No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....

blkhwks19

DISCLAIMER: I apologize in advance, but I am a total noob to this stuff, and am still getting used to wrapping my head around all the pieces involved in the retropie setup and navigating around, especially in the terminal, so apologies if I don't give you the exact info you need, or need you to clarify anything for me. And see below for my setup details.

I am currently having an issue with no sound while outputting to hdmi on my Insignia flatscreen tv (admittedly an older model). The weird thing is I initially have not had any sound issues on this tv. I used it there for a bit and have since moved around to using it on different tvs, all without issue. I recently came back to using it on my Insignia tv and now have no sound. Just to be thorough, I confirmed I am using the hdmi port on the rpi4 closest to the usb-c power supply port. Also I tried it on my other tvs with the same hdmi cable and it works fine, so it's only this tv that has the issue, though I don't think anything has changed since it was working previously.

Also, I get this short message prior to a game being launched, but only on the tv I'm having the issue with, not on other tvs. Not sure if this is related to my issue or helpful in any way:

awk: run time error: negative field index $-1
	FILENAME="-" FNR=1 NR=1
awk: run time error: negative value assigned to NF
	FILENAME="-" FNR=1 NR=1

I tried looking up others that have issues but I get lost in the details of what the issue is and how to solve it. Again I apologize for my noob-ness but does anyone have any thoughts on what the issue is and what I can do to solve it? Please be explicit, especially if it involves any terminal stuff, like I said I'm still getting used to doing stuff there.

Thanks for the time and the help, and please let me know if you need any other info, I'm happy to provide!

DETAILS -
This is the kit I bought:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XTRFD3Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Raspberry Pi:
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2 GB Ram

Power Supply (came with the kit):
USB-C 5V 3A Power Supply with On/Off Switch

Image installed (this is the official image that was downloaded/installed from the retropie.org.uk site):
retropie-buster-4.7.1-rpi4_400.img.gz

mitu

If the same configuration works on another TV, then most likely is an issue with the info that the TVs reports via EDID. Try adding to the /boot/config.txt file a line with

hdmi_force_edid_audio=1

to force the Pi to ignore the EDID audio info. You can edit the config.txt on the SD card from your PC also, may be easier if you're not familiar with editing files on the Pi.

Also, I get this short message prior to a game being launched, but only on the tv I'm having the issue with, not on other tvs....

This seems related to the other issue (malformed/bad EDID sent by the TV). Are you running EmulationStation from the desktop environment or are you using the default configuration that comes with the RetroPie image ?

blkhwks19

This seems related to the other issue (malformed/bad EDID sent by the TV). Are you running EmulationStation from the desktop environment or are you using the default configuration that comes with the RetroPie image ?

I'm not sure what you mean by "desktop environment". I'm running everything pretty much as vanilla and out-of-the-box as you can get. I followed this guide: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/

I think I'm running the default configuration. I really don't think I messed with anything outside of that guide other than running the scraper built into the EmulationStation UI to get some box art for my roms and downloading some splashscreens and EmulationStation themes.

In any case, adding that line didn't seem to make a difference. Just to make sure I did this correctly: I inserted the sd card into my pc, but I did not see a /boot/ folder, but I did see a config.txt file in the root of the sd card. I added the line you suggested at the bottom and saved the file, then put the card back into the rpi4 and booted it up. I launched a few games and still got the error message and still have no audio. Did I miss anything?

mitu

@blkhwks19 said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

Did I miss anything?

No, that looks correct. Can you also try with

hdmi_safe=1

instead ? This should force a lower resolution mode but ignore completely what the TV reports.
Before adding the option above, can you also run - from the terminal, after exiting EmulationStation - the following commands and post the output:

tvservice -s
tvservice -m CEA

blkhwks19

@mitu Here's my terminal output for the commands you listed, before adding the "hdmi_safe=1" line:

tvservice -s

state 0x6 [DVI CUSTOM RGB full 16:9], 1920x1080 @ 60.00Hz, progressive

tvservice -m CEA

Group CEA has 8 modes:
                    mode 1: 640x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:25MHz progressive
                    mode 2: 720x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:27MHz progressive
                    mode 3: 720x480 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:27MHz progressive
                    mode 4: 1280x720 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:74MHz progressive
                    mode 5: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:74MHz interlaced
                    mode 6: 720x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:27MHz x2 interlaced
                    mode 7: 720x480 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:27MHz x2 interlaced
(native)    mode 16: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:148MHz progressive

Replaced "hdmi_force_edid_audio=1" with "hdmi_safe=1" in the same config.txt file. I don't see the error message when launching games now, but still no audio. Also resulted in a weird display. The picture no longer fills the screen (there's a pretty wide black border around each edge) and everything looks a bit stretched and/or zoomed. Something looks not quite right, it definitely must have forced a not-ideal resolution for my tv.

mitu

@blkhwks19 said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

I don't see the error message when launching games now, but still no audio.

Check if your audio is correctly configured to use HDMI - see https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/26628/ and see if your audio settings are set to HDMI as explained in the 1st post.

blkhwks19

@mitu According to that post, in the RetroPie audio menu it looks like it should be switched from Auto to HDMI, which is what I did.

As for the ES audio menu my current settings are:
Audio Card: Default (left this alone according to the post)
Audio Device: PCM (I don't see HDMI as an option, only PCM, Speaker, Master, Digital and Analogue)
OSX Audio Device: I see Local, HDMI, Both, ALSA:HW:0,0, and ALSA:HW:1,0. The post said to set it to ALSA, but I'm not sure if that's one of the options I listed or not. It's currently set to HDMI.

I also ran uname -r at the terminal to check my kernel version. It's 4.19.97-v71+. According to the post my system should not be affected, if I have that right?

Calling it a night tonight, I'm around all day tomorrow to continue troubleshooting though!

mitu

@blkhwks19 said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

I also ran uname -r at the terminal to check my kernel version. It's 4.19.97-v71+. According to the post my system should not be affected, if I have that right?

That's weird, because the 4.7.1 image ships with the 5.4.72 kernel.

sirhenrythe5th

i just realized that in this case a Raspberry Pi4 (2GB) runs with the image for the Pi4-400.
I dont know if this is in any way responsible for the sound-issue, but i guess for a Pi4 the P4-Image should be used, and for the Pi4-400 the Pi4-400-Image (?)

mitu

@sirhenrythe5th said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

I dont know if this is in any way responsible for the sound-issue, but i guess for a Pi4 the P4-Image should be used, and for the Pi4-400 the Pi4-400-Image (?)

There are is just one image for both models.

blkhwks19

Any other recommendations to try at this point?

mitu

@blkhwks19 said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

Any other recommendations to try at this point?

What image have you used to install RetroPie ? The 4.7.1 image doesn't have the kernel version you posted before.

blkhwks19

@mitu I went here: https://retropie.org.uk/download/

... and clicked on the button for Raspberry Pi 4/400. Right now that downloads 4.7.1, but I did this about 3 weeks ago, so maybe it was a different version then? I may have been wrong about 4.7.1, is there a way I can tell which image is currently installed?

mitu

@blkhwks19 said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

I may have been wrong about 4.7.1, is there a way I can tell which image is currently installed?

Which version of RetroPie does it show up, when you start the RetroPie-Setup script, in the RetroPie menu ?

Any other recommendations to try at this point?

Run alsamixer and check if the volume is not set at 0 or the sound output is not muted. Slim chance, if the configuration works with other TVs, but just to make sure.

blkhwks19

@mitu
I ran alsamixer, looks like 100 PCM, so doesn't look like anything is muted or anything there.

Which version of RetroPie does it show up, when you start the RetroPie-Setup script, in the RetroPie menu ?

4.6, so yeah I was wrong earlier, apologies. So does that change anything or shed any light on what my issue is?

mitu

@blkhwks19 said in No sound in rpi4, but only on one tv....:

So does that change anything or shed any light on what my issue is?

Not really, but it's important for the audio configuration.

blkhwks19

@mitu Ok, then I guess I'm not sure what, if anything, to do next to troubleshoot? Are we heading towards a solution of starting over and re-imaging? Obviously, I'd prefer to avoid that if possible, but it's sounding like I may be out of options here?

blkhwks19

Ok I bit the bullet and started over and re-imaged my sd card. Here's my new version details:

4.7.1 Raspberry Pi 4/400 image
5.4.72 kernel
ES 2.9.6RP

After imaging, the only steps I took were the following:

Change keyboard layout from UK to US
Connect to my wifi network
Change resolution from Default (monitor preferred) to 1920x1080. (For whatever reason, the out of the box installation had the picture not quite filling my screen on all tvs. Changing this solved that)
Copied over a few roms via wifi

As for the audio problem, I once again get audio just fine on other tvs but still no audio on this tv, the same one in question from the start of this thread. Starting to think this tv may just be too old and out of date to work with the new version of retropie (in terms of audio).

I also tried adding the hdmi lines to the config file as suggested earlier, but no luck with those.

Any other troubleshooting thoughts to try? I'm stumped and out of ideas at this point...

mitu

Try using another microHDMI cable, switch HDMI ports - both on the Pi and on the TV -, try lowering the resolution (720p instead of 1080p).

blkhwks19

@mitu Tried all of that, no luck still....