ALSA: alsamixer does not find mixer elem

tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

Hi there

OK, my ALSA seems to work now (at least, during boot up no error messages and the sound-modules are loaded).

However, when I issue a alsamixer, it just says "No mixer elem found".
What the heck is this?

thomas
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Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

Hei

What do you get when you run

# ls -l /dev/sound

mvh
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tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

The output is

adsp1
audio1
dsp
mixer
mixer1
sequencer
sequencer2

All files belong to root:audio, and all files have crw-rw---- except for mixer, sequencer and sequencer2 which have crw-------.

thomas
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My systems and some screenshots: http://www.hobbes.ch/techie/
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tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

I tried also amixer, as suggested in the little gentoo ALSA manual; a plain "amixer" gives NO output.
A "amixer set Master 100 unmute" gives "unable to find simple control 'Master',0"

... :cry:

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Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

Does #alsamixer -c1 give you anything?
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tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

YES!

Very interesting. So, what's the problem?
What do I have to do?

thomas
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Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

How many sound cards, usb headsets, or other usb audio devices do you have? Or perhaps an on-board and another pci card?

What does your modules.d/alsa look like?

You aren't using udev are you?

mvh
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tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

I just have one soundcard.

Uhm - yes, I am using udev? :oops:

thomas
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Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

OK

..have you configured alsa sound, oss-emul, etc as modules or built in <*> ?

I've always configured sound devices as modules until yesterday (or was it the day before?), when I reconfigured them all as <*>

That solved a headache with 'udev with tarball' not making /dev/mixer, and swapping dsp & dsp1 on my 2-card setup. And now I'm running with NO tarball and all is well with my onboard sound and my Skype USB phone... :-)

mvh
_________________
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" W.S.

tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

I did configure my snd_emu10k1 as a module - it did not work when I built it into the kernel (see this thread: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=257393&highlight=

Now, I am really confused - what shall I do? Built them as modules? And, if not, into the kernel? But how do I configure ALSA then?

thomas
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My systems and some screenshots: http://www.hobbes.ch/techie/
My Gentoo client installation page: http://www.hobbes.ch/techie/gentoo-client/
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art122288 · n00b Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 46

I'm having the same exact problem, have anyone found a solution to this?

art122288 · n00b Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 46

i guess i'll try each way modules and built and see which one works >.>

tkhobbes · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Switzerland

Phew - this has been a long way ago, I have a complete different setup now....
I think what I did is compile the sound drivers as modules, and having them autoloaded. In fact, that's the setup I have now, and I haven't done anything else than following the gentoo ALSA guide....

Sorry for not being able to help any more - but you should have come sooner...

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art122288 · n00b Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 46

That's what I did I followed the alsa guide installing them as modules but when I run alsamixer it doesn't detect any sound cards,
I either get the error message from udev which I can deal with by killing the processes
or I get the alsamixer to not find any cards.

oh and alsamixer -c1 works

When I set up udev, it recognized my sound card right away.