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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Hi Stephen!</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> Yes, a look at alsamixer's output can reveal all sorts of interesting</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> things. When using SPDIF output, I always have to unmute it before it</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> will work. And then sometimes the automatic "alsactl save" does not</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> seem to happen, so I find it a good idea to do that after I have</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> everything working.</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>They may have changed it to 'alsactl store' else just typed the wrong</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>word -- save, store, whatever to us humans! <g> This newbie did a</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>Google search and found the storage goes to /etc/asound.conf -- which I</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>don't have at all (!). Significant?? Or just empty because I haven't</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>stored anything first? </FONT><BR>
Sorry, I just typed the wrong word. It is "alsactl store".<BR>
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OK -- not a biggie; easy enough to type the wrong word.<BR>
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Whatever your Google search showed you was not correct. Nothing<BR>
normally writes its data to /etc - programs are supposed to store to<BR>
/var. On Ubuntu, alsactl stores to /var/lib/alsa/asound.state. The<BR>
/etc/asound.conf file is where you would put manual Alsa<BR>
configurations to override the automatic setup. Most people never<BR>
need to do that, so never have to create that file.<BR>
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(That may explain why sometimes my original Mythbuntu 10.10 that recently died had some strange quirks -- I think I had the storage hard drive mounted to /var! ...<read list? "/var" -- Hmm: 'variable'? Sounds good to me!)<BR>
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I'm guessing but perhaps I need the /etc/asound.conf because /var/lib/alsa/asound.state and alsamixer show four S/PDIF options?? (WAG from a newbie, I'll admit it!) ==> which one do you want?) OTOH would seem at least one of the configuration files I created (LowSky's and Gedaks's) would have worked.<BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">>And as I reminded Nick, in System Settings I don't have a 'Sound' icon.</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>LIS originally , not sure if that's significant. </FONT><BR>
I think the Sound icon in System Settings may be new to 16.04. I do<BR>
not have it in Mythbuntu 14.04 64-bit, but I do have it on my test<BR>
16.04 box, which is a Ubuntu install, with the Mythbuntu packages<BR>
added afterwards. It is also possible that it is part of PulseAudio -<BR>
that often gets uninstalled on MythTV boxes, as it can get in the way<BR>
of things rather than help.<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
OK.... The BE and the Frontends are all 16.04. Checked pulseaudio on the FE and two errors: (first) pid.c: Daemon already running. (second) main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed. Looks like I'll see about clearing out pulseaudio. Looks like could only make better!<BR>
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I'm running 14.04 on this box (just Ubuntu - no MythTV on it) and it does have the Sound icon: LIS, that's why I'm, a hare 'suspicious' as to why I have an audio problem on the Mythbuntu box and no Sound icon. (Not saying you're wrong, just my bullheadedness!)<BR>
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And that reminds me that on my laptop, I had to install a PulseAudio<BR>
volume control and unmute the speaker and headphone outputs before its<BR>
sound would work. It shows up on the Multimedia menu as "PulseAudio<BR>
Volume Control". I think the package to install is "pavucontrol".<BR>
<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> And then there is a new-ish bug that means that sometimes the "alsactl</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> restore" that is supposed to happen on boot does not work, or</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> something else turns off my SPDIF output. So if I start playing a</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> recording and there is no sound, the first thing I do is go to a</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> command prompt and do an "alsactl restore" and 99% of the time it</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> fixes it. Sometimes I have that problem several times in one day, and</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>> sometimes not at all for a month or so.</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">></FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>I wonder if that's what happened on my old Mythbuntu system (RIP -- late</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>last week I think the storage drive died) Rarely had to reboot one of</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>the Frontends to get sound. (That's the reason I'm using the old HDMI</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">>cards - trying to get them to connect to the new Backend.)</FONT><BR>
It could be the same problem - it sounds similar. I only have it on<BR>
Mythbuntu 14.04 though, never on older versions. I have not upgraded<BR>
yet, to I do not know about 16.04.<BR>
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Oh take the plunge! (I'd drop down to 14.04 but I had enough problems getting the tuner cards working. And yes, they're a bit on the long-at-the-tooth side too!) <BR>
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