Sound works with Gnome, not with KDE

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Mon, 2011-06-13 at 02:31 +0200, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > Some recent update to F15 seems to have banjaxed my sound output under
> > KDE. The Systems Settings widget shows only Analog Output, no Pulseaudio,
> > even with "Special Devices" selected.
> 
> This is expected! Phonon detects that PulseAudio is running and shows you 
> only the actual hardware devices reachable through PulseAudio. Setting their 
> priorities will set their priorities within PulseAudio. So it is normal that 
> there is NO "PulseAudio" device in the list. ALL the devices you see are 
> being accessed through PulseAudio.

I seem to remember this being different, but maybe I'm imagining it.

> > I restarted the PA server and now it does appear
> 
> That's because you restarted PulseAudio without using the
> start-pulseaudio-kde script, so the module-device-manager PulseAudio module, 
> which allows Phonon to see your individual sound devices and set their 
> preferences inside PulseAudio, is not loaded.
> 
> > but still no sound.
> 
> That's your real problem. It is not related to the above.
> 
> > Speakers are connected and on. KMix has all volume controls at max, and
> > is not muted. pavucontrol ditto.
> 
> Have you checked the ALSA-level volumes?
> 
> kquitapp kmix
> KMIX_PULSEAUDIO_DISABLE=1 kmix
> 
> (Alternatively, use the ncurses-based alsamixer.)

That worked. The ALSA mute was on.

Note that this problem appeared after a recent update, i.e. the update
broke something. Unfortunately I didn't notice at the time so I'm unable
to say exactly which update caused it.

Presumably I now have to save the ALSA settings so I don't lose this on
the next logout.

<rant>
Why does this stuff have to be so obscure? When I go into System
Settings I expect to be able to adjust the system's settings (is that so
unreasonable?), but it turns out that's only partly the case. ALSA isn't
even mentioned in the Settings dialogue, and if you don't know the
secret recipe there's no way to find out short of reading a large amount
of *very* obscure documentation, or asking on this list.

The worst of it is that it may not even be the first time I've dealt
with this problem, like the guy who says he's suffering from a
combination of amnesia and déjà vu: I think I've forgotten about this
before.
</rant>

poc