[pulseaudio-discuss] internal speaker silent in Asus eee netbook (patch)

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Fri, 2017-08-04 at 14:50 +0200, Guenter Milde wrote:
> Dear PulseAudio developers,
> 
> after updating my Asus eee netbook from Debian 8 to Debian 9, the internal
> speaker fell silent.
> 
> 
> System: Debian,
> 	pulseaudio 10.0
> 	Audio Device: Intel NM10/ICH7
> 
> Diagnosis:
>   headphones work
>   speaker: no sound despite signal shown in pavucontrol
> 
>   Note:
>   Before the update, pavucontrol showed 3 outputs: audio, speaker, and
>   headphone.  "audio" worked.
>   After the update, the "audio" port is missing on the list.
>   
> Workaround: with help from 
> https://debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=155501
> https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Backends/ALSA/Profiles/
> 
> --- /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conf	2017-06-18 18:03:31.000000000 +0200
> +++ /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker-eeepc.conf	2017-08-04 10:57:45.035014838 +0200
> @@ -84,13 +92,18 @@
>  
>  ; This profile path is intended to control the speaker, let's mute headphones
>  ; else there will be a spike when plugging in headphones
> +; change by GM: "mute" instead of turning "off", don' set volume to zero
>  [Element Headphone]
> -switch = off
> -volume = off
> +;switch = off
> +;volume = off
> +switch = mute
> +;volume = zero
>  
>  [Element Headphone2]
> -switch = off
> -volume = off
> +;switch = off
> +;volume = off
> +switch = mute
> +;volume = zero
>  
>  [Element Headphone+LO]
>  switch = off
> 
> I currently use a modified 
> /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/default.conf
> as a new udev rule would require to rebuild initramfs.
> 
> Some questions:
> 
> Is this a known problem?

Not known to me at least.

> Why are switch and volume set to "off" in the original
> analog-output-speaker.conf?

The headphone output is turned off, because playing simultaneously to
the speakers and the headphones is a bad idea.

> Is there a better/simpler fix?

If headphone output needs to be enabled when using the internal
speakers, then that's a bug in the kernel driver. Please report this to
the alsa developers.

http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Bug_Tracking

> Are there sideeffects.
> 
> Could this be achieved without root access and without changes to /usr/share/?

Pulseaudio's alsa mixer configuration can't currently be modified
elsewhere, unfortunately.

-- 
Tanu

https://www.patreon.com/tanuk