Sound is down and Pulseaudio only sees a "Null Output" device
by rnturn from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5FJH9)
I had sound working very nicely on openSUSE Leap 15.2 until a set of recent patches not too long ago required a reboot. None of the patches seemd to involve sound software. (I do recognize that an obscure library that might have had an effect and listed in zypper's list of updates might be part of this problem.) After that, sound was garbled and full of static---almost as though there was some sort of clipping taking place.
The only other major change that I've made to my environment was to recreate my home directory (created a new) after some desktop patches had rendered one or more of my old configuration files incorrect. But that change was 2-3 weeks ago -- before the sound went all garbled -- and there have been several reboots before that new home directory "went live" since that change.
Normally, I would be running Jack/Qjackctl+Jack_Mixer with the Pulseaudio/Jack module. Since the sound has gotten garbled, all that seems to be working is ALSA. Qjackctl starts and then fails after about 0.5s. "jack_mixer" fails to start because jackd never started.
I can tweak Audacious to use ALSA for output and I can get output but Audacious's volume control is muted and cannot be unmuted. The KDE volume control only shows a "Null Output" device and volume control with that doesn't do anything. "pavucontrol" show only the "Null Output" device in Output Devices, "System Sounds" in Playback, "Monitor of Null Output" in Input devices, and (and this is my favorite) "No cards available for configuration" in the Configuration tab. The only volume control that does anything at all is the ncurses-based "alsamixer" (which, given that ALSA is the only sound software that appears to be working makes perfect sense).
Q: Does anyone have any ideas about what might have happened?
I'm especially curious about the sudden appearance of this "Null Output" device as I've never seen that before and it's the only thing that Pulseaudio seems to want to recognize at this point.
I'm off to look for a Jack+PA HOWTO that I used many moons ago to try and get sound back up and running but I'll be checking back and will be grateful if anyone has an idea about why PA has walled itself off from the rest of the system.
Many TIA...
The only other major change that I've made to my environment was to recreate my home directory (created a new) after some desktop patches had rendered one or more of my old configuration files incorrect. But that change was 2-3 weeks ago -- before the sound went all garbled -- and there have been several reboots before that new home directory "went live" since that change.
Normally, I would be running Jack/Qjackctl+Jack_Mixer with the Pulseaudio/Jack module. Since the sound has gotten garbled, all that seems to be working is ALSA. Qjackctl starts and then fails after about 0.5s. "jack_mixer" fails to start because jackd never started.
I can tweak Audacious to use ALSA for output and I can get output but Audacious's volume control is muted and cannot be unmuted. The KDE volume control only shows a "Null Output" device and volume control with that doesn't do anything. "pavucontrol" show only the "Null Output" device in Output Devices, "System Sounds" in Playback, "Monitor of Null Output" in Input devices, and (and this is my favorite) "No cards available for configuration" in the Configuration tab. The only volume control that does anything at all is the ncurses-based "alsamixer" (which, given that ALSA is the only sound software that appears to be working makes perfect sense).
Q: Does anyone have any ideas about what might have happened?
I'm especially curious about the sudden appearance of this "Null Output" device as I've never seen that before and it's the only thing that Pulseaudio seems to want to recognize at this point.
I'm off to look for a Jack+PA HOWTO that I used many moons ago to try and get sound back up and running but I'll be checking back and will be grateful if anyone has an idea about why PA has walled itself off from the rest of the system.
Many TIA...