Hello! I’ve posted this a few weeks ago on /c/linux4noobs@programming.dev but I didn’t get much of an answer, I hope it’s okay to post it here as well.

I use 3 audio devices on my computer: my monitor’s speakers (through HDMI), my headphones (through line-out/built-in audio) and my microphone (line-in/built-in audio). They all work fine, but when I reboot my headphones / line-out don’t seem to get recognized at all.

The only solution I’ve found thus far is to re-install alsa-utils twice after rebooting. Upon the first reinstall, my line-out / headphones reappear but my line-in mic disappears, only to come back after the second reinstall. Technically my sound works perfectly fine after this, but it feels extremely dumb to reinstall a package twice after every reboot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance :)

  • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    Reinstalling alsa utils twice? Interesting and weird.

    Any chance some other software is messing things up? Is pulse audio installed too? Jack? Other? Just tossing out crazy ideas here, idk.

    Wonder if the kernel version has a known issue with your specific hardware? What hardware is it, btw?

    Like the other person said I would definitely want to see if there are any errors in the logs.

    • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
      3·
      5 months ago

      Nope, I’ve checked and I don’t have any PulseAudio, JACK, or other audio packages that could interfere. This install has only ever used PipeWire for audio.

      Could be kernel related, I don’t know. That’d be quite over my head, but I’ve had this issue using both the standard linux kernel and the zen kernel.

      I didn’t see anything in journalctl’s logs that relates to audio as far as I can tell.

      Reinstalling alsa utils twice? Interesting and weird.

      Want to know what’s even more fun? I need to re-install alsa-utils thrice now after properly enabling pipewire.service like I did on that other comment thread :P

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        PS:

        What pipewire packages are installed?

        What alsa packages are installed?

        I’m wondering if something is missing or borked for some reason.

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.

        Nope, I’ve checked and I don’t have any PulseAudio, JACK, or other audio packages

        Ok good. We should be able to rule that out.

        Could be kernel related, I don’t know.

        What version? The command uname -r will give it to you. More info here

        Also… If you run dmesg do you see any audio related devices or errors? I should’ve thought to ask about that last time.

        Want to know what’s even more fun? I need to re-install alsa-utils thrice now

        Whee!™ Are we having fun yet lol

        That is seriously bizarre.

        Did I ask what audio hardware chipset you’re using?

        It should show up in dmesg output. Or alternatively look up your motherboard specs and get it that way. Assuming you’re using the built in motherboard audio and not a separate card.

        • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
          1·
          5 months ago

          Hey don’t apologize for offering free help to a stranger online! It’s much appreciated. uname -r returns “6.7.0-zen3-1-zen”, but like I said I had this issue with the standard Linux kernel as well.

          Nothing stands out to me when I run dmesg in terms of errors. I’m not sure which part is the audio hardware chipset, so here is the output relating to audio. I’m running both the built-in CPU audio and GPU audio through HDMI.

          Edit: Forgot to add my ALSA and Pipewire packages. For ALSA I got:

          alsa-card-profiles alsa-firmware alsa-lib alsa-plugins alsa-topology-conf alsa-ucm-conf alsa-utils lib32-alsa-lib lib32-alsa-plugins pipewire-alsa tinycompress

          and for Pipewire:

          gst-plugin-pipewire kpipewire libpipewire libwireplumber pipewire pipewire-audio pipewire-jack pipewire-pulse wireplumber

          • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 months ago

            Hm. Nothing really jumping out then. I am racking my brain trying to think of anything else to look at.

            Dumb question but… Shouldn’t headphones be plugged into the headphone jack, not line out?

            Headphones typically have a lower impedance than, say, an amplifier.

            I’m just wondering if the audio hardware checks load impedance for audio out to prevent issues and the headphones are reading too low (tens to hundreds of ohms instead of, say, 10k-100k ohm or whatever) for a line out.

            I don’t know how that explains reinstalling alsa-utils twice or thrice to fix it until the next reboot. So I guess my theory isn’t all that great.

            Does it make a difference if you unplug the headphones before rebooting?

  • AnEilifintChorcra@sopuli.xyz
    3·
    5 months ago

    I’m not very familiar with pipewire, I’ve always just been able to plug and play with any headphones but you can try runnning

    Journalctl -r

    After your next reboot to see the most recent system logs and check for any errors with pipewire

    I think you can also run

    Sudo systemctl status pipewire.service

    After you reboot to make sure that it is enabled by default, if its not you should be able to run

    Sudo systemctl enable --now pipewire.service

    This Reddit thread might be helpful Teddit alternative link

    EndeavorOS also have a forum that might be helpful

    • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
      3·
      5 months ago

      So this comment made me realize pipewire.service wasn’t enabled (I had to use the command ‘systemctl --now enable pipewire --user’ as the ones you provided didn’t work on my system.)

      It’s up and running now, but after a reboot I still have the same issue.

        • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
          1·
          5 months ago

          It wasn’t, but this still doesn’t fix the issue. I’m honestly perplexed and might just deal with triple reinstalling alsa-utils after every reboot. I’ll probably start from a fresh install soon enough anyway :P

    • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
      1·
      5 months ago

      Yeah, I included that in the title, should have restated it in the body though!

    • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
      1·
      5 months ago

      It definitely is! I’m a noob but I do know enough to read through the relevant Arch Wiki page before bothering people for help.

      Sadly, everything on that page is either irrelevant to my issues or hasn’t worked.