[SOLVED] HDMI Digital Output Turned to Analog Stereo or Mono only

[Todd Sauve]

Hi all,

The title says it all. After installing Mint 19.1 (Cinnamon) I had multichannel HDMI digital output with Stereo, 5.1 and 7.1 options. But now after a few days the HDMI in Sound Output lists only Analog Stereo or Mono Output. No Digital or 5.1 or 7.1 Output. This is on my MSI Nvidia GTX 770 video card. I have updated the driver from the default Xserver driver to the Nvidia 390 driver using Driver Manager. But even if I go back to the Xserver driver none of the HDMI Digital options appear--only the Analog Stereo and Mono.

It sounds ok, but using the Test Speakers option, the sound only comes put of the Left Front and Right Rear channels, all the others including the Subwoofer are silent. I don't have a Centre Speaker but only a sub, two front and two rear speakers, which are all outputting sound currently. My video card is plugged into my Onkyo HT-RC 160 AVR, so it must be receiving digital signals from the HDMI port of my video card. In fact, I've never ever seen an Analog Stereo or Mono option in the Mint Sound Output app. It all works properly in Win 10, so it must be something in Mint 19.1.

Is this a common Nvidia driver problem or do you folks think it is a Pulse Audio problem?

I don't know what to do. Any ideas are welcome!

[MrEen]

Hi Todd Sauve.

Instead of using Cinnamon's Sound Whatchamacallit, try PulseAudio Volume Control (pavucontrol.)

Select you're preferred setup on the Configuration tab, then set the HDMI option on the Output Devices tab.

If the Configuration tab doesn't have the HDMI options you expect to see, paste back the output of running inxi -Fxz and aplay -l in the terminal.

Good luck.

[Todd Sauve]

OK, your PulseAudio Configuration tab suggestion allowed me to get my digital output back in System Settings Sound! Thank you.

To keep things simpler I decided to just set the Output to Digital Stereo and let my Onkyo AVR play it back in Dolby ProLogic II surround. It may be that because the driver didn't detect a centre channel it decided to set it to analog stereo. Or maybe not. I find it better to keep things as simple as possible in Mint.

Here is the second command line's output:

todd@todd-All-Series:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 10: HDMI 4 [HDMI 4]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC892 Analog [ALC892 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC892 Digital [ALC892 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350]], device 0: emu10k1 [ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback]
Subdevices: 32/32
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
Subdevice #8: subdevice #8
Subdevice #9: subdevice #9
Subdevice #10: subdevice #10
Subdevice #11: subdevice #11
Subdevice #12: subdevice #12
Subdevice #13: subdevice #13
Subdevice #14: subdevice #14
Subdevice #15: subdevice #15
Subdevice #16: subdevice #16
Subdevice #17: subdevice #17
Subdevice #18: subdevice #18
Subdevice #19: subdevice #19
Subdevice #20: subdevice #20
Subdevice #21: subdevice #21
Subdevice #22: subdevice #22
Subdevice #23: subdevice #23
Subdevice #24: subdevice #24
Subdevice #25: subdevice #25
Subdevice #26: subdevice #26
Subdevice #27: subdevice #27
Subdevice #28: subdevice #28
Subdevice #29: subdevice #29
Subdevice #30: subdevice #30
Subdevice #31: subdevice #31
card 3: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350]], device 2: emu10k1 efx [Multichannel Capture/PT Playback]
Subdevices: 8/8
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 3: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350]], device 3: emu10k1 [Multichannel Playback]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Audigy2 [SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350]], device 4: p16v [p16v]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
todd@todd-All-Series:~$

[MrEen]

You're welcome, Todd Sauve.

That's some serious sound kit you have there! You'll probably find (especially with all that gear) that pavucontrol is a much better choice for audio config than the default app.

[Todd Sauve]

Yes, there are more than a few options in this PC, which is a collection of stuff that goes back at least 15 years! The Intel i7 4770K has onboard audio, the Asus Z87 Plus motherboard has onboard RealTek audio, the Nvidia 770 has onboard audio and the Creative Audigy2 ZS Platinum has a hoard of options, too!

It's all too much to keep track of, in reality ...