Yet another "lvl0: VolumeControl::init() - Failed to find mixer elements" error help request (sorry; please read).

mitu

Post the output of the following commands:

aplay -l
amixer scontents -c 1
amixer scontents -c 0

psavas

@mitu
From aplay -l:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: b1 [bcm2835 HDMI 1], device 0: bcm2835 HDMI 1 [bcm2835 HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 4/4
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
card 1: Headphones [bcm2835 Headphones], device 0: bcm2835 Headphones [bcm2835 Headphones]
  Subdevices: 4/4
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3

From amixer contents -c 1:

Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback -10239 - 400
  Mono: Playback 0 [96%] [0.00dB] [on]

From amixer contents -c 0:

Simple mixer control 'HDMI',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback -10239 - 400
  Mono: Playback 0 [96%] [0.00dB] [on]

Thanks,
pete

mitu

Looks like the usual Pi4 configuration. Make sure you don't have a $HOME/.asoundrc file (delete it if it's there) and try again with the default/HDMI Audio settings in EmulationStation.
Do you have PulseAudio installed/enabled by any chance ?

psavas

@mitu There was no .asoundrc file in the HOME directory. In fact, doing a search only turned up an asoundrc.txt.gz file in the ```
/usr/share/doc/libasound2/examples


I checked in the Audio settings in RetroPie and the PulseAudio is not enabled. On a lark, I tried to enable it and every time I went back into the menu, it still showed the "enable" option for PulseAudio.

pete

mitu

EmulationStation doesn't support PulseAudio and installing it will not help. I was just checking if your default sound card is not a PulseAudio, in which case using HDMI or PCM for the device name will not work.

Run alsamixer and note the name of the Item in the top left of the mixer - what does it say there ?

psavas

@mitu It's set for the bcm2835 HDMI 1:

mitu

Ok, so using default / HDMI in EmulationStation options should work.

psavas

@mitu Sadly, it doesn't. The moment I put it back to default/HDMI in the ES Sound Settings panel, the system volume slider goes right back to 0 and I get no sound.

What else can I try?

Thanks,
pete

Ashpool

@psavas
uncomment in /boot/config.txt the line: hdmi_drive=2
From your descriptions above, i don't thing this may be your solution, but just to be sure I would try that one (I have encountered some TVs where that is needed, even if they run a CEA mode and are turned on before the Raspi is, so the comment in config.txt about DMT modes is a bit misleading).

psavas

@Ashpool That made no difference either.