<SOLVED> USB soundcard suddenly stopped working - Mint 19 Cinnamon

[cowardlybattlecat]

Hello, all,

I recently installed linux Mint 19 on my system (it has Windows 10 on a different disk as well)

My sound had been working and then exactly this occurred:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2263276

My experience matches that of the first two posts in that thread precisely.

I went to see about making the max volume louder somehow (everything works fine and at higher volume in Windows). When I quickly clicked on one of the other output options, the ability to select my headphones disappeared from the sound settings panel.

When I opened alsamixer in terminal, I was able to press F6 to see the list of sound cards, including mine as sound card 2. Selecting it closes alsamixer and gives the following in terminal:

cannot load mixer controls: Invalid argument

I installed qasmixer based on a suggestion found online. When I select "hw: card" from mixer device then my card from the list, qasmixer gives me:

"
Mixer device couldn't be opened
Function: snd_mixer_load
Address: hw:CARD=2
Error: Invalid argument
"

Details:
headphones are Steelseries Siberia 650, which come with their own external sound card (these: https://steelseries.com/gaming-headsets/siberia-650 )

Seems like my system recognizes the card/headphones are there, but something is missing/got deleted such that alsamixer/qasmixer/sound settings can't select the sound card. The sound continues to function normally when I boot into Windows, so it does not appear to be a hardware problem.

I'm pretty confused and not certain how to fix it. I have tried quite a few things, so I'm not certain which methods to describe here. The people in the thread I linked described my issue exactly, but the thread is from 2015 and closed.

I wasn't certain if I should post this under "hardware support" or "sound, multimedia, and codecs" so I chose sound. Please let me know if that's the wrong spot.

when I run inxi -Fxz I get the following output:

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System:    Host: cowbatcat-System-Product-Name Kernel: 4.15.0-33-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.8 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1) Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: ROG ZENITH EXTREME v: Rev 1.xx serial: N/A
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1402 date: 08/03/2018
CPU:       16 core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X (-MT-MCP-) arch: Zen rev.1 cache: 8192 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 108585
           clock speeds: max: 3400 MHz 1: 2125 MHz 2: 2192 MHz 3: 2152 MHz 4: 2195 MHz 5: 2128 MHz 6: 1963 MHz
           7: 1987 MHz 8: 1889 MHz 9: 1886 MHz 10: 2078 MHz 11: 2104 MHz 12: 2151 MHz 13: 1889 MHz 14: 1888 MHz
           15: 1891 MHz 16: 2007 MHz 17: 2191 MHz 18: 2111 MHz 19: 2186 MHz 20: 2019 MHz 21: 2170 MHz
           22: 1994 MHz 23: 2028 MHz 24: 2138 MHz 25: 1955 MHz 26: 1985 MHz 27: 1997 MHz 28: 1990 MHz
           29: 2122 MHz 30: 2117 MHz 31: 2174 MHz 32: 2032 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GP102 [GeForce GTX 1080 Ti] bus-ID: 41:00.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: nvidia (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
           Resolution: 3440x1440@99.99hz
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1080 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.48 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) HD Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 0b:00.3
           Card-2 NVIDIA GP102 HDMI Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 41:00.1
           Card-3 SteelSeries ApS driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 007-006
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-33-generic
Network:   Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath10k_pci bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Wilocity Wil6200 802.11ad Wireless Network Adapter driver: wil6210 bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: wlp4s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-3: Intel I211 Gigabit Network Connection driver: igb v: 5.4.0-k port: 1000 bus-ID: 05:00.0
           IF: enp5s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 3024.6GB (2.6% used)
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: Samsung_SSD_960_PRO_512GB size: 512.1GB
           ID-2: /dev/sda model: ST2000DX002 size: 2000.4GB
           ID-3: /dev/sdb model: LITEON_CV3 size: 256.1GB
           ID-4: /dev/sdc model: LITEON_CV3 size: 256.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 202G used: 43G (23%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 34.22GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 35.2C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:44C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info:      Processes: 465 Uptime: 48 min Memory: 4140.0/32084.9MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56

Running aplay -l yields:

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**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC1220 Analog [ALC1220 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 1: ALC1220 Digital [ALC1220 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Headset [SteelSeries SC2 USB Headset], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Any idea or help is greatly appreciated.

edit:
adding lsusb output since the sound card in question is usb (SteelSeries ApS on this list):

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Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 004: ID 04d9:0269 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 007 Device 003: ID 1532:0016 Razer USA, Ltd DeathAdder Mouse
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 1038:1216 SteelSeries ApS 
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1b1c:1c11 Corsair 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0b05:1868 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0b05:1867 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

[MrEen]

Hi cowardlybattlecat, and welcome to the forum.

Most likely, the config got messed up somehow. Try deleting the files in ~/.config/pulse/ then issue pulseaudio -k in the terminal and wait 10 seconds before testing.

If that doesn't fix it, install and run PulseAudio Volume Control (pavucontrol) and go to the Configuration tab all the way on the right. Find your device and make sure it is only set to Output. EDIT: Oops, you probably have a headset WITH mic. Probably want Duplex instead.

Hope that helps.

[cowardlybattlecat]

Hello, MrEen,

Thanks for your quick response. I deleted the files in ~/.config/pulse/ and issued pulseaudio -k as you suggested. That got the sound up and running again (my head phones are once again available as an output option in the sound settings) so I am going to mark the thread as solved!

I haven't yet tried using PulseAudio Volume Control since stuff is working atm, but it's good to know that's a thing to consider in the future.

Weirdly, it is still the case that neither alsamixer nor qasmixer is able to bring up settings for my soundcard even though it's now working (results from trying each of those is exactly what it was in my first comment of this thread). I was going to try the suggestions in this thread viewtopic.php?f=48&t=276587 to see if I could up the volume output, but I'll keep trying and post a new thread if I'm not successful.

I will edit if pavucontrol lets me do what I want.

Thank you for your help. I hope your day goes well.

[MrEen]

That's great that it was such an easy fix.

Regarding the sound level. I don't know why alsamixer/qasmixer is giving you that trouble, but pavucontrol is probably better anyway. On the Output Devices tab, you can raise the volume of each device up to 153% which should get to about the same as you got in Windows, maybe better.

[cowardlybattlecat]

I marked the thread as solved.

I went ahead and installed pavucontrol at your suggestion and it appears to let me configure the sound card (while the others continue to show the same errors). I've raised the output volume all the way and it's closer to where I'd like it to be. It also lets me raise the volume more on a per-application basis, so I'm getting much higher max volumes (although at the expense of having a lot more distortion from lower quality sources) and those changes don't appear to persist when the application stops producing sound.

A good fix to the original problem and a solid improvement in ability to raise sound output.

Thank you again for your help.

[glynne_andrew]

+1 for thanks on this issue - seems common. Agin happened when I adjusted sound to 150%