Microphone Randomly Fails

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EnlightenedBacon
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Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:37 am

Microphone Randomly Fails

Post by EnlightenedBacon »

Hey all. I've been on and off using Linux on my desktop since the 90s, but I'm all in now on Mint, fleeing Windows 11 and proprietary software for good. So far everything has been working well, or easy to fix, except for one...

I got myself a Logitech USB webcam recently and it worked immediately on being plugged in, no issues. Today I went to use it and the video worked, but the mic wasn't picking up any sound. I checked in the Sound settings and could see that it wasn't on mute, but the bar wasn't moving when I made any noise. I checked my old mic and it was working fine, but the new one wasn't.

I checked in aslamixer and the mic was there and volume was max. I tried unplugging it and replugging without result, then rebooted and still didn't work. The I unplugged, waited a minute and plugged back in and it worked.

I used it for an hour, then stopped for about two hours and when I went back to do another recording, no sound again. This time unplugging and replugging several times hasn't helped. It still disappears from alsamixer and the Sound GUI tool when I unplug it and shows up again when I plug it in again, and I can mute and unmute it... just doesn't work.

Any ideas?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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EnlightenedBacon
Level 1
Level 1
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:37 am

Re: Microphone Randomly Fails

Post by EnlightenedBacon »

Just an update, I haven't made any more changes, but now the mic won't even work after replugging it. I have the exact same problem as all these guys here:
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php ... 936&page=2

I find forum threads all over with this issue.

The mic even shows as running in pacmd when a application is trying to use it, just... nothing. And the mic definitely worked a few times on this system, and works still on a Windows system I tried, so not a HW fault.

Update:
I tried plugging it into several different USB ports and one randomly worked..... for now..........

MORE UPDATE!:
The webcam shows up with two different inputs, digital and analog. If I mute the analog input, then un-mute it, it doesn't work. The easy way to tell is the bar that shows input when working normally has about one inch of an orange line and moves a bit with background noise. Once muted and unmuted, there's no orange at all. If I unplug it and put it into a different USB port, it works again. Then mute again and unmute, broken, plug back into the original port, working.

So somehow muting the microphone permanently disables something. I do have suspend on idle for audio devices disabled though.

EVEN MORE UPDATE:
Okay that's definitely the situation. So it is working now, but that's a strange bug. Anyone got any idea why muting a source would do that?
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