Audio issues after latest Raspbian updates (June 2020)

[mitu]

@huey Open a separate topic. If EmulationStation's sound works, then this is not the issue reported in this topic.

[akamming]

Just to share how i fixed, since i had the same symptoms on 2 seperate rpi4's (both only using hdmi). all sounds gone after december updates. mixer volume in ES was 0%. Both caused by pulseaudio and on both pi's the instructions in this thread did not solve the issue.

so here's how i did it:

• On 1 pi the only remedy was to remove pulse audio and reboot (sudo apt --purge pulseaudio)
• On the other pi:
  - i had to go to desktop mode (sudo init 5),
  - install the pulse audio volume control (described in this this article as todo after dec updates)
  - switch the output to hdmi
  - and reboot

[yserra]

@mitu said in Audio issues after latest Raspbian updates:

You updated your system and you installed Pulse Audio (included in the Raspberry Pi OS Dec. updates), which took over as the default ALSA sound device (...) This doesn't happen on a stock RetroPie image, which uses Raspberry Pi OS Lite, unless you install the desktop.

I confirm that @luckyluca is not alone to have installed the desktop on his RetroPie distribution. The Desktop is definitively a handy tool to manipulate files when you have a mouse.

So, like him, and certainly like many others, my sound disappeared. I did what you told us, I typed:

systemctl --user mask pulseaudio.socket

Ok, thank you very much, the sound is back now. But... very low.

I can barely hear anything with the sound set at 85% in EmulationStation and set at 80% on my monitor's speaker. Previously, the sound was comfortable with the sound set at 40% in EmulationStation and 10% on my monitor.

[mitu]

I'm going to lock this topic, since clearly it's no longer relevant, given the other set of Audio issues appearing after the Dec. 2020 updates in Raspberry Pi OS.