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Running the current LTS version 64bit image. Sound does not work. sometimes I have the high def sound device that works through my flat screen, but I do not easily control the volume. Other times it simply does not work, or I have the normal sound card. I will try to remove the high definition driver from loading...
ah, I found it in the sound setup...
these are older notes below...
Amarok 2.5.0 on KDE 4.8.5
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Summary
These notes document my troubleshooting of a problem of "No Sound" on Kubuntu 12.04, as well as Secrets in getting Amarok music player to function wonderfully well.
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System:
Amarok 2.5.0
KDE 4.8.5
Kubuntu Precise Pangolin 12.04 LTS,
kernal 3.2.0
This version of Amarok is not the latest, but is the standard version installed on the current LTS version of Kubuntu.
I had tried Amarok before, but it was never impressive to me, because it would crash, and my music was never organized in the left plane section of Amarok. At one point I made a breakthrough when I found that it needed to have consistent ID3 tags set up in the music collection. This is critical to the application, yet it seems to be hidden in the documentation as a feature one can use. Amarok does not care much about how you organize the files, how you name the music files, or the directories where you have your music, but it cares a lot about the ID3 tags!
Once I realized this, and started it setup ID3 tags the Amarok application came to life for me.
Now I could actually try various features to see how they worked !
I added some streaming scripts and tried downloading some Podcasts. They seemed to work well but then on April 19, the sound failed on my system. :-(
Using this Sound Troubleshooting page I did not see anything wrong, except I no longer had sound. I was able to use VLC to play an audio file using the high definition audio device and integrated speakers in my flat screen, (sound gets to the screen via the video cable going to the screen) but Amarok would not work with either the standard sound device nor the high definition device.
I used Muon to see if a package had become broken, but did not find any. I removed the streaming scripts from Amarok (in the configuration settings) as this was the last thing I had done before Amarok sound broke. It didn't seem to fix anything.
I reinstalled all the Alsa packages as well as Amarok but still did not get sound back.
I rebooted the system on Windows7 (on another disc, but the same motherboard) to try it, and the sound worked fine, so it proved that the hardware was ok, and the problem was related to something on the Linux system.
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The information below came from a post written in 2008, some of which was no longer applicable to this version of Kubuntu. Below are the commands and results I found which were helpful, and which were used to resolve my sound problem. Thanks to the original author: Symbolik!
Troubleshooting Sound in Kubuntu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------running lspci, I found these two audio devices in the list of PCI devices:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation X79 series chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 06)
02:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
by running lsmod, one can see the modules currently loaded. In the list that follows, I have only left those I thought were related to sound...
chad@ubuntu:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 4
snd_hda_codec_realtek 224173 1
snd_hda_intel 33719 7
snd_hda_codec 127706 3
snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 17764 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 97275 4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq_midi 13324 0
snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 61929 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
nvidia 11308613 50
snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd 79041 23 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 15091 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
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April 22, 2013 added snd_hda_codec_hdmi to the blacklist.conf
# April 22 2013 DRC Edit
# try to get rid of the second sound card (nvidia integrated sound)
blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi
I restarted the system, and sound still works, and now I only get one device in the kmixer. Goodie :-)
I think this will make the sound system more dependable. We'll try it like this for a while.
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Previous screen images below, show the same configuration before I added the line above to the blacklist.conf file.
April 21, 2013; sound fixed by playing with Kmix options in the kmix settings as well as in the photon settings in Amarok...
KMix (as seen in the Kmenu) appears to be the application providing the small speaker icon at the bottom right of the Kubuntu screen. See below:
If the mouse is placed on the speaker icon, the volume level is displayed: (you don't see the mouse below)
If you "left click" the mouse while pointing at the speaker icon, a mixer menu appears:
If you click on the "Mixer button" as seen above, a new menu appears:
The sound problem I experienced may have been connected to the fact I have two sound cards on the system, and the configuration got as confused as the user$#@! Amarok did not want to function at all with one (the GF108 High Definition) while sounds worked with both.
The Amarok application has a Help menu on the top right corner, and a link to the Amarok Handbook. Unfortunately it is not provide the most up-to-date handbook, and does not even point to the main Amarok web site where the updated docs can be found.
Wouldn't it be nice if it pointed to a wiki that everyone could update with valid info?
The Amarok documents also ignore kmixer, I guess because kmixer is specific to the version of Linux being used. While this keeps the Amarok documentation "clean" it does not help real users who use it on real systems.
Amarok dcumentation also ignores Amarok version numbers. As a real user, I find this quite bizarre. Documentation is obviously not written with the user in mind. Users use specific versions, on specific systems. Once I understand how it works, maybe I'll attempt to write a manual on it for Kubuntu 12.04
New users of Amarok must find Amarok documentation confusing, or at least not very helpful.
Additionally, if I tried opening kmixer from the normal Kmenu, it would fail. It seems to fail because a little hour glass comes up for a while but never brings up the menu. It took me a day to discover that it is already open --but hiding under the speaker icon in the system tray at the bottom of the screen. Additionaly, once it is in the system tray, the only way to get the menu for Kmixer is to click on the speaker. I spent alot of time removing sound applications and re-installing them because I thought kmixer was broken since the menu (under the main Kmenus) did not respond. Below are screen shots of the settings before I removed the second sound card using the blacklist.conf file.
Here are the current settings in Photon,
It is strange that Amarok is playing music on my original speakers & sound card, yet if I press the test buttons above, the High Definition sound card works as well.
The Backend is GStreamer 4.6.2
So this ends my notes here on my discoveries and secrets how to make sound and Amarok work.
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below are various notes I found on the web for my further study.... as I may need them if it fails
in the future...
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|| WEB INFO BELOW ||
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Audio Applications, from old Kubuntu documentation site (wiki)
--->this is the same information posted for Ubuntu, so I have to assume it has not been tested under Kubuntu.
Also see this section for a list of audio Media Players.
Audacity (Audio Editor and Recorder) Audacity is the leading cross-platform free open source (GPL-licensed) audio recorder and editor. It can be used to record, splice, edit, and manipulate sound files similar to tools found in recording studios. Install:
sudo apt-get install audacity
Ardour (Digital Audio Workstation)
Ardour is a free, GTK-based professional-grade digital audio workstation for high end audio manipulation and mixing. Install:
sudo apt-get install ardour
Rosegarden (Digital Audio Workstation)
Rosegarden is a midi/audio interface for synthesizers, as well as a digital audio studio for recording, editing, and notating music. It is often used in combination with Audacity. Install:
sudo apt-get install rosegarden
Hydrogen (Drum synthesizer)
Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for Linux. Install:
sudo apt-get install hydrogen
EasyTag (ID3 editor) EasyTag is a utility for editing the ID3 tags of mp3 and other music files. Install:
sudo apt-get install easytag
Run:
Applications -> Sound & Video -> EasyTAG
PuddleTag (ID3 editor)
PuddleTag is a comprehensive utility for editing the ID3 tags of mp3 and other music files. Install:
sudo apt-get install python-qt4 python-pyparsing python-mutagen python-configobj python-musicbrainz2
wget -O puddletag_current.deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/puddletag/files/puddletag_0.9.12-1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i puddletag_current.deb
UbuntuStudio (Ubuntu distribution customized for multimedia editing)
UbuntuStudio is an official derivative of Ubuntu that pre-packages many multimedia editing packages. (Each of the packages can also be installed independently.) See the website for a full list of the premier audiovisual software packages available for Ubuntu Linux.
Install all the audio applications found in UbuntuStudio:
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-audio
Install all the video applications found in UbuntuStudio:
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-video
Install all the graphics applications found in UbuntuStudio:
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-graphics
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Amarok Help provided:
Phonon is the multimedia framework used by Amarok. It was created to allow KDE 4 to be independent of any single multimedia framework such as GStreamer or Xine and to provide a stable API for KDE 4's lifetime. As an added bonus, it simplifies development by providing a simple API that works across different platforms such as Windows and OS X.
The result of all this for you, the user, is that you can choose the multimedia framework that works best for you. This is usually pre-configured by your distribution.
Playback problems in Amarok are typically not Amarok issues, but rather Phonon issues, as Amarok doesn't handle sound directly anymore.
Depending on your OS and distribution, you may need to use ALSA, OSS, PulseAudio, or something else as your default playback device. Find one that works for you with the Test button and apply to all types of output. If you would like different types of output to go with different devices, this is possible as well.
Depending on your operating system you may see options such as Xine, Gstreamer, VLC, or DS9 (Windows) here. The recommended phonon-backend for Linux® users is VLC or Gstreamer.
If you don't see VLC or Gstreamer, install the package for it. For most distributions the package for VLC, for example, would be phonon-backend-vlc.
Each backend comes with its own codecs, so depending on the backend you choose you will need to also download the codecs, as most distributions don't ship them for legal reasons.
For information on codecs and playing mp3s see the mp3 information page.
My current backend is Photon GStreamer 4.6.2. Since it works well, I won't install another backend.
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from 2008:
Good advice: Some caveats here – be familiar with your hardware and modules. Use lspci and lsmod. Take your time and go slow, making one-change-at-a-time if you are unsure or uncomfortable. Document what you do, so in the worst case, you can reboot into rescue mode and undo what ya done did.
I found some Kubuntu-specific tips written in 2008. many originating in the Ubuntu forums that helped. These and the module blacklisting I did seem to have permanently fixed the problem. I also rebooted back into the BIOS and disabled the onboard sound card to ensure there were as few variables running amuck as possible.
The links I found helpful were:
The commands I found useful were:
- cat /proc/asound/modules
- sudo asoundconf list [did not work on Kubuntu 12.04??]
- sudo asoundconf set-default-card <desired card name from the preceding list command> – sets across the system
- asoundconf set-default-card <desired card name from the preceding list command> – sets for the user running the command
- /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base – shows card-slots, modules and options
- /etc/modprobe/blacklist – take out modules that keep stepping on your toes
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