Note that with this method may not work nicely with multiple sound cards. Your mileage may vary....
Problem:
Running the command alsamixer in a terminal returned this error message:
cannot load mixer controls: Invalid argumentTrying to restart the ALSA server got me this:
root@localhost:~# /etc/init.d/alsa-utils stopSo there was something wrong with the system configuration or the control.
[....] Shutting down ALSA...warning: 'alsactl store' failed with error message 'alsactl: get_control:250: Cannot read control info '2,0,0,Front Playback Volume,0': In[FAIL argument'...failed.
For reference, this is what my system has configured:
root@localhost:~# head -n 1 /proc/asound/card0/codec*
==> /proc/asound/card0/codec#2 <==
Codec: Realtek ALC887-VD
==> /proc/asound/card0/codec#3 <==
Codec: Intel PantherPoint HDMI
root@caesar:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC887-VD Digital [ALC887-VD Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Explanation of these commands (skip if you want to get to the solution)
The first command reads out the first line (head -n1) of each of the files that match the search pattern (/proc/asound/card0/codec*). This matches two files (codec#2 and codec#3). The /proc/ filesystem is where Linux stores all the files necessary for running the operating system, including detected hardware devices. The first file tells us that the system recognizes the motherboard sound card, and the second files recognizes the HDMI output.
The second command confirms our suspicions, and also let's us know that ALSA detects these devices too (the Realtek and the HDMI devices are found and configured).
Now we know that the problem lies in the ALSA configuration, because everything is detected at this stage.
Solution:
- Run the following command and look for your audio device:
lspci -v
- The above step is important because you need to find the line 'Kernel driver in use' associated with your Audio controller (which is outputted by the above line). In my case the kernel was using snd_hda_intel.
- Now we need to check to ensure the driver is installed. A simple way is to start off writing (DO NOT PRESS ENTER YET!) modprobe snd and then tab complete it (press the <TAB> key twice). This should bring up a list of sound drivers your system knows about. If your driver is not listed you should try to find and install it.
- Edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa_base.conf and add the following line (you may need to adjust this to suit your system):
options snd-hda-intel model=generic
- Now we need to force ALSA to load the new configuration:
alsa force-reload
- If you can hear sound after running the following command, congratulations!
aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
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