
udev rules (/lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules) and systemd-logind adding
a locally loggedin user to the ACLs for the corresponding devices.


I read in another place that adding a user to "audio" is a bad idea, because it doesn't really fix anything, and has the potential to break things. Accordingly, I've removed my user from "audio".


In tinkering further, I find that when I run "alsamixer" from my normal user account, it shows my card and chip to be "PulseAudio", and if I press F6 to "Select sound card", I get an option of "- default" (where it's set), "0 HDA Intel PCH", and "1 HDA NVidia". If I run "alsamixer" from my root account, it shows my card and chip to be "HDA Intel PCH" and "Realtek ALC269VB".

I suspect I'm on the trail to fixing my problem, but I can't figure out how to change my default sound card. I can change it in alsamixer, but as soon as I get out of alsamixer and then go back in, it's back to "- default".



--
Kent West                    <")))><
Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com

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