[Acceptable workaround] No sound. No device in sound settings and Pavucontrol not starting.

[DirkCYF]

I will try again tomorrow morning.

[MrEen]

Very sorry. Lost power for over 4 hours starting while I was typing a reply here. Give me a few minutes to get caught up.

[MrEen]

I'm guessing cat /etc/pulse/default.pa is still not returning anything. Let's check the folder contents with ls -l /etc/pulse/ and here's mine for reference:

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scott@scott-HP ~ $ ls -l /etc/pulse/
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1201 Jan  5  2017 client.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2282 May  1 13:58 daemon.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5709 May  1 13:58 default.pa
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2046 May  1 13:58 system.pa
scott@scott-HP ~ $ 

IF you have the other 3 files, I've posted a copy of my default.pa here that you could use to recreate yours. Be warned, you're on 19 and I'm on 18.3 so there might be some differences, but I think it will work.

If that folder is empty, or doesn't exist, we have more trouble. My first suggestion would be to try sudo dpkg-reconfigure pulseaudio and see if that fixes it.

Maybe another thing to check is if apt update shows any errors.

I'll wait until I hear from you before making more guesses. I'll probably be back on the forum around 18 hours from the time of this post.

[DirkCYF]

Hi MrEen no problem for taking time, I am just glad there is someone looking into my problem.
and it doesn't look good like you said we have more trouble:

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dirk@Dirk-T:~$ cat /etc/pulse/default.pa
cat: /etc/pulse/default.pa: No such file or directory
dirk@Dirk-T:~$ ls -l /etc/pulse/
total 0

and

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure pulseaudio

does nothing
Also apt update doesn't seem to have any errors:

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~$ apt update
Ign:1 http://mirrors.evowise.com/linuxmint/packages tara InRelease
Hit:2 http://mirrors.evowise.com/linuxmint/packages tara Release               
Get:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [83.2 kB]    
Hit:4 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease                     
Get:6 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main i386 Packages [132 kB]
Get:7 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main amd64 Packages [167 kB]
Get:8 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [204 B]
Get:9 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/universe i386 Packages [66.5 kB]
Get:10 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/universe amd64 Packages [66.6 kB]
Get:11 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [6,828 B]
Hit:12 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic InRelease                   
Get:13 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]
Get:14 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease [74.6 kB]
Get:15 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages [322 kB]
Get:16 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/main i386 Packages [286 kB]
Get:17 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/main Translation-en [122 kB]
Get:18 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [139 kB]
Get:19 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe amd64 Packages [192 kB]
Get:20 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe i386 Packages [192 kB]
Get:21 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe Translation-en [90.1 kB]
Get:22 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [166 kB]
Get:23 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/multiverse amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2,468 B]
Get:24 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-backports/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [5,100 B]
Fetched 2,202 kB in 4s (516 kB/s)                                        
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
3 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.

Will it help if I try and install Linux Mint Xfce or another distro? (I like Mint because I am comming from windows.)

Thanks

[MrEen]

Ok. This is weird. What does apt policy pulseaudio show?

I'm thinking it's going to show Not installed, along with a Candidate version. If that is the case, then type apt install pulseaudio and paste back what that returns.

As far as installing Xfce, that's completely up to you. But, if Cinnamon is otherwise running fine for you, you could just reinstall that instead. Xfce will probably be a little snappier. Also, did you verify the iso you used to install Cinnamon?

Good luck.

[DirkCYF]

Yes this is a strange problem.

Code: Select all

~$ apt policy pulseaudio
pulseaudio:
  Installed: 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.1
  Candidate: 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.1
  Version table:
 *** 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.1 500
        500 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:11.1-1ubuntu7 500
        500 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages

I did reinstall cinnamon 19 about 4 times now. Re downloaded the iso twice.
And no I did not verify the iso thought it wasn't really necessary. I will look into that now.

[MrEen]

Your version of pulseaudio is vastly newer than mine (makes me tempted to upgrade to 19.)

I cannot understand how /etc/pulse is empty. I highly doubt the newer version has changed that directory.

If the iso turns out to be good, my only suggestion is the following (and copy the filenames that are removed in case they don't come back later):

1. apt remove --purge pulseaudio

2. apt autoremove

3. apt clean

4. apt install pulseaudio

5. sudo alsa force-reload

6. pulseaudio --start

Crossing my fingers for you!

[DirkCYF]

I can't find the ISO, probably deleted, but I verified the Xfce ISO from the same source. I still have the bootable USB made from the Mint ISO but can't find a way to verify the USB?
One thing I did change was to add bootia32.efi to the Linux Mint 64bit USB in order to boot, because I have a 32bit system but a 64bit CPU.
Also if I would run

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove --purge pulseaudio

and

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sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pavucontrol

after reboot and login I would get a black screen with cinnamon desktop error and then I need to recover by Ctrl + Alt + F1 and

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sudo apt-get install cinnamon

then I can login again. This happened everytime before, but will try it again now and report back soon.

[MrEen]

My county/area is under multiple tornado warnings, so I may disappear for an extended time again.

[DirkCYF]

O wow hold on to your computer. I remember something in the news about that. I haven't been in anything like a tornado.

I ran all of this:

1. apt remove --purge pulseaudio

2. apt autoremove

3. apt clean

4. apt install pulseaudio

5. sudo alsa force-reload

6. pulseaudio --start

Crossing my fingers for you! Me too

and noticed a failed module still loaded in this:

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~$ sudo alsa force-reload
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-soc-sst-bytcr-rt5640 snd-soc-rt5670 snd-soc-rt5645 snd-intel-sst-acpi snd-intel-sst-core snd-soc-rt5640 snd-soc-sst-atom-hifi2-platform snd-soc-rl6231 snd-soc-acpi snd-soc-acpi-intel-match snd-soc-core snd-compress snd-seq-midi snd-pcm-dmaengine snd-seq-midi-event snd-hdmi-lpe-audio snd-rawmidi snd-pcm snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-timer (failed: modules still loaded: snd-intel-sst-acpi snd-intel-sst-core snd-soc-sst-atom-hifi2-platform snd-soc-acpi snd-soc-acpi-intel-match snd-soc-core snd-compress snd-pcm-dmaengine snd-pcm snd-timer).
Loading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-soc-sst-bytcr-rt5640 snd-soc-rt5670 snd-soc-rt5645 snd-intel-sst-acpi snd-intel-sst-core snd-soc-rt5640 snd-soc-sst-atom-hifi2-platform snd-soc-rl6231 snd-soc-acpi snd-soc-acpi-intel-match snd-soc-core snd-compress snd-seq-midi snd-pcm-dmaengine snd-seq-midi-event snd-hdmi-lpe-audio snd-rawmidi snd-pcm snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-timer.

Also:

Code: Select all

$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

I started a new download of Mint from a different source and will install that, the download e.t. is about 5 hours using EvoWise CDN so I will have to wait until then to install.

[MrEen]

I have no idea why those modules wouldn't unload. It's looking more and more like a partially corrupted install.

Sorry about your d/l speed. I've never done it, but you could use the torrent method which might be quicker as well as auto-checksummed.

Again, good luck.

[DirkCYF]

After reboot I got again this error viewtopic.php?t=273579 It happens every time I run a --purge command.
Anyway I did manage to locate the ISO used to install the current Mint 19, and verified it, and all looks good.
I will continue with the other EvoWise CDN download and re install Mint 19 tomorrow. I have to go sleep now, I have a meeting early tomorrow morning, in about 6 hours.
Do you use TeamViewer for linux or something similar? Might be easier to look at the problem?

[MrEen]

I'm afraid I don't use Teamviewer or anything like it.

Like I said, it does appear there is something wrong with the install. This other issue involving the use of -purge just adds more evidence to that.

I don't know enough about hardware to know if maybe the atom processor might have trouble with Cinnamon or if it's some other issue or just the install didn't happen correctly but didn't fail either.

I'm honestly stumped.

[DirkCYF]

Ok.

I appreciate your time thank you. I will reinstall tomorrow and then post an update.

[DirkCYF]

Hi MrEen

I managed to reinstall Mint 19 with a iso from a different source and I can see a difference, I did notice some files in places that was not there before. Also cat /etc/pulse/default.pa now return:

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~$ cat /etc/pulse/default.pa
#!/usr/bin/pulseaudio -nF
#
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

# This startup script is used only if PulseAudio is started per-user
# (i.e. not in system mode)

.fail

### Automatically restore the volume of streams and devices
load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-stream-restore
load-module module-card-restore

### Automatically augment property information from .desktop files
### stored in /usr/share/application
load-module module-augment-properties

### Should be after module-*-restore but before module-*-detect
load-module module-switch-on-port-available

### Use hot-plugged devices like Bluetooth or USB automatically (LP: #1702794)
.ifexists module-switch-on-connect.so
load-module module-switch-on-connect
.endif

### Load audio drivers statically
### (it's probably better to not load these drivers manually, but instead
### use module-udev-detect -- see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink

### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
.ifexists module-udev-detect.so
load-module module-udev-detect
.else
### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support)
load-module module-detect
.endif

### Automatically connect sink and source if JACK server is present
.ifexists module-jackdbus-detect.so
.nofail
load-module module-jackdbus-detect channels=2
.fail
.endif

### Automatically load driver modules for Bluetooth hardware
.ifexists module-bluetooth-policy.so
load-module module-bluetooth-policy
.endif

.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif

### Load several protocols
.ifexists module-esound-protocol-unix.so
load-module module-esound-protocol-unix
.endif
load-module module-native-protocol-unix

### Network access (may be configured with paprefs, so leave this commented
### here if you plan to use paprefs)
#load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-native-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-zeroconf-publish

### Load the RTP receiver module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-rtp-recv

### Load the RTP sender module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-null-sink sink_name=rtp format=s16be channels=2 rate=44100 sink_properties="device.description='RTP Multicast Sink'"
#load-module module-rtp-send source=rtp.monitor

### Load additional modules from GConf settings. This can be configured with the paprefs tool.
### Please keep in mind that the modules configured by paprefs might conflict with manually
### loaded modules.
.ifexists module-gconf.so
.nofail
load-module module-gconf
.fail
.endif

### Automatically restore the default sink/source when changed by the user
### during runtime
### NOTE: This should be loaded as early as possible so that subsequent modules
### that look up the default sink/source get the right value
load-module module-default-device-restore

### Automatically move streams to the default sink if the sink they are
### connected to dies, similar for sources
load-module module-rescue-streams

### Make sure we always have a sink around, even if it is a null sink.
load-module module-always-sink

### Honour intended role device property
load-module module-intended-roles

### Automatically suspend sinks/sources that become idle for too long
load-module module-suspend-on-idle

### If autoexit on idle is enabled we want to make sure we only quit
### when no local session needs us anymore.
.ifexists module-console-kit.so
load-module module-console-kit
.endif
.ifexists module-systemd-login.so
load-module module-systemd-login
.endif

### Enable positioned event sounds
load-module module-position-event-sounds

### Cork music/video streams when a phone stream is active
load-module module-role-cork

### Modules to allow autoloading of filters (such as echo cancellation)
### on demand. module-filter-heuristics tries to determine what filters
### make sense, and module-filter-apply does the heavy-lifting of
### loading modules and rerouting streams.
load-module module-filter-heuristics
load-module module-filter-apply

### Make some devices default
#set-default-sink output
#set-default-source input

and

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~$ sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
[sudo] password for dirk: 

and this is a summary of the errors of pulseaudio -vvv:

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E: [pulseaudio] module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
I: [alsa-sink-HdmiLpeAudio] alsa-sink.c: Starting playback.
D: [alsa-sink-HdmiLpeAudio] alsa-util.c: Got POLLERR from ALSA
D: [alsa-sink-HdmiLpeAudio] alsa-util.c: Got POLLOUT from ALSA
D: [alsa-sink-HdmiLpeAudio] alsa-util.c: PCM state is XRUN
E: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="1" name="platform-bytcr_rt5640" card_name="alsa_card.platform-bytcr_rt5640" namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.

E: [pulseaudio] module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
E: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="1" name="platform-bytcr_rt5640" card_name="alsa_card.platform-bytcr_rt5640" namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.

It just continues on and on and have multiples of this same error in red and finally it ends with:
Killed

It seems like PulseAudio installed fine but still won't start up, although it gives a different error it just says: Establishing a connection. Please wait...
and seems like this daemon still doesn't start up:

Code: Select all

~$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

I am going to try some of the other fixes I found and will report back if anything makes a difference. I do have hope because the system looks different now than before.
Hope you survived the tornados
Do you have any suggestions of what I can try?

[DirkCYF]

I noticed again the user permission problem and tried to change it but:

Code: Select all

dirk@Dirk-T:~$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER
chown: changing ownership of '/home/dirk/.cache/doc/by-app': Function not implemented
chown: changing ownership of '/home/dirk/.cache/doc': Function not implemented
dirk@Dirk-T:~$ find $HOME ! -user $USER
find: ‘/home/dirk/.cache/doc’: Permission denied
/home/dirk/.cache/doc
dirk@Dirk-T:~$ 

Any ideas?

[MrEen]

Wow! I've never seen issues similar to this getting sound running. Looks like pulseaudio is probably fine now, but alsa is acting up.

My first suggestion is to get into your BIOS and find out if anything sound related is turned off. This has always been unsuccessful in the past, but your issues are new to me, so I'm wondering (hoping really) if this might be the problem.

Next would be to try sudo alsa force-reload and see if that acts normal this time.

I'll do some more research and see if I can find anything else to suggest.

[DirkCYF]

Hi MrEen

I have tried multiple things and nothing seems to solve my sound problem. I did check in bios but since this is a 2in1 Lenovo it does not have many options and there is nothing related to sound.
Also:

Code: Select all

:~$ sudo alsa force-reload
[sudo] password for dirk: 
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-soc-sst-bytcr-rt5640 snd-soc-rt5670 snd-soc-rt5645 snd-intel-sst-acpi snd-intel-sst-core snd-soc-sst-atom-hifi2-platform snd-soc-rt5640 snd-soc-acpi snd-soc-acpi-intel-match snd-soc-rl6231 snd-hdmi-lpe-audio snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-rawmidi snd-soc-core snd-compress snd-seq snd-pcm-dmaengine snd-pcm snd-seq-device snd-timer (failed: modules still loaded: snd-intel-sst-acpi snd-intel-sst-core snd-soc-sst-atom-hifi2-platform snd-soc-acpi snd-soc-acpi-intel-match snd-soc-core snd-compress snd-pcm-dmaengine snd-pcm snd-timer).
Loading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-soc-sst-bytcr-rt5640 snd-soc-rt5670 snd-soc-rt5645 snd-intel-sst-acpi snd-intel-sst-core snd-soc-sst-atom-hifi2-platform snd-soc-rt5640 snd-soc-acpi snd-soc-acpi-intel-match snd-soc-rl6231 snd-hdmi-lpe-audio snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-rawmidi snd-soc-core snd-compress snd-seq snd-pcm-dmaengine snd-pcm snd-seq-device snd-timer.

alsa reload seems to work but PulseAudio Volume Control still does not connect.

Thank you for not giving up and looking into my problem, I have no Idea what more to try and even the sound with Xfce Mint live boot does not seem to work. Everything else works its just the sound but I need the sound.
Thanks.

[MrEen]

All right. I think I have discovered the source of your problems, and you posted it in your first post:

Code: Select all

Audio:     Card-1 Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio driver: HdmiLpeAudio
           Card-2 bytcr-rt5640 driver: bytcr-rt5640

A lot of people have had sound trouble on Linux with those bytcr-xxxxxx drivers according to the interwebs. Since I started helping with sound issues I've only had one other person affected that I'm aware of, which is why I didn't think of it back when you started this thread. Although, in my defense, you seemed to have very strange issues.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Go here and click on the link that says Clone or download and choose the Download ZIP option: https://github.com/plbossart/UCM

2. In your file manager, doubleclick on the zip file and extract it in your Downloads folder.

3. In the terminal, navigate the UCM-master folder (cd Downloads/Ucm-master)

4. Copy the appropriate files to the alsa directory with sudo cp -rf bytcr-rt5640 /usr/share/alsa/ucm

5. Reboot.

6. Cross fingers, toes and eyes and test sound. You may need to do some configuring in pavucontrol, and there may be new options there.

7. Report (success, I hope) back here.

Good luck.

[DirkCYF]

I think we are close. The sound is not yet working but we are making progress.
pulseaudio -vvv does not give any red errors anymore.
I downloaded that UCM file, extracted and copied bytcr-rt5640 over, reboot. All went well.
But PulseAudio Volume Control still does not want to start up.
I tried: sudo alsa force-reload, and sudo dpkg-reconfigure pulseaudio and even apt install --reinstall pulseaudio I also delete the contents of the directories~/.config/pulse/
Still PulseAudio Volume Control does not want to connect.
We still have this:

Code: Select all

~$ pulseaudio --start
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

I think we are a step closer, what can I try next?