ALSA oddities and no sound after soundcard change in natty

[jay105]

Hi

I've just bought myself a E-MU 1820M audio interface for use in home recording after seeing online that a number of people have managed to get it working. The card replaces a Terratec DMX 6Fire (which i only managed to get outs from, no in's). I have done everything and anything suggested all on the forums and websites i can find and still no in's or out's at all, and no lights on the dock functioning.

Having tried and failed on a number of things i decided to see if Alsamixer had picked it up, only to be shown a blank grey window with nothing showing. I purged ALSA and started again (I have even done a fresh install of natty in case it was anything else getting in the way that i had done previously) but to no avail. I am using ALSA driver 1.0.24, which is the latest version, and according to the ALSA website, the EMU support was addded in post-1.0.15, so all should be well.

Could it be ALSA 1.0.24? Could it be that Natty just doesn't get on with it?

Any suggestions?

[oz]

I have done everything and anything suggested all on the forums and websites i can find and still no in's or out's at all, and no lights on the dock functioning.

I'm not at all familiar with that sound card, but did you run the alsaconf to let alsa search for your new card, then set the volume controls with alsamixer, and then store the settings with alsactl store?

[jay105]

yes i have managed ALSAconf, but then my alsa mixers are both acting up (see photo). This is the point where i screech to a halt!

Thanks

[oz]

Are you sure alsautils is installed?

You might try running your commands from a console as root user, or sudo if you use that instead of root.

Also, be sure to check this troubleshooting article if you haven't done so already:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

[jay105]

I definitely have it installed. Ive just reinstalled it to make sure. From the troubleshoot i inputted

aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

to get this output

james@james-desktop:~$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:4184:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:4184:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:4184:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:4663:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2212:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
aplay: main:660: audio open error: No such file or directory
james@james-desktop:~$

Something isn't quite right here is it

[oz]

Try running alsaconf, alsamixer, and alsactl store from a console or terminal using sudo or the root account, whichever your system uses.

[jay105]

james@james-desktop:~$ sudo alsamixer
[sudo] password for james: 
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory

it's definitely saying in synaptic that it is installed, and it is definitely there under media apps in the menu.


Edit: in addition to this, the output from sudo aplay -l is saying no cards are found. this is directly after setting up alsa through alsaconf. maybe this is pertinent

james@james-desktop:~$ sudo alsaconf
[sudo] password for james: 
Building card database..


Running update-modules...
/usr/sbin/alsaconf: line 929: update-modules: command not found
Setting default volumes...
amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory
Saving the mixer setup used for this in /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.
/usr/sbin/alsactl: save_state:1519: No soundcards found...

===============================================================================

 Now ALSA is ready to use.
 For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.

 Have a lot of fun!


james@james-desktop:~$ sudo aplay -l
aplay: device_list:240: no soundcards found...
james@james-desktop:~$

[TaZMAniac]

Take a look at this page;
E-mu 1820 and Ubuntu « timhodson.com

From what the article says, you will also need to install jack.
He also includes a script that will kill pulseaudio and restart it should Alsa lock up.

Interesting that he says that when he upgraded to 10.10 there were not that may issues. I see you are using 11.04 and from what I have read there are some quirks that cause it not to play nice like the previous versions.

BTW..... Nice rig!!!