speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

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Samouk

speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

Post by Samouk »

I am back with another problem, just after few days.

It started like this. When my kid plays a youtube song, it works great, great beat (as much as youtube can be), everything is fine. Then, when he wants to listen to an interview on youtube, (somebody talking, i.e speech), the sound can't be heard. Spooky, eh! Actually, you could hear it, but so silent that it's barely audible. I didn't believe until I heard it myself.

Well, given the experience, I know how to test it: speaker-test -t wav -c 6 and this is what I get:

0 - Front Left - loud and clear, but on both sides, not only on the left
4 - Center - NOTHING, actually something barely audible
1 - Front Right - loud and clear, but on both sides, not only on the right
3 - Rear Right - very silent, barely audible, both sides
2 - Rear Left - very silent barely audible, both sides
5 - LFE - nothing.

You might want to know that Center worked few days ago, and Front Left was heard on the left earphone, and Front Right was heard on the right earphone not on both (and I doubt that the 9-year old kid messed up something).

I also found another command to test: aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav It actually produces a barely audible sound. Almost nothing.

Then, I ran hdajackretask (I wish I didn't) and checked the Override box below Green Line Out, Rear side, and selected Headphone, same thing - center doesn't play. When I select Override with Line out (Front) it doesn't even produce anything audible. Even worse, when I wanted to return to the way how it was, i.e. I un-checked Override box, it didn't work at all! Nothing at all! Which is worse than before. I think I "broke" something by doing this Override check-uncheck things. Even after rebooting the machine, it is still not working (I mean to get it work, every time I have to open hdajackretask, check Override box below Green Line Out, Rear side, and select Headphone, which is not really convenient).

One more thing, having some sort of fetish for headphone jacks, I figured out that if I unplug headphone jacks half-way it would work. And yes, it does work if I unplug half-way, but it's not a stable condition (if kid moves cable, he loses the sound, not to mention that he would have to open hdajackretask and do the Override thing every time when he logs in).

Is there a way to send the sound to the center too? And to return hdajackretask to how it was before?

I tried to find similar topic (searched for "speaker-test Center"), but didn't find my problem described, hence this post.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
kukamuumuka

Re: speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

Post by kukamuumuka »

See what Alsamixer can do.

Code: Select all

alsamixer
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MrEen
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Re: speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

Post by MrEen »

Hi again, Samouk. Here's what I would try.

First, run pavucontrol and make sure the Profile on the Configuration tab is set to Stereo, not Mono. I am guessing that's why Center was lost.

Next, as admininstrataalphabet ( :mrgreen: ) says, run alsamixer in the terminal and make sure the levels all look good. You may need to press F6 to change to the appropriate sound card. You change columns with the left and right arrows, change levels with up and down arrows, press m to toggle mute. Muted columns have MM at the bottom.

Last, if you're happy with what's happening after making a change in hdajackretask, click on Install boot override to make the change stick. If you want to undo what was done sometime previously, click on Remove boot override.

Good luck.
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Re: speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

Post by MrEen »

I should add, pulseaudio -k after deleting the files in ~/.config/pulse might be all it needed. You'd have to restart the browser after that.
Samouk

Re: speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

Post by Samouk »

In pavucontrol there is no Mono option, there is only Analog Stereo Duplex (and a bunch of Digital Surround, a Digital Stereo, and Analog Stereo Input, as well as Off). I wish there is Mono, as the kid wouldn't mind (he doesn't even know what is stereo and what is mono).

Then (surprise) I ran alsamixer. I swear I ran it yesterday, but I didn't document it, as I didn't touch anything there, every level there was fine. Yesterday, I opened, scrolled through options and closed it. The thing is - today when I opened it, I saw that speaker level was at 0. I increased it to max. It didn't fix it. Pressing F6 brings up three options:

Code: Select all

-  default
0  HDA Intel PCH
   Enter device name...
I tried every option (default seems to be same as HDA Intel PCH), I even opened enter device name..., which looked scary (it opened yet another option to put a device name, and there was a default option creatively called default) so I didn't mess with that. Anyway, everywhere, the headphones are to the max.

And last thing. I deleted all files in ~/.config/pulse and ran pulseaudio -k (which I read kills the PulseAudio daemon). After that, I ran speaker-test -t wav -c 6, and still, it's the same - Center doesn't play.

Anyway, I wouldn't be this anal to get it up and running (as I said, I have an agricultural solution to pull the jack slightly out), but I am sure it was running few days ago.

Yeah, regarding yesterday secondary problem (hdajackretask override thing that didn't go away), today, when I booted everything was OK (OK means I didn't have to override it manually, center is still silent). The only explanation is that Linux probably "forgot" about it overnight. As I said in my previous post, yesterday, when I rebooted it right away - actually I shut it down, waited for 30 seconds and then fired on - it didn't forget it).
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Re: speaker-test doesn't produce any sound on Center (... and more)

Post by MrEen »

The only other thing I can think of at the moment, is to check pavucontrols Output Devices tab, as well as the Playback tab when sound is playing and see if something needs changing in either of those places.

"agricultural solution" :lol:
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