LMDE ALSA bug

[HTD]

Excuse me editing this post the third time.

I've made some changes with alsamixer (changed microphone input from front mic to rear mic). It worked.
My change is lost after reboot. Why?

There is a file: /etc/init.d/alsa-utils which should be executed on each startup, shutdown and reboot, am I right?

I've checked this file - it should save ALSA settings and restore them on each reboot.
And this is exactly what it does - when executed manually.

I check my microphone input after reboot - "front mic" - wrong.
Now the unexplainable part: I type "sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils start" in terminal. Input switches to "rear mic".

Why do I have to execute this file manually? What's wrong with this?

[richyrich]

Not able to determine what version or flavour of Mint you are running . . but most are using PulseAudio . . not ALSA

[HTD]

It's LMDE, x64.
I thought PulseAudio uses ALSA somehow. However - alsamixer works, GNOME alsamixer works too. Alsamixer is the only way to switch input to rear microphone. The problem is - its settings are not restored on reboot. I see ALSA starts on reboot (there is a message "Starting ALSA" or something like this), but the microphone setting is not restored. It IS restored when I run

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sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils start

. I don't know - is this script ignored on reboot, or it's run, but too early or with wrong param? (It accepts card name).

[richyrich]

Any Pulse Audio controls in your Gnome Control Center ?

Anything autostarting or running that starts with "pau" ?

[HTD]

Yes, there are Pulse Audio Preferences and Sound icons. The only Pulse Audio process running is "pulseaudio". No process with name starting with "pau".
Skype uses Pulse Audio (nothing else is selectable in its audio preferences).
In Audacious I can select Pulse Audio and ALSA plugins, they both produce exactly the same sound.

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pulseaudio -k
pulseaudio -D


makes change to sound volume (it's louder) and changes sound preferences look (I get mixer instead of ordinary panel) - I mean this shown after right clicking on speaker icon.
I have no other problems with sound. 2 soundcards (internal and PCI) work properly. The only problem is the setting I made with alsamixer is not restored on reboot, but can be restored by running

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sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils start

from terminal.

I've tried following:

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sudo ln -sf ../init.d/alsa-utils /etc/rc5.d/S20alsa-utils
sudo update-rc.d alsa-utils defaults


which should run this script every start just before pulseaudio, but no joy.

I don't understand update-rc.d well. I guess messing with it was not a good idea, so I reverted it to previous state. The problem remains - if I want to have working microphone in skype - I have to run alsa-utils manually once each reboot.

PS:
Previously I got alsactl permission errors on alsa-utils start (alsactl restore), now I get alsactl permission error on alsa-utils stop (alsactl store).

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$ /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart
Shutting down ALSA...warning: 'alsactl store' failed with error message 'alsactl: save_state:1532: Cannot open /var/lib/alsa/asound.state for writing: Permission denied'...failed.
Setting up ALSA...done.


It's important the settings are stored and restored properly regardless of those errors. What's interesting:

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$ sudo cat /var/log/boot | grep ALSA
Sat Jul  2 23:47:05 2011: Setting up ALSA...done.


No errors here. Ever.

Could I have broken it with running alsactl store / restore manualy as root? I did it the first time I used alsamixer and got an error message (about permissions denied), but it worked (I tried changing the setting and restoring state - errors present, but state restored).

PS2:
WAIT. I said restarting pulseaudio daemon changes sound volume AND alsa-utils looks like started each reboot BEFORE pulseaudio. Maybe this is the answer? Maybe pulseaudio overwrites properly restored alsa mixer settings? How could I check it? alsautils script is present only in /etc/rc0.s, /etc/rc1.s and /etc/rc6.s. pulseaudio is in 2, 3, 4 and 5. It seems wrong somehow.

PS3:
Reboot (no error messages during shutdown and start).
Microphone dead.

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$ sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils start
Setting up ALSA...warning: 'alsactl restore' failed with error message 'alsactl: set_control:1388: Cannot write control '2:0:0:IEC958 Playback Default:0' : Operation not permitted
alsactl: set_control:1388: Cannot write control '2:0:0:IEC958 Playback Switch:0' : Operation not permitted'...amixer: Invalid command!
done.


Microphone ok.

[ukbrian]

I think "pavucontrol" is the command but that's the one you can access from skype>options
The one that might sort it for you is "gnome-volume-control" in the terminal and set the input tab to your mic.

[HTD]

Both commands work and give the two panels I wrote about.
None of them provides microphone selection. (In Ubuntu - gnome-volume-control allows to select the microphone, in LMDE - it doesn't - I have only "Microphone" instead of "Front Mic" and "Rear Mic").
The only way I can change my default microphone input is alsamixer (not GUI, only console one has this option).

[rarsa]

Did you find a way to restore the alsa settings on boot?

I don't mind remembering to do it myself but I think it is too much to ask from other people that also use this computer.

[on4aa]

The problem has been solved here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=197&t=103479