[mythtv-users] slightly OT: no sound

[Michael T. Dean]

On 12/15/2008 04:11 PM, Nick Rout wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 8:20 AM, Mary Strimel wrote:
>   
>> My myth box has been running happily for 70+ days, but now after rebooting
>> there is no sound.  I don't think it's a myth-specific problem but since my
>> hardware is similar to other myth users I hope someone here can help me -
>> other routes have failed.
>>
>> I have onboard Via sound using Alsa's snd_via82xx driver.  I also have a
>> PC-HDTV 5500 and a WinTV PVR 250 installed.
>>
>> There are two weird things I noticed after the reboot (besides the eerie
>> quiet):
>>
>> 1) there no /dev/dsp device anymore.  I think myth was using /dev/dsp for
>> sound; the myth setting is now defaulted to "adsp" but I have no idea what
>> that is.
>>
>> 2) under xmms, sound *does* work if I select, under the ALSA output, "hw
>> 1,0" but there is no sound in any other program.  Alsamixer shows the Via
>> sound controller as device 1, and all channels are unmuted / top volume.
>>
>> I am aware that people on this mailing list have solved issues with PCI
>> cards being recognized in a different order at boot time, but I how do I
>> tell if this is actually the problem?  I don't want to be messing around
>> with settings in "blind" fashion and break something else.
>>
>> Also, if I determine that it's an issue with the card order, how would I
>> know which card "should" be detected first?  And why aren't any /dev/dsp
>> devices being created at all?
>>
>> Any help with the ANY of the above would be much appreciated!  If it
>> matters, I have Ubuntu Gutsy 64.
> A few preliminary tests would be to run
>
> aplay -l
> aplay -L
> ls /proc/asound (I think thats the path)
>
> to see what is recognised.

Yeah, specifically:

cat /proc/asounds/cards

where I think you'll find you have a sound card you don't know about 
(perhaps the analog capture portion of the HD-5500?).  The problem is 
that the cards get different device numbers depending on when they 
initialize, so they could change at every boot.  You need to lock the 
desired card to card 0.

Mike