Ubuntu
gnome-media package

Unable to record sound with an Intel 82801DB-ICH4 sound card

Bug #16067 reported by Santiago Erquicia
22
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-media (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Sebastien Bacher

Bug Description

I cannot record any sound either with gnome-sound-recorder or with gnomemeeting.
 gnome-sound-recorder seems to be recording but when I play it back there is no
sound. I have checked all my alsa mixer settings.

The weird part is that I can use skype, which uses OSS for all the sound,
without any problem after killing esound.

Under System > Preferences > Multimedia System Detector I have the following
options selected:
 * Output: ESD
 * Input: OSS

/etc/sndstat says:
Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.6 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux pampa 2.6.10-5-386 #1 Tue Apr 5 12:12:40 UTC 2005 i686
Config options: 0

Installed drivers:
Type 10: ALSA emulation

Card config:
Intel 82801DB-ICH4 with unknown codec at 0xe0100c00, irq 17

Audio devices:
0: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 (DUPLEX)

Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Timers:
7: system timer

Mixers:
0: Conexant id 30

The output of amixer is:
santiago@pampa:~$ amixer
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Front Left: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Front Left: Playback 25 [81%] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 25 [81%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Front Left: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Front Left: Playback 24 [77%] [on] Capture [off]
  Front Right: Playback 24 [77%] [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'CD',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Front Left: Playback 24 [77%] [on] Capture [off]
  Front Right: Playback 24 [77%] [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch
cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Playback channels: Mono
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Mono: Playback 28 [90%] [on]
  Front Left: Capture [on]
  Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost (+20dB)',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'Video',0
  Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Front Left: Capture [off]
  Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Phone',0
  Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Front Left: Capture [off]
  Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA',0
  Capabilities: volume volume-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: 0 - 3
  Mono: 3 [100%]
Simple mixer control 'PC Speaker',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 15
  Mono: Playback 13 [87%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Aux',0
  Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Front Left: Capture [off]
  Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 15
  Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [off]
  Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mix',0
  Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Front Left: Capture [off]
  Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mix Mono',0
  Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
  Capture exclusive group: 0
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Front Left: Capture [off]
  Front Right: Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'External Amplifier',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [off]

The laptop is a HP Pavilion dv1000. Let me know if you need any other information.

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Daniel T Chen (crimsun) wrote :

Did you use alsamixer's capture view (F4) to toggle and increase the capture
element?

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

I'm sorry. I forgot I had this bug open.

I have changed many setting to set up alsa mixing (dmix and dsnoop), so I don't
know exactly where was the problem. But now that you mention that, I rememeber
doing something like that. Now I have it on capture mode and it works.

I guess that the real problem is that the sound card is not initialized with the
microphone in capture mode, but that's it. If you want, you can close the bug
or update the title to represent the real problem.

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

what is exactly your issue so?

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

I don't have any issue right now with recording but that was not true when I
just installed Hoary. I had to try different tricks that I found through
google, mailing list, forums, etc while it should just work ;-).

I think that the problem I had at the beginning was that the mic was not set up
in capture mode. Do you know if Ubuntu is doing anything to set it up during
instalation? I remember using the F4 key to toogle capture mode and I think
that was the solution for my problem.

Anyway, now I don't have any problem but I think that many people would not have
any clue on how to solve the problem.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

by default the mic is muted, maybe that's your issue?

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

(In reply to comment #5)
> by default the mic is muted, maybe that's your issue?

Yes, that's the issue. It wouldn't be that bad if somehow I could enable it
through gnome's gui but I checked every control there and it was impossible. I
had to use alsamixer in the terminal to change it.

Why is it unabled by default?

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

it's muted by default to prevent from loops between the speaker and the micro.
You should have a micro item from gnome-volume-manager with a speaker icon to
mute/unmute it ... do you have an issue with that?

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

I cannot reproduce this problem right now because I fixed it some time ago.
Would it be valid if I try the liveCD version to see what the problem really was?

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

yeah, that should do the same

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

I downloaded and burnt a LiveCD and it just worked. I don't know if the problem
would still exist if I re-install Hoary from the install cds. Right now I
cannot do that, that's why I tried the LiveCD.

If you want, you can close the bug and I will update it if anything else shows up.

Thanks,
Santiago

Revision history for this message
Daniel T Chen (crimsun) wrote :

Closing per bug opener's request. Moreover, the default setting of muted
microphone to prevent feedback loop is sane for this chipset (and many others).

Revision history for this message
Helge Fredriksen (helgeingvart) wrote :

I have a similar problem and setup, but there is no way for me to control the muting it seems from the audio control. lspci gives me this setup:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

It's a built in sound devince on a Dell Precision M65. However, when I fiddle a little with the Volume Control, setting the Input source combo to Line and then back to Mic again, + closing the Volume control: HDA Intel (Alsa mixer), then grabbing seems to work again.

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