Configuring Sound on Linux/ALSA/Troubleshooting

Errors and Solutions

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Kernel lacks appropriate modules

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Symptom

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Indicated by:

  • The virtual directory /proc/asound is not present
  • The command aplay -l returns no sound cards present
  • The sound card shows up under some hardware detection mechanism, i.e., lspci

Sometimes the cause of this is selectively pulling out modules suggested by a dist-upgrade, such as the kernel, without the kernel modules.

Solution

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Add the appropriate modules to your kernel. In Ubuntu you can upgrade to the newest kernel and modules by issuing the following command:

 $ sudo apt-get install linux-generic

Invalid card specified

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Symptom

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If you encounter the following error it simply means you are targeting a non-existent or erroneous device:

$ cat /dev/urandom | aplay
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1207:(_snd_pcm_hw_open) Invalid value for card
aplay: main:546: audio open error: No such file or directory

Solution

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This can often be remedied by simply specifying the device explicitly.

 cat /dev/urandom | aplay -D hw:0,3

Bad sample

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Symptom

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This is a rather complex option . Essentially, hardware expects a certain datatype for the sound sample, and you're providing the wrong one.

 aplay: set_params:901: Sample format non available

Solution

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Specify the sample format, or amend the rate in the ALSA conf file.

 cat /dev/urandom | aplay -f S16_LE ## Where S16_LE is your desired rate

No channel count

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Symptom

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If you do not provide to ALSA the amount of channels you wish to output to, you'll get the following error:

 aplay: set_params:901: Channels count non available

Solution

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Specify the amount of channels you wish to output too. Two is considered safe for the purpose of troubleshooting.

 cat /dev/urandom | aplay -c 2 ## Two channels is stereo sound