Comment 0 for bug 535453

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

I have a CMI106 usb sound card (the cheap chinese ones like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-7-1-Ch-Optical-Audio-Sound-Card-SPDIF-Adapter_W0QQitemZ320447866154QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4a9c2e652a#ht_2096wt_954 )

It behaves... strangely. I thought I'd at least report what the syslog tells me:

Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.376044] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.605415] usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.702501] input: USB Sound Device as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.3/input/input11
Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.702841] generic-usb 0003:0D8C:0102.0003: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device ] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-2/input3
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki pulseaudio[1143]: alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0.00 dB to 0.00 dB which makes no sense.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki pulseaudio[1143]: last message repeated 2 times
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Sucessfully made thread 1572 of process 1143 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki pulseaudio[1143]: ratelimit.c: 25 events suppressed
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Sucessfully made thread 1573 of process 1143 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.

This is on ubuntu karmic koala. The "pulseaudio complains that the volume range is impossible" part was also present in ubuntu 9.10, except that it said "from -16 dB to -16 dB".

Some symptoms I'm seeing:
- unreliable volume vumeters in pavucontrol
- plugging a headset mic into the sound card's mic input works, but plugging normal boom mics doesn't work at all. I tried two different mics: a cheap dynamic mic with an on/off switch, and an electret condenser mic with a battery in it. Both boom mics work if I plug them in the onboard soundcard of the computer instead of the USB sound card. I don't know what to do.

Also, I left this bug be filed on pulseaudio, but according to pulseaudio it's an alsa bug. I don't know the correct alsa package name to file this upon.

ProblemType: Bug
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: jeff 1143 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jeff 1143 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'ICH6'/'Intel ICH6 with AD1981B at irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981B'
   Components : 'AC97a:41445374'
   Controls : 26
   Simple ctrls : 18
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'default'/'USB Sound Device at usb-0000:00:1d.1-2, full speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB0d8c:0102'
   Controls : 14
   Simple ctrls : 6
Date: Tue Mar 9 20:32:13 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100113)
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu11
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SelectedCard: 1 default USB-Audio - USB Sound Device
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Symptom: audio
Title: [USB-Audio - USB Sound Device ] pactl stat failed to find default card
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic i686