[pulseaudio-discuss] Conexant CX20585 recording does not work

[Gabriel Schulhof]

Hi!

On Sat, April 9, 2011 22:13, Gabriel Schulhof wrote:
> I went over to alsa-devel, and I have found a solution that makes arecord
> work, however, recording continues to block in pulseaudio. Here's what I
> did:
>
> 1. I added "options snd-hda-intel model=ideapad" to /etc/modprobe.d
> 2. I verified that "ideapad" was set in
> /sys/modules/snd_hda_intel/params/model:
> ideapad,(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null)
> 3. I booted to runlevel 3 to avoid pulseaudio from starting, and logged in
> as my mom.
> 4. I recorded something using arecord > tmp.wav
> 5. I played it back. I heard what I had recorded.
> 6. I rebooted to runlevel 5.
> 7. I logged in using GNOME, and I looked at the sound preferences menu, in
> "input". I found that the level indicator wasn't moving at all.
> 8. I tried a skype test call. It looked like it was recording my voice for
> 10 seconds, but when it was to play it back, it played back a NULL
> sequence - not 10 seconds of static, but a sequence that was 0 seconds in
> length.

Upon further twiddling with pavucontrol, I was able to get it to work
/sometimes/. I'm noticing that, upon bootup, pavucontrol lists the monitor
and the input of the card among the inputs, but there is no level
indicator next to the input itself. The monitor has a level indicator, but
it always shows 0.

I've twiddled around with killing pulseaudio, plugging in a webcam to get
a second mic, turning the internal card off/on, setting it to analog
output only, and so forth ... sometimes a level indicator appears
underneath the input of the internal card and updates slowly. That is, the
webcam's microphone's level indicator updates all the time and twitches
around 75%, whereas the internal card's input's level indicator updates
only about once per second.

Nevertheless, when the level indicator appears, recording from the
internal mic works perfectly (as tested with skype call testing service).

I have no idea why one would have an input without a level indicator.

I'll try to keep poking around to try and come up with a reliable way of
bringing about an internal input from which I can record.

Please help me if you know a sure-fire way to make this work!

TIA,



Gabriel