Featured Articles
Announcing Pi
Technical Specifications
Raspberry Pi FAQs
Win a Pi
GPIO Pinout
Raspberry Pi Wishlist
Comparison Chart
Quiz
Group Actions
Engagement
  • Author Author: gam3t3ch
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 24791 views
  • Likes 8 likes
  • Comments 38 comments
Related
Recommended

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.

  • Finally got the friggin audio to work !!

    lots of ideas on the net as to what to do, all failed except this somewhat counterintuitive approach. Blindly following as a new pi community member !!

    Many many thanks for those who persevere to fix the bugs and are kind enough to publish    

  • e14 Contributor
    e14 Contributor in reply to gam3t3ch

    The new BCM2711 SoC might contain a new combination of internal BCM chips and Cortex-A72 chips.  This is probably a new challenge for Debian's alsa developers.  Have you filed a bug report with Raspbian?  If you do, please provide your work-around and tell them that it isn't a one-time procedure.

     

    This is like a "shell game": where is the audio hardware?  whose specs?

  • in reply to gam3t3ch

    Sounds like you have a good handle on your methodology for setup and testing. It is when something goes wrong and the user says I didn't do anything. You later discover they loaded unrelated software a few weeks before the issue happened.

     

    My understanding of audio operation is very basic only because of insufficient details. It is not for failure to try. This insufficient written knowledge is one weakness in the opensource community. Who the fk wants to be writing and updating documentation. Let the masses figure it out on their own.

     

    What is strange and remains unexplained for me in my stand alone Bluetooth solution is how the .asoundrc file gets configured. It is critical to correct operation of audio. Someone had provided me the insight of modifying the file to reflect the setup. I was surprised when I disabled the loading of the kernel sound hardware Bluetooth was configured automatically. Automatic in that it appeared in .asoundrc. I still had to cycle bluetoothctl to pair, connect and trust. It seems if that piece was in place the sound gods within the O/S configured .asoundrc only because they were not confused since no sound card hardware was found. Fk'd if I know.

     

    Brain shares such as this, help the knowledge starved find enough sustenance to muddle their way through to a kludge solution, knowing at some point an issue will rear it ugly head and you will need to pickup where you left off. I can't say I have every used the word done and Linux audio in the same sentence. It's working now, is about the closest.

     

    Sean

  • in reply to colporteur

    So when I install a program and the volume issue happens I resolve and remove the program and reset before attempting another.  On a few tho I have wanted working I have had it so that I run the fix to resolve the audio issues with that program.

     

    Could your process be stripping out all the different crap installed by programs and just restores the ALSA framework. Your process doesn't target any application only the audio configuration.

     

    Correct I assume that's what happening I have made note of some of the programs that were causing the issues so I will be attempting to run them again at some point to see if I can recreate the issue and see if I can find out more information on it. 

     

    I have my bluetooth disabled so have not tried to see if that was working while the other wasn't might be a option as well. I did have bluetooth on tho the first few times that the issue happened tho.

     

    I am sure there is a simple resolution to it but for now that's the route I go.   The joys of new things coming out finding all the fun little bugs and issues lol

     

    Thanks for posting that information as well will give me something to go over and maybe will spark an idea or two.

  • Thanks for sharing your discoveries. I can speculate on the issue but I am not a developer so it is pure speculation.

     

    shared some resources with me when I was researching an issue with setting up Bluetooth  https://www.element14.com/community/message/280804/l/route-all-pi-audio-to-bluetooth-speaker#280804  .

    How to use pulse to manage sound on linux

    https://opensource.com/article/17/1/linux-plays-sound

     

    Learn digital audio

    https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/how-linux-audio-works-vs-windows-audio-2017

     

    Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) project homepage

    https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Main_Page

     

    From the links provided I gleaned the summary below:

    imageimage

     

    I will paraphrase what I have drawn from the resources. ALSA is the Pi audio framework. Now pulseaudio can also tickle sound hardware. ALSA does provide integration with pulseaudio within the framework. You have three ways of baking the audio cake.

     

    You indicated "I installed a bunch of programs..." Let's assume the programs have a mix of how they access the sound hardware, Some use ALSA direct configuration, some use pulseaudio direct and some other using the pulseaudio to ALSA framework. What state is audio in when all the programs are installed. The final result may even be different depending on the order the programs are installed.

     

    Your process indicates if you don't find pulseaudio, then install pulseaudio and remove pulseaudio. The test service you use is an ALSA utility aplay. You then complete an autoremove. Here is a note on apt-get autoremove: It is common in Ubuntu/Linux that applications share the same libraries. When you remove the application the dependency will stay on your system. So apt-get autoremove will remove those dependencies that were installed with applications and that are no longer used by anything else on the system. The alsa-utils reset does the final piece of resetting ALSA after all the crap is removed.

     

    Could your process be stripping out all the different crap installed by programs and just restores the ALSA framework. Your process doesn't target any application only the audio configuration.

     

    The pulseaudio and ALSA communities have been warring for some time. Like two marathon racers, each has taken first place as they release improvements. The jockeying for first depends on where each camp is in their development cycle. We the poor user just want audio to work and switch back and forth until something works. We then join a camp saying this is the way to go. This is frustrating to say the least.

     

    I reiterate, I am not a developer. I am one individual that has struggled and continues to struggle with consistent audio configurations.  I speculate your approach may continue to work until the next development release of pulseaudio and/or ALSA or the operating system.

     

    The information we gather from the Internet rarely sets context. I have found my searches for answers now are framed with a best before date. Material with dates a year old I tend to disregard. Now this theory was proven wrong in solving my Bluetooth issue. By removing kernel drivers for the Pi sound card and you eliminate Bluetooth competing with the onboard sound hardware.

     

    Sean