On 23/08/13 21:08, C wrote:

On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

Pulse/pavucontrol are sitting on top of alsa. Have you configured alsa? If no then-

on a comman line run

alsamixer

and press F6 to first select your audio card then press F5 to see all available channels. Look at the one re the microphone and see if its output level is high enough - use the up/down arrows to raise/lower the volume. And use the key "m" to switch on/off the channels (get to them by using the left/right arrows)--the 'mm' will be highlighted if the channels is active.

When you do the above it would be helpful if you have something producing sound running in the background so that you can gauge how your adjustments in alsamixer are working.

Once you have this right then pavucontrol will work.

Hey Basil... same question I asked last time. I've installed oS 12.3 multiple times on multiple systems with varying kinds of audio devices.. onboard, USB etc., and not once have I ever had to use alsamixer to set things up so that pavucontrol will work. What is special about your config that requires this intermediary step?

I know Pulse sits above alsa... but... the need for alsamixer... that seems odd based on my experience.

Alsa(mixer) has used for quite some time, certainly before pulse audio was even thought about and so using alsamixer was required to get your sound card working correctly. If you have a sound chip on your mobo as well as a PCIe sound card you need to select the right one in alsamixer to get everything working properly. Pulse then came on the scene and it was a real pain in the arse. I used to simply uninstall it and relegate it to the latrine. With pulse audio installed and you ran alsamixer you would see only one "channel" displayed or possibly 3 or 4 when you pressed F5. If you were deadset in using pulse then it was a matter of disabling pulse (or uninstalling it), running alsamixer to be able to see all the channels to configure them, then reactivating or re-installing pulse so that you could use pulseaudio effectively. I believe that pulse has got a lot better recently but I find that the best way for me to get my sound card (an Audigy Creative X-Fi) working correctly is to do what I suggested. When someone has a problem with sound this is what I suggest people should try and do. In most cases it fixes the problem. If it doesn't then at least this variable has been eliminated and the search for a solution can take a different direction.

On to Jim's issue. I have no solution other than a "me too". I've had my Logitech Clearchat USB Wireless headset behave exactly as described... IF.. if I disconnected it for a period, and then reconnected. It happened once - last week actually - where I disconnected the headset to use on another computer. When I reconnected it to my main computer running 12.3 and KDE 4.10, the audio, especially the microphone was horribly distorted and at a low volume. The "fix" in my case was to restart (I had to reboot for other reasons) with the headset connected to the USB bus. This only happened the one time though... and I've since disconnected/reconnected the USB receiver and had no problems.

C. BC

-- Using openSUSE 12.3, KDE 4.11.0 & kernel 3.10.9-1 on a system with- AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel Corsair "Vengeance" RAM Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX550Ti 1GB DDR5 GPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 24/08/13 07:30, Jim Sabatke wrote:

On 08/23/2013 05:42 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

On 23/08/13 20:11, Jim Sabatke wrote:

...

SUSE 12.2 Plantronics Audio 478 USB Headset KDE Volume Control Programs - pavucontrol - kmix HP G72 Laptop

I can't seem to get any volume out of my headset microphone. If I max the volume on either control program, I can hear if I scratch my fingernail on the mic, or if I stick the microphone in my mouth and yell, I get a very low volume, highly distorted sound through the headset. The sound level bars pavucontrol show high responsiveness to sound, but it doesn't come through the headset.

Skype doesn't work, including the test site. No programs seem to work for recording or hearing microphone input.

A fairly exhaustive search online shows this seems to be, and has been, a pretty common problem for some time, over multiple distro's, and versions. There aren't a whole lot of suggested fixes, and the most common one is to run pavucontrol, which certainly gives me more options than kmix. In fact, when I started with only kmix, I couldn't see any input sources until I installed pavucontrol, which then caused the microphone to be recognized on both programs. <snip>

TIA,

Jim

Pulse/pavucontrol are sitting on top of alsa. Have you configured alsa? If no then-

on a comman line run

alsamixer

and press F6 to first select your audio card then press F5 to see all available channels. Look at the one re the microphone and see if its output level is high enough - use the up/down arrows to raise/lower the volume. And use the key "m" to switch on/off the channels (get to them by using the left/right arrows)--the 'mm' will be highlighted if the channels is active.

When you do the above it would be helpful if you have something producing sound running in the background so that you can gauge how your adjustments in alsamixer are working.

Once you have this right then pavucontrol will work.

BC

Configuring alsamixer was the most common fix I found on the internet and it was the first thing I tried. I've been trying to find a configuration that works, but no luck. I can get it configured so that the sound level bars show appropriate levels, but only very faint sound through the headphones. BTW, mm on my system turns off the input / output and 00 turns them on. Alsamixer v1.0.25, if that makes a difference.

Jim

The version I have is 1.0.26 but that is neither here not there. Re the "oo" and the "mm": yep, I was working from memory and what you state is correct- "oo" ON and "mm" is OFF. Puzzling problem. Did you have some sound being generated when you were fiddling with the channels? While I don't use a headset with a mic I found that I couldn't get sound out of the speakers because of a certain combination of channels being active at the same time; I happened to turn off some channels and suddenly had sound from the speakers. The other thing is with pavucontrol. I have a 5-1 sound system and have all 5 of the speakers operating OK. However, when I watch a DVD I use headphones and when I do I lose most of the sound in the movie. Reason? The headphones are stereo of course and therefore lose sound from anything except the left and right channels. To get full sound I have to go into pavucontrol and select the stereo output which combines all sound and I can then hear the movie perfectly. I wonder if this is what may be causing your problem (the headset is 'stereo' afterall)? BC -- Using openSUSE 12.3, KDE 4.11.0 & kernel 3.10.9-1 on a system with- AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel Corsair "Vengeance" RAM Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX550Ti 1GB DDR5 GPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 26/08/13 02:48, Jim Sabatke wrote:

On 08/23/2013 10:15 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

On 24/08/13 07:30, Jim Sabatke wrote:

...

On 08/23/2013 05:42 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

On 23/08/13 20:11, Jim Sabatke wrote:

...

SUSE 12.2 Plantronics Audio 478 USB Headset KDE Volume Control Programs - pavucontrol - kmix HP G72 Laptop

I can't seem to get any volume out of my headset microphone. If I max the volume on either control program, I can hear if I scratch my fingernail on the mic, or if I stick the microphone in my mouth and yell, I get a very low volume, highly distorted sound through the headset. The sound level bars pavucontrol show high responsiveness to sound, but it doesn't come through the headset.

<snip>

Jim

Pulse/pavucontrol are sitting on top of alsa. Have you configured alsa? If no then-

on a comman line run

alsamixer

<snip>

Once you have this right then pavucontrol will work.

BC

Configuring alsamixer was the most common fix I found on the internet and it was the first thing I tried. I've been trying to find a configuration that works, but no luck. I can get it configured so that the sound level bars show appropriate levels, but only very faint sound through the headphones. BTW, mm on my system turns off the input / output and 00 turns them on. Alsamixer v1.0.25, if that makes a difference.

Jim

The version I have is 1.0.26 but that is neither here not there.

Re the "oo" and the "mm": yep, I was working from memory and what you state is correct- "oo" ON and "mm" is OFF.

Puzzling problem. Did you have some sound being generated when you were fiddling with the channels? While I don't use a headset with a mic I found that I couldn't get sound out of the speakers because of a certain combination of channels being active at the same time; I happened to turn off some channels and suddenly had sound from the speakers.

The other thing is with pavucontrol.

I have a 5-1 sound system and have all 5 of the speakers operating OK. However, when I watch a DVD I use headphones and when I do I lose most of the sound in the movie. Reason? The headphones are stereo of course and therefore lose sound from anything except the left and right channels. To get full sound I have to go into pavucontrol and select the stereo output which combines all sound and I can then hear the movie perfectly.

I wonder if this is what may be causing your problem (the headset is 'stereo' afterall)?

BC

Actually, I have no problem hearing DVDs or any other media at all. I've been seeing some reports online that there are problems getting the machine to use input and output at the same time. I need to look into it further as it is getting beyond my expertise. I may have to compile a kernel module.

The point of my message was to prompt you to look at the whether these may eliminate your problem. Telling me that you have no trouble playing DVDs or any other media is immaterial. If you have tried out what I raised and found that it made no difference then I will accept that and until you do this leaves questions about whether these are causing your problem. You see, from what I have been led to understand pulse/pavucontrol has been 'created' to be able to do just what you want done; pulse/pavucontrol is supposed to handle input from a variety of sources simultaneously and output them - something which is something that alsa cannot do. BC -- Using openSUSE 12.3, KDE 4.11.0 & kernel 3.10.9-1 on a system with- AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel Corsair "Vengeance" RAM Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX550Ti 1GB DDR5 GPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org