<SOLVED> Microphone stopped working, presumably because of kernel update

[Wooffles]

I am using Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon Edition (64-bit).

Yesterday I ran sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y to upgrade to kernel version 5.15.0-73-generic x86_64 before I shut down my computer. Today I joined a discord call with friends to play videogames, and while I could hear them, they could not hear me. I opened sound to see what was going on with my microphone. I saw that it just created random noise. I went to discord to listen to what it sounded like in User Settings --> Voice & Video. I noticed it was not producing a constant static noise, but a sound that I could hear at seemingly random intervals, a sound that I find hard to describe.

I use PulseEffects for noise cancellation when I record something with OBS, however, I set it to run at startup so I never have to start it manually. Furthermore, I set a default sink and source in /etc/pulse/default.pa, because every time I used to boot my system it automatically selected the wrong input and output device.

I rebooted the system a few times today but it did not seem to work. I also tried pulseaudio -k a couple of times and tried closing PulseEffects, etc. but it did not seem to do much. Sometimes I could get rid of the noise by closing and opening PulseEffects and Sound and performing pulseaudio -k in a certain order, but i did not get any further than that.

I believe this is an issue with the kernel I am currently using, because the problem arised after upgrading to the kernel I am currently using, but it could be anything, as I am not at all experienced enough yet to issue the right commands and find out what went wrong myself. I would love to be able to talk to my friends again and record videos, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Output of inxi -Fxxxrz:

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-73-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0
    Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.12 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter vt: 7
    dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: X470 GAMING PLUS (MS-7B79) v: 2.0
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: A.50
    date: 11/16/2018
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP smt: enabled
    arch: Zen+ rev: 2 cache: L1: 576 KiB L2: 3 MiB L3: 16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3386 high: 3397 min/max: 1550/3400 boost: disabled
    cores: 1: 3394 2: 3395 3: 3362 4: 3369 5: 3394 6: 3397 7: 3384 8: 3377
    9: 3384 10: 3396 11: 3393 12: 3395 bogomips: 81588
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
    vendor: Sapphire Nitro+ driver: amdgpu v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s
    lanes: 16 ports: active: DVI-D-1,HDMI-A-2 empty: DP-1,DP-2,HDMI-A-1
    bus-ID: 1d:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:67df class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu,ati
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3200x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 846x285mm (33.3x11.2")
    s-diag: 893mm (35.1")
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-0 mapped: DVI-D-1 pos: primary,left
    model: Lenovo LEN L1900pA serial: <filter> res: 1280x1024 hz: 60 dpi: 86
    size: 376x301mm (14.8x11.9") diag: 476mm (18.8") modes: max: 1280x1024
    min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-A-2 pos: primary,right
    model: Samsung S24D300 serial: <filter> res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 92
    size: 531x299mm (20.9x11.8") diag: 609mm (24") modes: max: 1920x1080
    min: 720x400
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (polaris10 LLVM 15.0.7 DRM
    3.42 5.15.0-73-generic)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 22.2.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
    vendor: Sapphire driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 1d:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aaf0 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 1f:00.3 chip-ID: 1022:1457 class-ID: 0403
  Device-3: C-Media CM108 Audio Controller type: USB
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus-ID: 1-13:3 chip-ID: 0d8c:013c
    class-ID: 0300
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-73-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 18:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp24s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.82 TiB used: 352.88 GiB (18.9%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST31500541AS size: 1.36 TiB
    speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 5900 serial: <filter> rev: CC34 scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Crucial model: CT500MX500SSD1 size: 465.76 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 023 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 456.89 GiB used: 352.87 GiB (77.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sdb1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: N/A mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 50.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 1007
Repos:
  Packages: 2866 apt: 2828 flatpak: 38
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ernstp-mesarc-jammy.list
    1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ernstp/mesarc/ubuntu jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com vanessa main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openrazer-stable-jammy.list
    1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openrazer/stable/ubuntu jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/polychromatic-stable-jammy.list
    1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/polychromatic/stable/ubuntu jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/protonvpn-stable.list
    1: deb [arch="all", signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/protonvpn-stable-archive-keyring.gpg] https://repo.protonvpn.com/debian stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources
    1: deb [arch=amd64 i386] https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu jammy main
Info:
  Processes: 424 Uptime: 1h 20m wakeups: 0 Memory: 15.57 GiB
  used: 10.37 GiB (66.6%) Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers:
  gcc: 11.3.0 alt: 11/12 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: gnome-terminal
  inxi: 3.3.13

[deepakdeshp]

When you boot in grub advanced mode you can boot to any of the installed kernels and test.

[Wooffles]

I do not see the grub menu on startup. How should I go about opening grub, in advanced mode? Is switching between kernels safe to do? I did not sudo apt autoremove yet, so I assume I still have my previous kernel?

[deepakdeshp]

You can safely run any of the installed kernels.

When booting hold the shift key down when the computer goes through is POST (Power On System Test). That should bring up GRUB.

If your system boots through UEFI then that would be the ESC key.

For permanent change you'll need to edit your /etc/default/grub file -- place a "#" symbol at the start of line GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0.

Save changes and run sudo update-grub to apply changes.

Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

[Wooffles]

I booted into an earlier version of Linux, but to no avail. I decided to see whether this problem really lay in the software side of things, so I took a different and older headset with a microphone (I was stupid enough not to try this earlier), and used discord to check whether that headset worked, and it did. Tested it out on my phone as well, and now I have come to the conclusion that the microphone of my headset is physically broken... I will have to buy a new headset, unfortunately, but I am glad I do not have to look any further than this, knowing that the solution to this problem is simple: Buy a new headset.

However, because of your help, I learned how to use grub to boot older kernels, for if I have to switch kernel versions for any problems that may arise in the future.

Thank you for your help and I am sorry to have wasted a bit of your time. I will now mark this post as solved.

[deepakdeshp]

Good that the problem is resolved.