This is something that has given me a lot of stress. It’s quite a long problem, so I’ll be very thankful if you could help.
What is the basic description of the problem?
I cannot hear music and audio normally. On every application and site, would it be Rhythmbox, Audacious, YouTube, etc, the audio is choppy. What I mean by that is that the audio cuts itself every two or three seconds, and the sound icon on the bar of GNOME disappears for the moment in which the audio goes off. Is very infuriating. And the worst thing, it happens on almost any other Linux distro! However, I really loved Fedora, and I really want it to be my main and only OS, so I want to solve the problem in this distro.
Info
#1) About the audio specifications, lspci -nnk | grep -A2 Audio shows:
00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH HD Audio [8086:a2f0]
DeviceName: Onboard - Sound
Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int’l Corp Device [1565:824d]
#2) Trying to investigate the problem, I installed a plugin in GNOME that let me choose the audio output, and it showed lots of entries labeled «Dummy output». When I clicked on one of them, teh shell crashed
#3) List of systems I have tried, and what I deduce from it. The [✗] means that the error is present, while the [✓] means that it is absent.
[✓] Ubuntu 19.04
[✓] Manjaro GNOME (early 2019)
[✓] Linux Mint 19.2
[✓] Zorin OS
[？] Elementary OS
[✗] Arco Linux (current)
[✗] Ubuntu 19.10
[✓] Debian 10 XFCE
[✓] Debian 10 Cinnamon
[✗] Manjaro XFCE (current)
[✗] Manjaro Cinnamon (current)
[✗] Fedora 31
And what do I deduce from that? All the distributions that have the [✗] are either newer releases (like Ubuntu 19.10) or rolling-release (like Manjaro or Arco Linux), while the ones with the [✓] are either released before June (Ubuntu 19.04, Mint 19.2 and the version of Manjaro I was using in May) or use old packages (Debian 10), so that, for me, means that maybe there was an update on alsa or pulseaudio that bugged some things. But there is one factor that could be crucial, and it is that both Linux Mint and Ubuntu enable third-party drivers, so that can change some things.
#4) I don’t think it is a problem related to the headphones, because the speakers I tried also were buggy, and the problem persist even if i unplug the headphones. I think it is a software-related issue, more on that later.
#5) The level of choppyness increases with the volume. At lower volumes, there is less stops in the audio, while at maximun volume, the audio is practically unusable. That only happens with the system volume, not the physical volume, so that’s another point for the software theory.
#6) When executing alsamixer in the terminal, I only can choose the input and output volumes, not any other options. If I press F6, and select HD Intel PCH, I can see the other options. More on that below.
#7) Disabling the «Auto-mute» option doesn’t change anything. This could be two things, either: it isn’t related to the problem, or, the system uses the «default» configuration, the one that doesn’t have the other options.
#8) Adding load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0 to /etc/pulse/default.pa doesn’t work.
#9) Executing echo "options snd-hda-intel model=generic" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf doesn’t work, but now it lets me choose between HDMI and Built-in Audio
#10) Opening the «Sound» tab in «Settings» shows something very interesting. Below the audio dispositive, there is a bar that shows the intensity of the sound. In the microphone section (the headset has a microphone) the bar changes according to the level of sound it is receiving. However, the output section doesn’t show any change.
Please, i’ll be really, really thankful if someone has the knowledge to identify and solve this problem. I can’t work normally without sound! Thanks, thanks, in advance. I maybe will come up with more details later.
Hi @josleo welcome to the community.
I know very low about it but I did find some information that could be useful
- Edit the filed created
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.confand test to change the model toautoin place ofgeneric( Sometimes it did help while for others the issue continued ) and reboot.
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
- Look for alsa-firmware package and the chipset than you have (maybe you need it)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firmware#Available_firmware
https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Matrix:Main
- if nothing looks work try debug the problem like indicated here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_sound_problems
Note: You can try compare the information provide for alsa-info.sh with the distros where the issue was not present so that you can check version of alsa-lib etc… The output of this command can be very useful and provide extra information where more expert users can help you.
I hope this can point you in the right direction.
Regards.
For anybody elase loanding on this forum.
I had the same problem in Fedora Workstation 31.
Sound stopped working after installing system updates (was working before).
The one line for the Intel card - which worked for me - was discovered on this Reddit post.
So I just sudo -i and added this line:
echo "options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf
Note:
I disabled all other conf files referencing the intel driver.
Ok so … I have upgrade this machine since fedora 26 - 27 -28 -29 -30 -31
all goes fine … but it just burst the sound on 31 …
I have redone it from 0 … and same all goes fine but burst on 31 and nothing above works.
This, is the worst version I have ever seen … from History!
Sorry but this is what I feel … test the Iso of the 26 and admirate how fine is it …
I will not say that is a coming from IBM … but the result is here.
after :
dnf remove alsa-plugins-pulseaudio alsa-utils alsa-ucm
everything is good!
I don’t know why.