[pulseaudio-discuss] No audio output; same setup worked before

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2021, Sean Greenslade wrote:

> OK, all of this suggests that the file did not record correctly. And
> after some experimentation myself, it seems like this is a known bug:
> https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/-/issues/822

Sean,

What's the difference between parec and pacat? The former looks like the
eqivalent to parecord or paca -r.

Oh. When I started having issues I upgraded pavucontrol from -3.0 to -4.0.
The last time the AT2500 worked as expected was with 3.0 installed.

> It seems like the wav format does work, so give this variant a try:
> $ pacat -v -r --file-format=wav /tmp/sounds.wav
> and
> $ pacat -v -p --file-format=wav /tmp/sounds.wav

So I tried these with 4.0 and still no sound.

$ pacat -v -r --file-format=wav /tmp/sounds.wav
Opening a recording stream with sample specification 's16le 2ch 44100Hz' and channel map 'front-left,front-right'.
Connection established.
Stream successfully created.
Buffer metrics: maxlength=4194304, fragsize=352800
Using sample spec 's16le 2ch 44100Hz', channel map 'front-left,front-right'.
Connected to device alsa_output.pci-0000_0a_00.3.analog-stereo.monitor (index: 0, suspended: no).

and

$ pacat -v -p --file-format=wav /tmp/sounds.wav
Opening a playback stream with sample specification 's16le 2ch 44100Hz' and channel map 'front-left,front-right'.
Connection established.
Stream successfully created.
Buffer metrics: maxlength=4194304, tlength=352800, prebuf=349276, minreq=3528
Using sample spec 's16le 2ch 44100Hz', channel map 'front-left,front-right'.
Connected to device alsa_output.pci-0000_0a_00.3.analog-stereo (index: 0, suspended: no).
Stream started.

Then I restored version 3.0 and saw the same results.

I have some music files in .wav format. I just played one (pavucontrol
version 3.0) using 'pacat -v -p --file-format=wav s-and-g.wav'.
pavucontrol's Playback tab's VU meter moved as the song came out of the
speakers.

Darn! What else can I do to find why what's recorded by the mic won't play?

> My Scarlett solo is an older gen, so it doesn't have an "air" switch. I
> was curious what that was, so here's what their docs have to say:
> Lol, it's just a fixed EQ curve. This should not be the cause of your
> issues, though feel free to use it if you like the tone it produces.

Yes, I have the Gen3 since I bought it mid-last year. I looked up 'air' in
the manual and saw it would really not apply to speech but would to music.

Regards,

Rich