No Audio From Samsung Tizen Smart TV

GaucheArtist

EDIT: New information. Someone suggested setting the Audio Device to PCM which I'm sure I tried earlier. Lo and behold it worked! However, changing out of PCM (to HDMI) and back to PCM has somehow stopped it from working again. Very confusing!

I recently purchased a Samsung Tizen Smart TV [Model #QN55Q60AAFXZC] and noticed that audio no longer works with RetroPie. I previously had non-smart Toshiba and RCA models where the audio worked and no cables have changed between using any TVs.

I'm running [RetroPie Version 4.7.18] on a [Raspberry Pi 4] from the official image with the Sound Settings as:
Audio Card: SYSDEFAULT
Audio Device: HDMI

And my current config.txt lines of importance:
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=16

(You can see my full config.txt here.)

Finally, I've tried these troubleshooting methods without resolution:
• Changing the HDMI port on the TV.
• Changing the microHDMI port on the Pi. (More About This Below)
• Changing the Sound Settings on my TV and within RetroPie.
• Altering [hdmi_group=1] to [hdmi_group=2].
• Adding [hdmi_ignore_cec=1] to the config.txt.
• Adding [hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080] to the config.txt.

Regarding changing the microHDMI port on the Pi, I've always used the furthest port from the power supply, but it was suggested to use the closest port. After switching between ports, the RaspberryPi would no long be listed as a source by the TV. It plays the rainbow-colored square on boot up, but when it's supposed to start the text scroll the source is lost. I'm not sure if this is caused by the TV or something in my config.txt file.

It feels like I've exhausted the troubleshooting options found online and from other threads. Does anyone have advice for this particular model or perhaps smart TVs in general?

ChaosEffect

@gaucheartist Have you tried removing the comment # before hdmi_drive=2 in your boot config file?

GaucheArtist

@chaoseffect Just gave this a try since it seemed like a great suggestion. Unfortunately it didn't have any effect, even after doing a full shutdown and power on.

mitu

You're using a non-standard (as far as RetroPie is concerned) configuration:

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4,noaudio

You've disabled the HDMI audio with the option above, that's why you get no sound. Add back the original config

dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

and you should get sound.

GaucheArtist

@mitu Unfortunately even after changing it back to the old driver code like you suggested, I'm still getting no sound.

On an somewhat-related note, does the kms driver line really disable HDMI audio? The audio still comes through on my other TV set through HDMI, and I can even set the Audio Device in EmulationStation's Sound Settings to "HDMI" when edited through the es_configs.txt file. That driver code has never seemed to stop the audio from working in the past so I was curious to hear this.

mitu

@gaucheartist said in No Audio From Samsung Tizen Smart TV:

Unfortunately even after changing it back to the old driver code like you suggested, I'm still getting no sound.

Use the Audio menu in the RetroPie system and select HDMI as the preferred output, then use Default/HDMI as card/device in EmulationStation. You can use the command line speaker-test program to test if the audio is working.

On an somewhat-related note, does the kms driver line really disable HDMI audio?

Not by default, but you added noaudio which does that.

GaucheArtist

@mitu said in [No Audio From Samsung Tizen Smart TV]

Use the Audio menu in the RetroPie system and select HDMI as the preferred output, then use Default/HDMI as card/device in EmulationStation. You can use the command line speaker-test program to test if the audio is working.

Using the settings and speaker-test function you mentioned here, I keep getting the following lines repeated without audio from my TV:

Time per period = 2.XXXXXX
0 - Front Left

I'm not sure if that's particularly handy for troubleshooting, but are there any other suggestions? Perhaps a combination of these settings with some of the lines that were commented out of the config.txt like [hdmi_ignore_cec=1], etc?

Not by default, but you added noaudio which does that.

Oh, got it. I've only ever seen the line written with the noaudio tag included and thought it might've been required.

mitu

@gaucheartist said in No Audio From Samsung Tizen Smart TV:

Using the settings and speaker-test function you mentioned here, I keep getting the following lines repeated without audio from my TV:

Can you post the output of

aplay -l
aplay -L

Use alsamixer and make sure the audio is not muted and/or the volume is set to something like 50% to hear something.

Perhaps a combination of these settings with some of the lines that were commented out of the config.txt like [hdmi_ignore_cec=1], etc?

No, using the default config.txt should be enough.

Oh, got it. I've only ever seen the line written with the noaudio tag included and thought it might've been required.

I'm confused on what you thought that would be required. I think the noaudio option is clear enough on what it does.

GaucheArtist

@mitu said in No Audio From Samsung Tizen Smart TV:

Can you post the output of
aplay -l
aplay -L

Output for aplay -l and aplay -L.

Use alsamixer and make sure the audio is not muted and/or the volume is set to something like 50% to hear something.

Tried AlsaMixer although I was a bit confused to how it worked. It was set to 66% with HDMI listed at the bottom. I pressed F3 for [Playback] thinking that was to test the audio but again, nothing coming out of the TV. I've double checked that it's not muted and the volume is turned up to a reasonable level.

I'm confused on what you thought that would be required. I think the noaudio option is clear enough on what it does.

I'm completely ignorant to computing, so when I was looking for a fix to the visual tearing through the kms video driver, every example code I saw online for that driver included the noaudio line. I felt it was best to follow those examples to the letter and not remove it, even though it stuck out as odd. Because it never interfered with my audio playback, I didn't think to question it afterwards.

EDIT: My apologies, I'm actually going to have to pack this in for now and return to it tomorrow. Fingers crossed for better results and a clearer head!