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  • Author Author: gam3t3ch
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 24778 views
  • Likes 8 likes
  • Comments 38 comments
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Alsa no audio (glitch) issue Pi 4 fix

gam3t3ch

image

 

**Small update: [Oct.13.19] Remember to also plug your audio into another speaker system as well.  Today I thought I had this issue again so  I ran the fix and was getting frustrated that it wasn't working.  Turns out that my speakers on my old monitor that I am using finally went and now I have to find a low powered replacement so remember to also try hardware as well to make sure it is working (I could have run my phone into the monitor to test it which I eventually did after to double check it was the issue after resetting the monitor as well.)

 

 

So recently I have been installing a bunch of programs and been finding some have been causing a weird audio issue with my pi 4 but not to fear instead of wiping the pi and starting over I decided to investigate further and see what I could do to get it to work.

 

If your audio should be working but isn't on the pi 4 this might be something to try before you reset it.

 

Now I had it configured properly but still was not getting sound out after installing a few different programs and even had a issue playing with sdr and some games but finally got it working the following way.

 

 

First off your audio setting are probably all set back to where they were working before but still no audio.

 

First thing we will do is run open terminal ctrl + alt + t  (or from your quick launch)

type the following in bold.

sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio

now if it comes back that pulseaudio is not installed you will have to install it with:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

sudo reboot

after the reboot you will run the removal up top.

Test in terminal if you have sound now it might not be working quite yet we have one more line to run but you should hear something

when played through terminal.

aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav

alright a few more quick steps to complete now pulseaudio should be removed we are going to run the following

sudo apt autoremove

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset

you can test again before reboot if you hear sound with the aplay command above.

sudo reboot

Now that the unit is rebooted we will select our analogue or HDMI as our default whichever you were using. for me it was the 3.5mm jack

Now open a web browser and go to youtube.com and play a video you should now have sound.

 

I had tested many different configs for getting the audio to work but this was the method I had to do each time to get my audio back even rasp-config wouldn't play nice with me on this one

So hopefully will help someone and if you have any questions about it or having issues let me know.

If I find any other workaround or fixes for this I will post them up here.

  • in reply to gam3t3ch

    Thanks for touching base GW . After reading LN post I thought, man I would like to see this resolved in the Raspberry Pi community. I went back over the notes I posted regarding the framework and thought what can I do to better understand this, again.

     

    As I discovered with Bluetooth and suspect the same instability may exist with audio between lite and full installations. The complete Bluetooth framework is lacking in the lite version but gives you the impression it should work. I'm curious if the same doesn't exist audio. I haven't done checks on the latest O/S so I'm guarded on saying Bluetooth works:)

     

    I suspects the framework drawing I have posted for ALSA is outdated. If you run across any documentation that discuss the implementation of ALSA on the Pi please send me the links. I would like to revisit audio on the Pi to see if I can't get a better understanding.

  • in reply to colporteur

    I have an update coming soon! lol been a while but since new audio issues have come up I have been learning quite a bit so should have something done up soon.  And I am still getting confirmation that the fix is still working for people as recently as yesterday so at this point it could be something else.

     

    but if you did sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio and there was nothing there and nothing else removed from the auto remove it sound like you didn't install it if I am correct or not let me know

     

    also thanks for keeping an eye on the thread here image   I will also be reaching out to others and finding out to make sure I am not leaving any stone unturned when resolving the audio issues to me it looks like a glitch with the sdl even tho everything configured correctly it still doesn't want to go I have a odd feeling I noticed a really big glitch the other day and had fully working audio and my chromium browser was not wanting to play any video regardless of what site I streamed on I attempted a fix and resolved it.....then the sound issue arouse again.  So this is leading me in a different direction if you see where I am going with it.  But lots more investigation to go and will like I said have something done up soon as this is a new issue that caused it to happen or a issue I noticed that being fixed caused it for certain.  (video and everything worked fine in firefox-esr but not chromium when I originally tested as well)

  • in reply to truthreigns

    Your post has a few things going for it, that piqued my interest and given me reason to respond.

     

    Your membership is new, so welcome. The fact that WG's configuration isn't working is unfortunate but how about working with us to see if we can't tweak what we have and resolve your issue.

     

    Are you willing to provide a detailed description of your Raspberry Pi setup and what you are actually trying to do. That means hardware versions, operating systems, memory cards or peripherals and the what you want to accomplish. That resets the bar. If you have read my earlier commentary in this post you can appreciate getting audio to work consistently is a challenge. The ALSA/Pulseaudio framework is not well understood and I think support many liberties that cause users problems.

     

    I saw your post and thought maybe a revisit to audio is not such a bad thing. Element14 was kind enough to provide me a Pi4B4G after my last Roadtest Review, why not re-purpose it. Now that I have newer hardware to dabble, I'm interested in helping investigate if you are willing to invest some time.

  • I tried this fix.  When i ran sudo apt auto remove i got that it was going to remove rtkit vers. (0.11-6) ; what is that about on a practically brand new noobs installation?  Any way the fix did not work and i still do not have audio.  Also i had some sound with the
    aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav but after running sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset there was no sound with the wav. test.

  • in reply to mpdpiguy

    Every time I have an audio issue with a Raspberry Pi it feels like the game of snakes and ladders.  I think I am almost at the end but I land on the second last square to be taken all the way back to the beginning. When I start audio troubleshooting I have to first confirm if what I have learned is still valid or has it changed. If it has changed, why. That usually gets me to a starting point I'm comfortable with to start evaluating the issue. Your troubles with Pi4B don't surprise me. I'm glad I don't require audio at the moment. You figure at some point the issue would be resolve.