HDMI Sound Stopped Working

Jeeptruck1976

I have Retropie on Raspberry Pi 4 that friend setup. Games and sound worked great until a week ago sound stopped working after kids hit buttons accidentally. I tried fixing from sound in emulation menu, but not working. I found the console using F4, but am not great at text files and fear I'll mess stuff up. How do I access the clickable retropie menu to adjust sounds? I see the menu on several YouTube videos

mitu

You should have the RetroPie system/menu in EmulationStation, from where you can open the Audio menu and choose the output (HDMI). If you don't have it, make sure EmulationStation is not accidentaly set to Kid or Kiosk mode, see here for how to switch between them.

Jeeptruck1976

@mitu This is great information which I will definitely put into effect, and you're right, the UI settings were set to full.

However I'm still having issues with sound. I've adjusted sound in the emulation sound settings to HDMI, but it doesn't solve my issue. Is there a way to get to the RetroPie menu?

windg

Try this to be sure that everything have the default settings:

RetroPie-Setup > audio > Hdmi .

and restart the EmulationStation.

Press the start button, while you are in Emulationstation menu, the sound settings must be:

Audio card : Default
Audio Device: HDMI.

Jeeptruck1976

@windg I was finally able to get to the Setup menu.

I went into the audio settings and set to HDMI. I restarted emulation.
I confirmed audio card is set to default and HDMI is set for audio device, and sound is 100%.
Audio is still not working.

Would it help if I switched to 3.5mm to test and then switch back to HDMI?

windg

@Jeeptruck1976 With the help of a keyboard, press the F4 button to jump to terminal window (black screen) and post here the results from this command : aplay -l

Jeeptruck1976

@windg

pi@retropie:~ $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: b1 [bcm2835 HDMI 1], device 0: bcm2835 HDMI 1 [bcm2835 HDMI 1]
Subdivices: 4/4
Subdivice #0: Subdivice #0
Subdivice #1: Subdivice #1
Subdivice #2: Subdivice #2
Subdivice #3: Subdivice #3
card 1 : Headphones [bcm2835 Headphones], device 0: bcm2835 Headphones [bcm2835 Headphones]
Subdivices: 4/4
Subdivice #0: Subdivice #0
Subdivice #1: Subdivice #1
Subdivice #2: Subdivice #2
Subdivice #3: Subdivice #3

windg

Everything looks ok. Did you check Tv audio ?

Try from terminal : sudo mkdir /etc/alsa/conf.d and configure again the audio from RetroPie-Setup and restart the system.

Jeeptruck1976

@windg

pi@retropie: ~$ sudo mkdir /ect/alsa/conf.d
mkdir: cannot create directory /ect/alsa/conf.d : No such file or directory

I decided also to configure the headphones to test and got appropriate sound, so at least I have a work around using old PC speakers. I'll troubleshoot the cords to the tv. If you have additional thoughts let me know. Thank you for your help.

windg

Check from RetroPie-Setup -> Audio -> Mixer that the Hdmi volume is not zero or mute. You can try also the last option in the Audio tab, Reset to default, an restart ES.