Kernel update breaks audio

[4x6gp]

LMDE 5 Cinnamon
After the Dec. 18 update to kernel 5.10.158-2, I had the following problem:
playing Youtube video, audio was functional until I paused the video. When restarting after a few minutes, there was no sound -- either from the video or from other applications, including the test audio function in the sound settings. Logging off and on again did not help, but rebooting restored audio, until I paused a video again. Then the problem recurred. This happened with Firefox and Brave browsers. Falling back to kernel 5.10.149-2 solved the problem.

[ajgreeny]

Are you certain it's the kernel that is causing this?
Try booting into the previous kernel from your grub menu at boot up to check if sound runs properly using that.

[4x6gp]

Are you certain it's the kernel that is causing this?
Try booting into the previous kernel from your grub menu at boot up to check if sound runs properly using that.

Yes, I have done this several times. The problem always exists with the new kernel and never with the old one.
The simplest test is this:
1. play a youtube video and pause it.
2. switch to twitter and try to play a tweet with audio.
With the new kernel (5.10.0-20-amd64) there will be no sound in any application after this point, including the test audio function in the sound settings application. Rebooting restores the sound, until I pause a video (etc.) The problem does not occur when I boot 5.10.0-19-amd64.
The computer is a ThinkPad E15 Gen 2. Audio device is
Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Lenovo
driver: sof-audio-pci bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a0c8
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-19-amd64 or ALSA v: k5.10.0-20-amd64 corresponding to kernel that is booted.

[ajgreeny]

Thanks for the info but I don't think I can help any further with your specific proble.
I do use Debian Unstable (ie, what will become Debian 12) but I don't have LMDE to check your problem.

All I can suggest at present is to stick with your current "good" kernel and not use the problem version, but wait until the next new version turns up to see i fthat works as it should.

[Demmers]

When using 158-2, run this command when playing audio and reply back with what it shows.

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pacmd list-sink-inputs | grep -e 'sample spec:' -e 'resample method:' -e 'application\.name'

It displays the current sample rate and what application is playing it.
For example,

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pacmd list-sink-inputs | grep -e 'sample spec:' -e 'resample method:' -e 'application\.name'
	sample spec: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
	resample method: copy
		application.name = "Firefox"

It's not exactly related to your issue, I'm just curious to see if it detects anything even if you can't hear anything.
Also run this

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pactl info

It displays the pulseaudio version/status. Here's mine for example.

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pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 34
Server Protocol Version: 34
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 20
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: chris
Host Name: lmde
Server Name: pulseaudio
Server Version: 14.2
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.usb-Topping_D10s-00.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_output.usb-Topping_D10s-00.analog-stereo.monitor
Cookie: b64a:c427

[4x6gp]

victor@kasha:~ $ pacmd list-sink-inputs | grep -e 'sample spec:' -e 'resample method:' -e 'application\.name'
sample spec: float32le 2ch 44100Hz
resample method: speex-float-1
application.name = "Brave"

victor@kasha:~ $ pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 34
Server Protocol Version: 34
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 19
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: victor
Host Name: kasha
Server Name: pulseaudio
Server Version: 14.2
Default Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic.HiFi__hw_sofhdadsp__sink
Default Source: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic.HiFi__hw_sofhdadsp_6__source
Cookie: 33f0:a105

[Demmers]

OK, all looks normal there.
This part intrigues me though.

The simplest test is this:
1. play a youtube video and pause it.
2. switch to twitter and try to play a tweet with audio.

Is that in the same browser using multiple tabs, or are you switching browsers for each website?
The audio chain in linux is: application/s > pulseaudio > kernel + ALSA > hardware
ALSA can only send one application at a time to the hardware, in this case pulseaudio. However, pulseaudio can feed multiple sound sources to ALSA all at once. Sounds like either pulseaudio is broken somewhere, or the connection from pulseaudio to ALSA drops every time sound is paused (which I find hard to believe). Have you previously played with the pulseaudio config file (etc/pulse/daemon.conf) before installing the newer kernel?

[4x6gp]

The simplest test is this:
1. play a youtube video and pause it.
2. switch to twitter and try to play a tweet with audio.

Is that in the same browser using multiple tabs, or are you switching browsers for each website?
The audio chain in linux is: application/s > pulseaudio > kernel + ALSA > hardware
ALSA can only send one application at a time to the hardware, in this case pulseaudio. However, pulseaudio can feed multiple sound sources to ALSA all at once. Sounds like either pulseaudio is broken somewhere, or the connection from pulseaudio to ALSA drops every time sound is paused (which I find hard to believe). Have you previously played with the pulseaudio config file (etc/pulse/daemon.conf) before installing the newer kernel?

It doesn't matter whether I do it with multiple tabs or multiple browsers. In fact, the first time it occurred, I had paused a youtube video and did something not related to sound for a few minutes. When I went back to the video, it was silent.
I haven't changed /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and it seems to be all commented out. Here it is showing the defaults:

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; daemonize = no
; fail = yes
; allow-module-loading = yes
; allow-exit = yes
; use-pid-file = yes
; system-instance = no
; local-server-type = user
; enable-shm = yes
; enable-memfd = yes
; shm-size-bytes = 0 # setting this 0 will use the system-default, usually 64 MiB
; lock-memory = no
; cpu-limit = no

; high-priority = yes
; nice-level = -11

; realtime-scheduling = yes
; realtime-priority = 5

; exit-idle-time = 20
; scache-idle-time = 20

; dl-search-path = (depends on architecture)

; load-default-script-file = yes
; default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa

; log-target = auto
; log-level = notice
; log-meta = no
; log-time = no
; log-backtrace = 0

; resample-method = speex-float-1
; avoid-resampling = false
; enable-remixing = yes
; remixing-use-all-sink-channels = yes
; remixing-produce-lfe = no
; remixing-consume-lfe = no
; lfe-crossover-freq = 0

; flat-volumes = no

; rescue-streams = yes

; rlimit-fsize = -1
; rlimit-data = -1
; rlimit-stack = -1
; rlimit-core = -1
; rlimit-as = -1
; rlimit-rss = -1
; rlimit-nproc = -1
; rlimit-nofile = 256
; rlimit-memlock = -1
; rlimit-locks = -1
; rlimit-sigpending = -1
; rlimit-msgqueue = -1
; rlimit-nice = 31
; rlimit-rtprio = 9
; rlimit-rttime = 200000

; default-sample-format = s16le
; default-sample-rate = 44100
; alternate-sample-rate = 48000
; default-sample-channels = 2
; default-channel-map = front-left,front-right

; default-fragments = 4
; default-fragment-size-msec = 25

; enable-deferred-volume = yes
; deferred-volume-safety-margin-usec = 8000
; deferred-volume-extra-delay-usec = 0