Gaming Headset w/ Chat Mixer Not Working

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SnowblindOtter

Gaming Headset w/ Chat Mixer Not Working

Post by SnowblindOtter »

I'm running Cinnamon 16 off of a Toshiba Satellite C55-B laptop, this is dual-booted alongside Windows 10(I plan on removing Windows 10 in the future, but that's off-topic.)

The gaming headset I have is a Turtle Beach P-11 with an inline Microphone, Chat, and Gaming mixer that allows me to turn my microphone on and off, and adjust the volume of chat and gaming sounds independently of one another. I primarily use this headset when I'm using Discord to talk with friends, and for a while this was absolutely perfect with the Chat dial controlling only Discord's voice-call audio, and the Game dial handling everything else. Recently, however, this headset isn't functioning properly at all.
Only one of the separate dials at a time('Chat' and 'Gaming') controls all the audio on my laptop indiscriminately, both Discord's chat audio and the system audio including things like youtube videos and music from other programs. The other one seems to control other system sounds at random, or literally nothing at all. It depends on which of the output devices I have selected at any given time.

Linux is detecting the mic for my Turtle Beach, and so is Discord, however it isn't allowing any sound through it. Instead it's defaulting solely to the built-in microphones. Attempting to switch to the Turtle Beach microphone creates a new conundrum in that Discord no longer picks up audio from my microphone, but Linux itself is still picking up audio from only the built-in microphone and saying that it's the headset microphone. I know for a fact that the microphone still works, though, because when I reboot it will randomly detect the microphone and everything else will work just fine.

I've tried everything I could find or think of, but nobody seems to be asking the right question, and those who do have a question close enough to mine get answers that are completely worthless.
I have restarted Discord(fixed it twice, no longer works.)
I have quit Discord and all other applications, unplugged the headset, and plugged it back in. (Fixed it once, no longer works.)
I've done all of the above, and rebooted.(Does not work.)
I've done a cold boot.(Didn't work.)
I've done a boot-repair.(Didn't work)
I've used alsamixer to try and fix it(none of the answers featuring aslamixer explained what to do, so I don't know what to do beyond typing it in the terminal and hitting Enter.)
I've installed the Pulseaudio Volume Control.
I've completely removed Pulseaudio.(All that did was give me an error saying "failed to execute child process "cinnamon_settings", (no such file or directory))
I reinstalled Pulseaudio.(Same error as above.)

All of this started happening just after I had a major hiccup with my laptop. Linux completely froze last week(July 11th) and I had to kill the computer by holding down the main power button to force-quit the whole thing. Since then I've also had the entire file system go read-only once and had to reboot to fix that issue.

Please, I need help to fix this and figure out if this is a much bigger system error. I don't know much at all about Linux or how to fix pretty much anything in the terminal at all, so my last resort would be to either completely reinstall my distribution or make a new install image for a more recent version of Mint and completely start over after saving some important files, but I want to try and fix this before that needs to happen. I've had Linux running on this computer for 3 years now, and I've never had any problems like this before, so it's incredibly frustrating to say the least.
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.
phd21
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Re: Gaming Headset w/ Chat Mixer Not Working

Post by phd21 »

HI SnowblindOtter,

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Why are you using such an old version of Linux Mint? I would highly recommend updating to v17.3 (LTS 2019) or 18.3 (LTS 2021).

You can also try creating another user account (admin) and logging in with that to see if that works.

Hope this helps ...
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & KDE Neon 64-bit Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573, quad core i5-8250U ) 2 in 1 touch screen
SnowblindOtter

Re: Gaming Headset w/ Chat Mixer Not Working

Post by SnowblindOtter »

phd21 wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 12:22 pm HI SnowblindOtter,

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Why are you using such an old version of Linux Mint? I would highly recommend updating to v17.3 (LTS 2019) or 18.3 (LTS 2021).

You can also try creating another user account (admin) and logging in with that to see if that works.

Hope this helps ...
Unfortunately, before I could try your suggestions my problem exacerbated and went completely nuclear. Sadly my install is totally F.U.B.A.R. as I am now unable to log into my Linux partition. Trying to boot into USB from grub using

Code: Select all

grub> ls
Returns a "failure to read sector oexo in `hd1,1' " error, so I am suspecting a total file system corruption in the main configuration files, so I'm replying from my phone.

I am going to force a boot into my USB live disc through the Windows advance boot options and try to get what files I can backed up, then make a new live disc for either Mint 18 or 19 before wiping the partition with linux to do a new install.

The reason I was using such an old distribution is because I was fairly happy with it and wasn't given the option to upgrade through the software manager. I didn't have the technical experience ro do it without a full wipe and install like this, but it looks like it's 001-J for me now.
Hopefully I know enough about this to do it without having a stroke like the last time :P
SnowblindOtter

Re: Gaming Headset w/ Chat Mixer Not Working

Post by SnowblindOtter »

phd21 wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 12:22 pm HI SnowblindOtter,

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Why are you using such an old version of Linux Mint? I would highly recommend updating to v17.3 (LTS 2019) or 18.3 (LTS 2021).

You can also try creating another user account (admin) and logging in with that to see if that works.

Hope this helps ...
Okay, I've updated from my old install(which was 17.3, not 16. My mistake.) to 19, but I still seem to be having the same problem. The sound still isn't separated so that VOIP call sounds are on one dial(in this case I want it to be on the "Chat" dial.), and all other sounds are on the other("Game".) on the mixer. However, it is recognizing my microphone, so it's kind of a step in the right direction I guess? Here's the output from the commands.

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root@matt-Satellite-C55-B:/home/matt# inxi -Fxzd
System:    Host: matt-Satellite-C55-B Kernel: 4.15.0-29-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: laptop System: TOSHIBA product: Satellite C55-B v: PSCMLU-09D0KU serial: <filter>
           Mobo: TOSHIBA model: ZBWAA v: 1.00 serial: N/A
           UEFI: TOSHIBA v: 5.10 date: 08/10/2015
Battery    BAT1: charge: 27.6 Wh 100.0% condition: 27.6/44.1 Wh (63%)
           model: TOSHIBA PABAS0241231 status: Full
           hidpp__0: charge: N/A condition: NA/NA Wh
           model: Logitech M510 status: Discharging
CPU:       Dual core Intel Celeron N2840 (-MCP-) 
           arch: Silvermont rev.8 cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 8663
           clock speeds: max: 2582 MHz 1: 2582 MHz 2: 2582 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.6
           drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1366x768@60.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Bay Trail
           version: 4.2 Mesa 18.0.5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series High Def. Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Card-2 Turtle Beach driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 001-010
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-29-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCIE Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: ath9k bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 623.1GB (2.7% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: TOSHIBA_MQ01ABF0 size: 500.1GB temp: 35C
           ID-2: USB /dev/sdb model: Ultra_Fit size: 123.0GB temp: 0C
           Optical-1: /dev/sr0 model: TSST CDDVDW SU-208GB
           rev: TF01 dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd,dvdrw
           Features: speed: 24x multisession: yes
           audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running
Partition: ID-1: / size: 38G used: 7.1G (20%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
           ID-2: /home size: 303G used: 580M (1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda8
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.10GB used: 0.00GB (0%)
           fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 61.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 191 Uptime: 40 min Memory: 1599.6/3831.3MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56 

Code: Select all

root@matt-Satellite-C55-B:/home/matt# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0781:5583 SanDisk Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0930:0227 Toshiba Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04ca:705b Lite-On Technology Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 010: ID 10f5:0231 Turtle Beach 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Anything that says Turtle Beach is my headset, which is the Turtle Beach P11. The Unifying Receiver is for my mouse. Any suggestions?
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