Unusual sound problems with RP4

Retro Arcade Fan

Hey everyone,

I've been having a problem the past few days and have reached my frustration point. Was hoping someone could help me please.

I haven't turned on my RP4 for several months. But the last time I did, everything worked perfectly. Now, I'm having sound issues. When the RP4 boots and goes to the favorites menu, I can hear the sound effects from the first game's video preview. If I launch the game, I can hear sound. However, in ES, the second I move down to the next game, I lose sound entirely. I only have sound on boot up when the first game's video preview is playing. Anything I do loses sound. I have also randomly received the "failed to find mixer elements" message when troubleshooting, but it's not consistent.

Stats/Info:

I have external speakers connected to my TV and use HDMI audio for the Pi.
In ES: Audio Card set to Default, Audio Device set to HDMI, OMX Player set to Both.
Since I haven't powered on in awhile, I'm still running ES 2.11.0RP and RetroPie 4.8.2. These versions have worked for me perfectly in the past.
If I restart my pi, sound isn't resolved. The only way to get it back, partially at least, is to turn the Pi and TV completely off.

The community is always so helpful here. As always, I appreciate your help! Thank you.

mitu

Do you have anything else installed - like background music - that would interfere with the audio output ? Anything that you recently installed/changed that might have caused this ?

omxplayer is only used for video playback audio and not for ES sounds. The 'failed to find mixer elements' message appears if the HDMI device would dissapear from the list, which would happen only if the audio settings (beneath EmulationStation) would suddenly change.

Maybe a bad HDMI cable is unable to properly keep a good connection between the TV and the Pi resulting in a broken HDMI state ?
Run dmesg after you reproduce the issue and post the output on pastebin.com, since it will rather large.

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu Hi Mitu. Thank you for your help. No background music, nothing extra installed. Nothing changed in several months. Worked perfectly before. I changed the OMXplayer setting to HDMI and restarted. Same issue. Definitely could be a bad cable since everything was fine before. Before I run off and order one, I want to get you the demsg report from pastebin.

I hope I did this right.

https://pastebin.com/UF2vcWb0

Thank you!!

mitu

I don't see anything in the log indicating a bad HDMI communication. Try removing the omxplayer as video player and see if that changes the behavior, before trying a new HDMI cable.

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu Thank you for looking that over. How do I remove omxplayer please?

mitu

@Retro-Arcade-Fan You don't need to remove it, just don't select it as 'video player' in EmulationStation's settings.

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu I'm sorry Mitu I don't know where to do that. In ES under OMX Player I have Local, HDMI, Both, ALSA, ALSA:HW0,0 and ALSA:HW 1,0. Under Other Settings, I turned "use OMX player (HW accelerated) off and that didn't change anything. Where do I change the video player option? Thanks.

mitu

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in Unusual sound problems with RP4:

Where do I change the video player option? Thanks.

The 'use OMX player' is the video player option.

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu ok. Well I turned that off and same problem. Sounds like it's got to be a bad mini hdmi cable. I'll replace it and see if that does the trick. Thanks for all of your help!!

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu Unfortunately replacing the hdmi cable didn't solve the problem as I had hoped. I did, however, discover something else unusual. When I lose sound if I turn the tv off and on, the sound comes back. Now, I would think it's a problem with the TV, but I also have a gaming PC connected to it and this never happens with the PC. Only the Pi.

Final questions please if I can bother you one last time on this:

What are the "best" settings in ES Sound Settings for:
a: Audio Card
b: Audio Device
c: OMX Player Audio Device
I'm running ES v 2.11.0RP. Will updating help this problem?
Could the micro HDMI port on the Pi be going bad and I have to replace the whole RP4?
Do you have any other suggestions or ideas that might help?

Thanks so much.

mitu

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in Unusual sound problems with RP4:

What are the "best" settings in ES Sound Settings for:
a: Audio Card
b: Audio Device
c: OMX Player Audio Device

The ones you aready have - a: Default, b: HDMI. Of you don't enable OMXplayer for video playing, c: doesn't matter.

I'm running ES v 2.11.0RP. Will updating help this problem?

I doubt it, but you could try the emulationstation-dev package which will get you the latest code.

Could the micro HDMI port on the Pi be going bad and I have to replace the whole RP4?

Both of them ? I doubt it, if the port would be damaged, then the video output would also be affected.

Do you have any other suggestions or ideas that might help?

Run ES with emulationstation --debug and reproduce the issue. Upload the resulting es_log.txt file on pastebin.com and also post the es_settings.cfg configuration file.

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu I have updated ES to 2.11.2RP. I'm now randomly getting the "failed to find mixer elements" error. I can't send you the es_log through pastebin because I'm getting a "You have exceeded the maximum size of 512 kilobytes per Paste." message. What section are you looking for specifically?

Here is es_settings.cfg: https://pastebin.com/hGa7s3TU.

Out of curiosity, from a technical standpoint, is there any possibility there's some sort of power drain going on and there's not enough power pushing the audio from the pi to the tv to the speakers? I just don't get why there's audio at the start, then it drops off, then it comes back shortly if I turn the tv on and off. I really am not sure it's software at this point.

Sorry this is such a complex problem.

mitu

Out of curiosity, from a technical standpoint, is there any possibility there's some sort of power drain going on and there's not enough power pushing the audio from the pi to the tv to the speakers? I just don't get why there's audio at the start, then it drops off, then it comes back shortly if I turn the tv on and off.

I'd say that's unlikely, starting ES is a 'power hungry' event since it's starting the GPU and also doing a lot of I/O, so if it would be power related I'd expect that to happen also during start-up.

I really am not sure it's software at this point.

Weird problems like this indeed have often a HW/PEBKAC explanation. I assume you've tried switching the HDMI port - on the Pi and perhaps also on the TV ?

Retro Arcade Fan

@mitu I have. On the Pi, when I plug into the second HDMI port I don't get any display at all. And I've tried all three HDMI ports on the back of the TV as well.

ok, it's got to be the Pi. I just found a backup from 3 years ago. Did the same thing. Audio played fine for the first few clicks, then went out. I'm going to contact them to see if they concur, but since everything software-wise seems correct, that's got to be it.