Audio issues after latest Raspbian updates (June 2020)

BazzCatt

I've just upgraded my 3B+ to Buster (it went exactly in this manner: https://djangocas.dev/blog/upgrade-existing-jessie-to-buster-without-re-image/ ), and this, of course, happened - the above fix, with the addition to cmdline.txt, did restore the sound.

(Incidentally, I had the sound in startx, even before the attempts to fix it in Retropie).

However, the volume still always resets to 0 in EmuStation, and the fix seems to only work sometimes - one time EmuStation will click when scrolling through titles, other times it will stay quiet.

Speaker-test from the command line, however, now always seems to make its noise properly.

(By the way, I've noticed that while the regular binary for EmuStation is from June, the one for EmuStation dev. version 2.10 is still from April - I'll check if this influences the sound fix. I normally use the dev. version, I switched to the regular for the sound fix).

BazzCatt

Adding: hah, "funnily" enough, now EmuStation's sound is crackling, wobbly, and it also slowns down the emulators to the point that after updating to Buster, RP has become just unusable. :|

EmuStation 2.10 dev acts in the same manner, no matter what devices are selected in the menu - HDMI, PCM, ALSA, both...

BuZz

@BazzCatt that sounds like another issue.

VictimRLSH

@BazzCatt This is what was happening to me. Check alsamixer and see what your default sound device is. I found a Bluetooth utility I installed into the desktop to facilitate file transfers also installed Pulseaudio and completely jacked up my sound in the same manner. I had to purge pulseaudio to remedy the problem (see above post).

Sid1968

This should fix the problem:

sudo rpi-update 8d64ec7016906fb1f2bbe937dd7401705c5acf33

Newer firmwares makes troubles with sound on Raspbian Buster.
Use that command on your own risk.

mitu

@Sid1968 said in Audio issues after latest Raspbian updates:

sudo rpi-update 8d64ec7016906fb1f2bbe937dd7401705c5acf33

Using rpi-update is not recommended for normal updates. While this might get you a firmware version before the changes in the audio configuration, any updates for OS updates including kernel/firmware - via apt - will overwrite it.
I strongly advice against this approach.

Newer firmwares makes troubles with sound on Raspbian Buster.

Hence the topic at hand. If you want to revert to the previous audio configuration, you can modify cmdline.txt as outlined in the first post.

Sid1968

@mitu The problem is that the "normal" update command installs a new firmware. That causes the sound issues. My command restores an older version. For me it works well. But... that should everyone decide for themselves.

mitu

@Sid1968 as said in the topic starter, you can get back to your previous configuration without downgrading anything. There's no reason to use rpi-update.

Sid1968

@mitu Ok i agree. :-)

Yobiwan

@mitu Is it possible to prevent this error message to appear again by reverting back to previous configuration ?

mitu

@Yobiwan Yes, but I wouldn't recommend that. You have the new settings explained in the first port, once you set them, you shouldn't get any error.

Yobiwan

@mitu OK thanks ! i'm out of data for this month (deep countryside!) so in a few days I will try updating all of that.

amansur

@mitu, Hi, I am running my Raspberry Pi 3b+ with an audio jack and I've been having sound problems as mentioned in this post (no audio from games, although I can verify my computer's audio works by running an mp3 file on omxplayer). The errors I've been getting when trying to change my audio settings in emulation station is "lvl0: VolumeControl::init() - Failed to attach to default card". I followed all the steps and configured the audio in the menu as you suggested. But, still hasn't solved anything, unfortunately.

I've been looking through blog posts all day trying to fix this, but it hasn't been working. If you'd like me to make a new post and list my system specs and whatnot, please let me know, and thank you.

amansur

@amansur Nvm, I gave up and just decided to reboot everything on the pre-installed image. For those that manually installed and are having trouble like I was and nothing seemed to be working, just do that. My recommendation.

Yobiwan

Error message has gone, ingame audio is back, but my intro video has no audio anymore...

mitu

@Yobiwan Please open a separate topic and add your system info, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

undrwater

@amansur

When you say "just do that", what is the "that" that you're talking about?

Nothing from the above has fixed audio here, and I'm getting the same error.

Just an FYI, this is a freshly flashed image on an SD card in an RPi 3b.

amansur

@undrwater Sorry for not being clear. What I mean by "that" is simply downloading the RetroPie software from the pre-made image as opposed to the manual installation. After doing so, I was able to figure it out.

Since you are still getting issues, after the installation, I followed these instructions from this video:

. I did not have to edit any config files, as these instructions do so automatically.

By audio settings currently are: Audio Card (Default), Audio Device (PCM), Enable Navigation Sounds (On) Enable Video Audio (ON), DMX Player Audio Device (Local).

It's worth noting that when I type in "uname -r" I see my version is "4.19.97-v7+" but in my old configuration (before I went with the flashed installation) it was at 4.19.118 or above. So if you followed the instructions in the video AND you have a lower kernel number than 4.19.118, then you should be fine... If your kernel number is at or above 4.19.118 and the post's instructions didn't work, then try downgrading the kernel. In essence, that's what I probably ended up doing when I switched over.

mitu

@amansur said in Audio issues after latest Raspbian updates:

If your kernel number is at or above 4.19.118 and the post's instructions didn't work, then try downgrading the kernel.

This is not recommended, as mentioned before. The first post has instructions on how to configure your sound if your wish to use the previous configuration style (single audio device) with newer Linux kernel versions.

draxd

Hello,

I have encountered this problem and now I have no sound on my image . What I think happened in my case is that on boot Retropie updated firmware and kept old kernel modules that do not work with this firmware. I'm not expert here, so maybe I'm talking silly. I presume firmware is only rewritten when new version is found.

I do have backup of my image from time when it worked properly. Is there any way to revert to my old firmware and disabled updates of firmware ?

Thanks.