New soundcard; lost sound

I installed a new Audigy2 SoundBlaster Z5 card yesterday and it worked
at first, but in fiddling with Linux alsamixer this morning, I've
gotten things so misconfigured that for some reason it seems I can't
even load the alsa driver.

I have a 2.1 sound system (two powered speakers and a low frequency
woofer), which I have connected to Line Out 1 on my soundcard. At this
point, no other sound devices are connected and no other sound application
running. When I play a wav file with xmms, since yesterday I no longer
have sound, and eventually a window pops up saying "Couldn't Open
Audio".

Does this mean that an effort to lead a driver failed and eventually
timed out?

I get inconsistent results when running alsaconf. Usually it seems to
run normally, but sometimes I get

Running update-modules...
Loading driver...
Setting up ALSA.../etc/init.d/alsa:
Warning: 'alsactl restore' failed with error message
'alsactl: set_control:930: warning: name mismatch (3D Control
- Center/3D Control - Depth) for control #61
alsactl: set_control:930: warning: name mismatch (3D Control -
Depth/IEC958 Playback Con Mask) for control #62
alsactl: set_control:930: warning: name mismatch (IEC958
Playback Con Mask/IEC958 Playback Pro Mask) for control #63
alsactl: set_control:922: warning: numid mismatch (64/63) for
control #64
alsactl: set_control:930: warning: name mismatch (IEC958 Playback
Switch/IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA) for control #66
alsactl: set_control:1025: bad control.66.value type'. done.
Setting default volumes...

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

What does all this mean?

I try to restore sanity by setting all alsamixer levels in Playback
and Capture to zero so that alsaconf will set their defaults. After
running alsaconf, the non-zero defaults for the Capture side are PCM
90, Music 100, and for the Playback side: Master 75, Headphones 74,
Base and Treble 50, PCM 90, the five PCM channels all 100, Front 100,
Music 100, CD 90.

Are these in fact default values? And are these values suitable for
playing a sound file?

But the problem seems more than a misconfiguration:

# cat /var/log/boot | grep ALSA
Wed Nov 1 15:18:17 2006: Setting up ALSA.../etc/init.d/alsa:
Warning: 'alsact l restore' failed with error message 'No state
is present for card Audigy2'. done.
Wed Nov 1 15:18:32 2006: Setting up ALSA.../etc/init.d/alsa:
Warning: 'alsact l restore' failed with error message 'No state
is present for card Audigy2'. done.

What does it mean there is no state present for my card? Why would the
card work after I installed it yesterday, but not today, for I didn't
reboot the system.

All the following looks normal to me:

$ lspci
...
0000:05:07.0 Multimedia audio controller:
Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
0000:05:07.1 Input device controller:
Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port (rev 04)
0000:05:07.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394):
Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04)
...

$ cat /proc/devices
...
14 sound
116 alsa

$ lsmod | grep snd*
snd_emu10k1 98920 0
snd_rawmidi 25124 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm_oss 55080 0
snd_mixer_oss 20096 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 98728 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 25732 1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_device 8200 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec 69988 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_page_alloc 11752 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem 4576 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep 9412 1 snd_emu10k1
snd 57156 10
snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm_oss,
snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_seq_device,
snd_ac97_codec,snd_util_mem,snd_hwdep
soundcore 10272 1 snd


That aplay simply produces no sound makes one suspect a permission
problem, but a) I've not changed anything affecting file permissions
since yesterday, and b):

$ aplay ~/test.wav
Playing WAVE '/home/brownh/test.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 22222
Hz, Mono

$ ls -l /dev/dsp lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root
9 2005-08-20 19:53 /dev/dsp -> /dev/dsp0

$ ls -l /dev/dsp0 crw-rw---- 1 root audio
14, 3 2005-08-20 19:53 /dev/dsp0

$ cat /etc/group | grep audio
audio:x:29:brownh,admin

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM


.

Relevant Pages

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