[LAU] Audigy soundcard silent after upgrade to Ubuntu Studio

[David Morrell]

Here's the next instalment. First, the background.

The problem was that a Creative Audigy2 card that had worked perfectly 
in Ubuntu 8.04 suddenly went silent after an upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 
9.04. It still worked perfectly in Windows on the same dual boot machine.

David Morrell wrote:
> frank pirrone wrote:
>   
>> Here's my /var/lib/alsa/asound.state file.  You can try moving yours 
>> aside by renaming it, and dropping this in to see if it makes any 
>> difference.  I have the Audigy2 card in this ArtistX/Ubuntu 9.10 Dell 
>> Workstation, and it is fully functional.
>>     
>
> Amazing! Eureka etc. Thanks very much indeed, Frank. I've put about 15 
> hours into this problem and you've solved it. Now the question is, how 
> did a bad asound.state file get created as a default during 
> installation? Does anyone know where I should go to alert someone who 
> can look at this?
I've done a bit more testing and reported it on the Ubuntu bug reporting 
system as follows. The bug is at;

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/406356


To reproduce the bug then repair the damage, do the following.

Delete /var/lib/asound.state (to mimic a fresh install, when it has not 
yet been created)

Run

    alsactl init

The sound card is probed. Alsactl reports;

    Unknown hardware: "Audigy2" "SigmaTel STAC9750,51" "AC97a:83847650" 
"" ""
    Hardware is initialized using a guess method

A version of asound.state is created that lacks (at least) a master 
volume mute switch. There is no sound output.

Restore the previously good asound.state, run 'alsactl restore' and the 
card works again.

Does this mean that something (I don't know what) needs to be improved 
so it can recognise this card (Audigy 2 Value [SB0400)?

-- 
David Morrell

Web site: www.davidmorrell.ozeweb.net (when I get it on air again :) 
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