Mailing List Archive: KDE Plasma sound not working

KDE Plasma sound not working

Jun 14, 2022, 7:00 PM

Post #1 of 18 (1233 views)

Hello list,

I thought it was time to start a fresh thread, so here it is.

I still have no working sound. I keep thinking I've fixed the problem, only to
be proved wrong at the next reboot. The hardware is a USB dongle with a Unitek
Y-247A chipset and I'm using an ordinary 3.5mm wired connection.

The problem seems to be in my user account, because I can create a new user,
then adjust control panel values to suit, logging out and in after each
change. The sound keeps operating as it should - until I reboot, and then it's
dead.

By 'dead' I mean (a) it's silent, and (b) when I click the control panel
button to test a speaker, the icon changes colour to show it's working, but it
just hangs and never comes back.

This reminds me of another problem, in which Konsole windows are not always
restored after a login. This has still not been fixed; two bugs refer:

1. https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=819459
2. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445862

Something else also changes at the first reboot after creating a new user
account: a dialogue box opens requesting permission to mount a partition - but
that partition is one of several marked 'noauto' in fstab. (Screen shot
attached.)

What can possibly live under /home/prh and cause all this disruption? I might
suspect I'd been hacked, but I've rebuilt a new system several times, and I've
lost count of the times I've thrown away my user account and started again.

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 14, 2022, 7:21 PM

Post #2 of 18 (1233 views)

Hello,

A few suggestions to pin point the source of your problem:

- Try with a different audio device to test if the issue is localized to
this USB dongle, or if it is "system wide",

- Install a different DE (or perhaps a WM would be faster), to see
whether this is KDE-related, or system wide,

- Take a copy/backup/snapshot of your new user account before the issue
occurs, and compare it (specifically the config files) to the account
after the issue appears. This may help you find out if KDE is doing
something fishy with a config file somewhere that triggers the problem.
Alternatively, you could also revert to the snapshot and see if that
fixes the problem. If so, then you might want to take more granular
snapshots (specific folders or files), and restore specific folders as
the issue appears, to figure out where exactly the problem is located.

As for the drive that wants to mount itself, I don't think it is related
to this audio problem, but KDE (and DEs in general) have settings to
allow mounting devices (automatically) through the DE itself rather than
fstab, which explains why the noauto setting is being ignored : check
the settings in KDE to see if it's setup to auto mount devices.

Regards

On 6/14/22 22:00, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I thought it was time to start a fresh thread, so here it is.
>
> I still have no working sound. I keep thinking I've fixed the problem, only to
> be proved wrong at the next reboot. The hardware is a USB dongle with a Unitek
> Y-247A chipset and I'm using an ordinary 3.5mm wired connection.
>
> The problem seems to be in my user account, because I can create a new user,
> then adjust control panel values to suit, logging out and in after each
> change. The sound keeps operating as it should - until I reboot, and then it's
> dead.
>
> By 'dead' I mean (a) it's silent, and (b) when I click the control panel
> button to test a speaker, the icon changes colour to show it's working, but it
> just hangs and never comes back.
>
> This reminds me of another problem, in which Konsole windows are not always
> restored after a login. This has still not been fixed; two bugs refer:
>
> 1. https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=819459
> 2. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445862
>
> Something else also changes at the first reboot after creating a new user
> account: a dialogue box opens requesting permission to mount a partition - but
> that partition is one of several marked 'noauto' in fstab. (Screen shot
> attached.)
>
> What can possibly live under /home/prh and cause all this disruption? I might
> suspect I'd been hacked, but I've rebuilt a new system several times, and I've
> lost count of the times I've thrown away my user account and started again.
>

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 14, 2022, 7:50 PM

Post #3 of 18 (1233 views)

Hello,

I'm not sure if my previous email went through correctly, so I will try
again:

A few suggestions to pin point the source of your problem:

- Try with a different audio device to test if the issue is localized to
this USB dongle, or if it is "system wide",

- Install a different DE (or perhaps a WM would be faster), to see
whether this is KDE-related, or system wide,

- Take a copy/backup/snapshot of your new user account before the issue
occurs, and compare it (specifically the config files) to the account
after the issue appears. This may help you find out if KDE is doing
something fishy with a config file somewhere that triggers the problem.
Alternatively, you could also revert to the snapshot and see if that
fixes the problem. If so, then you might want to take more granular
snapshots (specific folders or files), and restore specific folders as
the issue appears, to figure out where exactly the problem is located.

As for the drive that wants to mount itself, I don't think it is related
to this audio problem, but KDE (and DEs in general) have settings to
allow mounting devices (automatically) through the DE itself rather than
fstab, which explains why the noauto setting is being ignored : check
the settings in KDE to see if it's setup to auto mount devices.

Regard,

Julien

On 6/14/22 22:00, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I thought it was time to start a fresh thread, so here it is.
>
> I still have no working sound. I keep thinking I've fixed the problem, only to
> be proved wrong at the next reboot. The hardware is a USB dongle with a Unitek
> Y-247A chipset and I'm using an ordinary 3.5mm wired connection.
>
> The problem seems to be in my user account, because I can create a new user,
> then adjust control panel values to suit, logging out and in after each
> change. The sound keeps operating as it should - until I reboot, and then it's
> dead.
>
> By 'dead' I mean (a) it's silent, and (b) when I click the control panel
> button to test a speaker, the icon changes colour to show it's working, but it
> just hangs and never comes back.
>
> This reminds me of another problem, in which Konsole windows are not always
> restored after a login. This has still not been fixed; two bugs refer:
>
> 1. https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=819459
> 2. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445862
>
> Something else also changes at the first reboot after creating a new user
> account: a dialogue box opens requesting permission to mount a partition - but
> that partition is one of several marked 'noauto' in fstab. (Screen shot
> attached.)
>
> What can possibly live under /home/prh and cause all this disruption? I might
> suspect I'd been hacked, but I've rebuilt a new system several times, and I've
> lost count of the times I've thrown away my user account and started again.
>

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 15, 2022, 3:52 AM

Post #4 of 18 (1231 views)

On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 03:21:51 BST Julien Roy wrote:

> A few suggestions to pin point the source of your problem:

Thanks for you help.

> - Try with a different audio device to test if the issue is localized to
> this USB dongle, or if it is "system wide",

The evidence points squarely away from the hardware. I can't see this being
anything other than a misconfiguration or a coding error.

> - Install a different DE (or perhaps a WM would be faster), to see
> whether this is KDE-related, or system wide,

I may do that.

> - Take a copy/backup/snapshot of your new user account before the issue
> occurs, and compare it (specifically the config files) to the account
> after the issue appears. This may help you find out if KDE is doing
> something fishy with a config file somewhere that triggers the problem.
> Alternatively, you could also revert to the snapshot and see if that
> fixes the problem. If so, then you might want to take more granular
> snapshots (specific folders or files), and restore specific folders as
> the issue appears, to figure out where exactly the problem is located.

I do something like that by copying a good user account as a basis for the
next iteration. The problem is just the fineness of granularity that's needed,
now that a coarse grain hasn't helped. Hey-ho. Here we must go again...

> As for the drive that wants to mount itself, I don't think it is related
> to this audio problem, but KDE (and DEs in general) have settings to
> allow mounting devices (automatically) through the DE itself rather than
> fstab, which explains why the noauto setting is being ignored : check
> the settings in KDE to see if it's setup to auto mount devices.

Setting all devices to no-automount hasn't helped.

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 15, 2022, 9:29 AM

Post #5 of 18 (1231 views)

On 6/15/22 06:52, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
> I do something like that by copying a good user account as a basis for the
> next iteration. The problem is just the fineness of granularity that's needed,
> now that a coarse grain hasn't helped. Hey-ho. Here we must go again...

What is certain is that the issue is caused by a file in your home
directory, since creating a new user fixes the problem.

What may help you to be more specific with this would be to list what
files were modified since the last time audio worked; for example, `find
$HOME -mtime 0` will show files modified in the last 24 hours

You might want to run this command on .config or .kde directories to see
what could have changed, although it's true that it might take a while
to pin point it...

Another option, since you mention that you re-created your user multiple
times, is to just delete specific folders, reboot, and try audio. Maybe
start with .config as that would be the most obvious culprit. If that
doesn't work, try .kde (not sure if that folder is in ~/ or ~/.config),
then other directories.

Also, did you check `dmesg` to see if there are any errors related to
the audio device/driver? Try `dmesg --level=err,warn`

Regards,

Julien

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

confabulate at kintzios

Jun 15, 2022, 10:29 AM

Post #6 of 18 (1231 views)

On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 17:29:54 BST Julien Roy wrote:
> On 6/15/22 06:52, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > I do something like that by copying a good user account as a basis for the
> > next iteration. The problem is just the fineness of granularity that's
> > needed, now that a coarse grain hasn't helped. Hey-ho. Here we must go
> > again...
> What is certain is that the issue is caused by a file in your home
> directory, since creating a new user fixes the problem.
>
> What may help you to be more specific with this would be to list what
> files were modified since the last time audio worked; for example, `find
> $HOME -mtime 0` will show files modified in the last 24 hours
>
> You might want to run this command on .config or .kde directories to see
> what could have changed, although it's true that it might take a while
> to pin point it...
>
> Another option, since you mention that you re-created your user multiple
> times, is to just delete specific folders, reboot, and try audio. Maybe
> start with .config as that would be the most obvious culprit. If that
> doesn't work, try .kde (not sure if that folder is in ~/ or ~/.config),
> then other directories.
>
> Also, did you check `dmesg` to see if there are any errors related to
> the audio device/driver? Try `dmesg --level=err,warn`
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Julien

I can't recall if among various things Peter has tried is to boot and login
into Plasma, without the USB audio dongle plugged in. Then plug it in and
check dmesg and syslog, as well as udevadm:

udevadm monitor --subsystem-match=usb --property

Also, if there is some specific audio driver module used with this dongle, try
compiling it as a module and modprobe it manually.

Hopefully, checking differences between the working and non-working user
profiles before/after a reboot will elicit something meaningful.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

confabulate at kintzios

Jun 15, 2022, 10:42 AM

Post #7 of 18 (1231 views)

On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 03:00:16 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Something else also changes at the first reboot after creating a new user
> account: a dialogue box opens requesting permission to mount a partition -
> but that partition is one of several marked 'noauto' in fstab. (Screen shot
> attached.)
>
> What can possibly live under /home/prh and cause all this disruption? I
> might suspect I'd been hacked, but I've rebuilt a new system several times,
> and I've lost count of the times I've thrown away my user account and
> started again.

As it has already been commented the udisks points to desktop automounting
function doing its thing here. There a number of options to configure for all
devices and selected devices. However, I can't recall this pop up on new user
accounts here, but I do not run any nvme devices to know if it is any
different.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 16, 2022, 9:10 AM

Post #8 of 18 (1218 views)

On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 17:29:54 BST Julien Roy wrote:
> On 6/15/22 06:52, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > I do something like that by copying a good user account as a basis for the
> > next iteration. The problem is just the fineness of granularity that's
> > needed, now that a coarse grain hasn't helped. Hey-ho. Here we must go
> > again...
> What is certain is that the issue is caused by a file in your home
> directory, since creating a new user fixes the problem.

Having spent several hours at this today, I've concluded that the problem is
caused by the Startpage add-on to Firefox. Specifically, startpage 1.3 and
Firefox 71.10. Early in the stepwise setting everything up, I started Firefox,
set its typefaces and so on, then installed Startpage. The sound system
stopped working instantly. I removed Startpage and the sound came back. A
reboot confirmed that no lasting damage had been done. So, I'm now using 'EU
Startpage - Unofficial', which seems to working well so far.

> What may help you to be more specific with this would be to list what
> files were modified since the last time audio worked; for example, `find
> $HOME -mtime 0` will show files modified in the last 24 hours
>
> You might want to run this command on .config or .kde directories to see
> what could have changed, although it's true that it might take a while
> to pin point it...
>
> Another option, since you mention that you re-created your user multiple
> times, is to just delete specific folders, reboot, and try audio. Maybe
> start with .config as that would be the most obvious culprit. If that
> doesn't work, try .kde (not sure if that folder is in ~/ or ~/.config),
> then other directories.

I'll stick with the system I have for the moment, thanks. I'll also report the
problem to the developers.

> Also, did you check `dmesg` to see if there are any errors related to
> the audio device/driver? Try `dmesg --level=err,warn`

Thanks for your ideas, Julien.

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 16, 2022, 9:20 AM

Post #9 of 18 (1218 views)

On Thursday, 16 June 2022 17:10:38 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 17:29:54 BST Julien Roy wrote:
> > On 6/15/22 06:52, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > I do something like that by copying a good user account as a basis for
> > > the
> > > next iteration. The problem is just the fineness of granularity that's
> > > needed, now that a coarse grain hasn't helped. Hey-ho. Here we must go
> > > again...
> >
> > What is certain is that the issue is caused by a file in your home
> > directory, since creating a new user fixes the problem.
>
> Having spent several hours at this today, I've concluded that the problem is
> caused by the Startpage add-on to Firefox. Specifically, startpage 1.3 and
> Firefox 71.10. Early in the stepwise setting everything up, I started

91.10.

> Firefox, set its typefaces and so on, then installed Startpage. The sound
> system stopped working instantly. I removed Startpage and the sound came
> back. A reboot confirmed that no lasting damage had been done. So, I'm now
> using 'EU Startpage - Unofficial', which seems to working well so far.
>
> > What may help you to be more specific with this would be to list what
> > files were modified since the last time audio worked; for example, `find
> > $HOME -mtime 0` will show files modified in the last 24 hours
> >
> > You might want to run this command on .config or .kde directories to see
> > what could have changed, although it's true that it might take a while
> > to pin point it...
> >
> > Another option, since you mention that you re-created your user multiple
> > times, is to just delete specific folders, reboot, and try audio. Maybe
> > start with .config as that would be the most obvious culprit. If that
> > doesn't work, try .kde (not sure if that folder is in ~/ or ~/.config),
> > then other directories.
>
> I'll stick with the system I have for the moment, thanks. I'll also report
> the problem to the developers.
>
> > Also, did you check `dmesg` to see if there are any errors related to
> > the audio device/driver? Try `dmesg --level=err,warn`
>
> Thanks for your ideas, Julien.

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 16, 2022, 6:28 PM

Post #10 of 18 (1215 views)

On 6/16/22 12:10, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
> Having spent several hours at this today, I've concluded that the problem is
> caused by the Startpage add-on to Firefox. Specifically, startpage 1.3 and
> Firefox 71.10. Early in the stepwise setting everything up, I started Firefox,
> set its typefaces and so on, then installed Startpage. The sound system
> stopped working instantly. I removed Startpage and the sound came back. A
> reboot confirmed that no lasting damage had been done. So, I'm now using 'EU
> Startpage - Unofficial', which seems to working well so far.

It's really weird that a Firefox add-on would cause system-wide sound to
stop working!

Anyway, glad that you figured it out

Regards,
Julien

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 16, 2022, 11:35 PM

Post #11 of 18 (1215 views)

On Friday, 17 June 2022 02:28:26 BST Julien Roy wrote:

> It's really weird that a Firefox add-on would cause system-wide sound to
> stop working!

Well, it may not be system-wide, but yes - you see why I took so long to find
it!

> Anyway, glad that you figured it out

:)

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

confabulate at kintzios

Jun 17, 2022, 1:55 AM

Post #12 of 18 (1215 views)

On Friday, 17 June 2022 07:35:54 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Friday, 17 June 2022 02:28:26 BST Julien Roy wrote:
> > It's really weird that a Firefox add-on would cause system-wide sound to
> > stop working!
>
> Well, it may not be system-wide, but yes - you see why I took so long to
> find it!
>

It is even more weird this add-on provides just a search engine! It's not as
if the add-on is related to a media player, or something you could expect it
might need to touch audio.

I tried it on a plasma desktop and I can replicate the problem. However, I
noticed if I go into Configure Audio Devices and select 'Analogue Stereo' and
then 'Analogue Stereo Duplex' back & forth, the audio starts playing again.
This is with a hard wired audio, no bluetooth.

Any idea what the difference is between the various StartPage add-ons? Is
StartPage to be trusted, anymore than all the rest mass surveillance
corporates?

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 17, 2022, 4:19 AM

Post #13 of 18 (1215 views)

On Friday, 17 June 2022 09:55:17 BST Michael wrote:
> On Friday, 17 June 2022 07:35:54 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Friday, 17 June 2022 02:28:26 BST Julien Roy wrote:
> > > It's really weird that a Firefox add-on would cause system-wide sound to
> > > stop working!
> >
> > Well, it may not be system-wide, but yes - you see why I took so long to
> > find it!
>
> It is even more weird this add-on provides just a search engine! It's not
> as if the add-on is related to a media player, or something you could
> expect it might need to touch audio.

I assume it's an inadvertent error: overwriting something it shouldn't. Don't
ask me what, though.

> I tried it on a plasma desktop and I can replicate the problem. However, I
> noticed if I go into Configure Audio Devices and select 'Analogue Stereo'
> and then 'Analogue Stereo Duplex' back & forth, the audio starts playing
> again. This is with a hard wired audio, no bluetooth.

No BT here either; I gave up on that some time ago.

> Any idea what the difference is between the various StartPage add-ons?

I have noticed that the ordinary startpage has started behaving differently in
recent versions. For instance, I searched for 'Best ...' once, and from then
on, when I opened a tab and typed a B, that 'Best ...' appeared, in bold,
right at the top. It couldn't be removed, even by deleting the add-on and
rebooting. I won't be using that again.

> Is StartPage to be trusted, anymore than all the rest mass surveillance
> corporates?

I don't know; is that what they do? Have you looked at https://
eu.startpage.com/ ?

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

confabulate at kintzios

Jun 17, 2022, 7:27 AM

Post #14 of 18 (1215 views)

On Friday, 17 June 2022 12:19:58 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Friday, 17 June 2022 09:55:17 BST Michael wrote:

> > Is StartPage to be trusted, anymore than all the rest mass surveillance
> > corporates?
>
> I don't know; is that what they do? Have you looked at https://
> eu.startpage.com/ ?

They were bought out by a US advertising company 3 years ago and for more than
a decade have not had had an independent audit on the way data privacy is
handled. Statements provided by the CEO attempting to assuage users'
nervousness on the new ownership structure and its impact on privacy, appear
to be an exercise in doublethink:

https://old.reddit.com/r/StartpageSearch/comments/djshn3/
hello_reddit_startpage_mod_team/

http://techrights.org/2019/11/04/startpage-dogpile-webcrawler-metacrawler/

I'm not saying they're any worse than all the other contenders in this space,
but I do wonder if there is such a think as a search engine which respects
users' privacy (... asking for a friend).

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 17, 2022, 7:51 AM

Post #15 of 18 (1215 views)

> I'm not saying they're any worse than all the other contenders in this space,
> but I do wonder if there is such a think as a search engine which respects
> users' privacy (... asking for a friend).

Decent ones:
- SearchX
- Whoogle

Shitty ones:
- YaCy

Specialized ones:
- Search My Site
- Wiby

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 18, 2022, 4:53 AM

Post #16 of 18 (1209 views)

On Thursday, 16 June 2022 17:10:38 BST Peter Humphrey wrote:

> ... I'll also report the problem to the developers.

Done that. It seems that a newer version of FF is unaffected. Startpage in
version 101.0.1does not kill the sound. I did tell them that 91.10.0 is the
latest version in the portage tree; we'll see if that causes a change.

--
Regards,
Peter.

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 18, 2022, 5:30 AM

Post #17 of 18 (1209 views)

On 6/18/22 07:53, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> I did tell them that 91.10.0 is the
> latest version in the portage tree;

By default, only the LTS/ESR release of Firefox is unmasked (or marked
as stable), of which the latest version is 91.10.0, however, if you
unmask it, you can use the latest Firefox version, currently 101.0.1.
Though unmasking Firefox leads to more frequent rebuilds since the rapid
release has, well, frequent releases.

As a side note, by default, searching using `emerge --search` does not
show the available masked versions (not sure if an option exists to
change that). One option that I recommend is to install app-portage/eix,
it's a small program that searches (much faster then emerge) available
packages, and gives more information, in the case of Firefox, it shows
both the ESR and rapid releases. See the Gentoo Wiki article [0] if you
want to know more about it.

[0] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Eix

Regards,
Julien

Re: KDE Plasma sound not working [ In reply to ]

Jun 18, 2022, 6:51 AM

Post #18 of 18 (1209 views)

On Saturday, 18 June 2022 13:30:16 BST Julien Roy wrote:

> By default, only the LTS/ESR release of Firefox is unmasked (or marked
> as stable), of which the latest version is 91.10.0, however, if you
> unmask it, you can use the latest Firefox version, currently 101.0.1.
> Though unmasking Firefox leads to more frequent rebuilds since the rapid
> release has, well, frequent releases.

Yes, and that's a good reason for not doing so. I have another machine running
~amd64; this one's stable for everyday use. Well, it's supposed to be stable.
:)

I did keyword firefox to test SP against the sound system, but I've reverted to
the older version.

> As a side note, by default, searching using `emerge --search` does not
> show the available masked versions (not sure if an option exists to
> change that). One option that I recommend is to install app-portage/eix,

Yes, I've been using it for many years.

--
Regards,
Peter.