Thanks a lot for your help! I tried everything you suggested (except for checking /etc/pulse diffs, I'll do that later) without any luck. But I attached the output of 'pacmd list' as well as screenshots of pavucontrol and alsamixer. Imho, everything looks right. When recording with audacity, I can select (in pavucontrol) between the device itself and "monitor of" the device. When selecting the device, the "recording cursor" in audacity does not even move (but flickers). When selecting the monitor, the cursor moves but records nothing but silence (look at the volume meter). Dito with the gnome-sound-recorder (he even crashes on exit when recording directly from the device instead of the monitor). I couldn't find a place where I can set the monitor as the default recording device. I can only change that after recording has started, which is quiet confusing... what's the point of these "monitors" btw? If you need more information just ask. I'd really like to get this to work! Regards JK UPDATE : only 40KB are allowed for attachements, so I can only attach the output of 'pacmd list'. I'll send another mail with the other screenshots and hope it will be approved soon... <div class="gmail_quote">2009/9/23 Colin Guthrie <<a href="mailto:gmane@colin.guthr.ie">gmane@colin.guthr.ie</a>> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> 'Twas brillig, and <a href="mailto:remrot@gmail.com" target="_blank">remrot@gmail.com</a> at 23/09/09 09:56 did gyre and gimble:<div class="im"> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I have a problem getting the mic to work on a Toshiba 100 with an ALC861 chipset (no builtin mic). I tried Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 Alpha with the same results: the mic works during the live session but stops working after installation. Because of that, it's very likely not a bug within the ALSA driver but either a wrong configuration or a bug in a higher level application like PA. I've already filed a bug report on launchpad, but got no response so far: <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/434511" target="_blank">https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/434511</a> However, after doing a lot of search, it seems that there are more people with similar problems and they "solved" them mostly by uninstalling PA. I don't really want to do that (especially not in Ubuntu Karmic, since it's deeply integrated) so I decided to ask for help on this mailing list. Unfortunately, it's not my laptop and I only have access to it for the next few days. So, if anyone has some suggestions on how to get the mic working (or track down the bug) that would be really helpful... </blockquote> </div> The starting point would be to provide the output from: pacmd list Then to double check in pavucontol (the newest version - e.g. 0.9.9) which supports ports. 1. On the "Configuration" tab, you should have a profile selection drop down for your card. This should allow you to choose how your hardware works. e.g. you may have picked a 5.1 output profile which disables sound input (due to hardware limitations) or simply selected an output only profile. If so you would generally not get a list of devices under the "Input Devices" (with the default filter). If that doesn't solve the issue, look on the "Input Devices" tab and you should see the recording device. if there are multiple ports available then you should get a drop down there that you can use to switch ports. This may solve it for you. If all this fails, try a fresh user account or remove your ~/.pulse folder. If the live session works, then it could just be some thing in your config that's causing it, so trashing ~/.pulse is the easiest fix there (although double check /etc/pulse for differences in the files there from the live version too. HTHs Col -- Colin Guthrie gmane(at)<a href="http://colin.guthr.ie" target="_blank">colin.guthr.ie</a> <a href="http://colin.guthr.ie/" target="_blank">http://colin.guthr.ie/</a> Day Job: Tribalogic Limited [<a href="http://www.tribalogic.net/" target="_blank">http://www.tribalogic.net/</a>] Open Source: Mandriva Linux Contributor [<a href="http://www.mandriva.com/" target="_blank">http://www.mandriva.com/</a>] PulseAudio Hacker [<a href="http://www.pulseaudio.org/" target="_blank">http://www.pulseaudio.org/</a>] Trac Hacker [<a href="http://trac.edgewall.org/" target="_blank">http://trac.edgewall.org/</a>] _______________________________________________ pulseaudio-discuss mailing list <a href="mailto:pulseaudio-discuss@mail.0pointer.de" target="_blank">pulseaudio-discuss@mail.0pointer.de</a> <a href="https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss" target="_blank">https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss</a> </blockquote></div>