No sound on startup

[olodaddiolo]

I've set Steam to use the HDMI audio on my video card and it works but only after I launch a game or open a webpage with sound. What could be causing this?

[skinnyraf]

Same here. Weirder even: sometimes it works immediately, sometimes after login, sometimes only after I launch a game. It stopped bothering me though.

What is worse, SteamOS sometimes reverts to the built-in audio, which because of the above bug I notice only after launching a game. Then I need to exit a game, re-configure sound and launch the game again. Annoying.

[TapocoL]

I do have a weird workaround for this that seems to consistently work when on boot my audio over HDMI doesn't work.
I go to the "Desktop" (I think the button is "Return to Desktop" and is only activated after you "Enable access to the Linux desktop" in your interface settings in SteamOS).
After going to desktop, I just go back to steam big picture and HDMI sound just starts working. I have no idea if this is a reproducible fix on a different system, but it triggers something in my environment for the audio to start working over HDMI.

[skinnyraf]

Originally posted by Brother MEX:

This seems to be a WINDOWS related problem … just click on the SPEAKER symbol in the taskbar and solve your sound problems THERE

Seriously?

[Brother MEX]

Originally posted by skinnyraf:

Originally posted by Brother MEX:

This seems to be a WINDOWS related problem … just click on the SPEAKER symbol in the taskbar and solve your sound problems THERE

Seriously?

Sorry, was reading the MFF discussions and didnt notice that this topic was from the LINUX discussions

But the cure should be similar, change into desktop mode and change the settings for sound THERE ... or reconfigure the sound settings with the COMMAND LINE.

[skinnyraf]

Originally posted by Brother MEX:

Originally posted by skinnyraf:

Seriously?

Sorry, was reading the MFF discussions and didnt notice that this topic was from the LINUX discussions

But the cure should be similar, change into desktop mode and change the settings for sound THERE ... or reconfigure the sound settings with the COMMAND LINE.

That's the issue: whatever way you use to fix it, the problem returns after a few restarts. And it fixes itself as soon as you launch a game, which is easier than switching to the desktop mode anyway :)

[olodaddiolo]

Originally posted by TapocoL:

I do have a weird workaround for this that seems to consistently work when on boot my audio over HDMI doesn't work.
I go to the "Desktop" (I think the button is "Return to Desktop" and is only activated after you "Enable access to the Linux desktop" in your interface settings in SteamOS).
After going to desktop, I just go back to steam big picture and HDMI sound just starts working. I have no idea if this is a reproducible fix on a different system, but it triggers something in my environment for the audio to start working over HDMI.

Yes this works too but obviously it's easier to go straight to a game instead of doing that.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one having this problem, does anybody know if this is a recent bug?

[Brother MEX]

Originally posted by TapocoL:

… I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one having this problem, does anybody know if this is a recent bug?

As I already told you, you should reconfigure your Audio with the COMMAND LINE !
https://www.linux.com/tutorials/how-install-steamos-and-configure-wifi-and-audio/

... get back to the Linux desktop. Launch the browser (iceweasel, from activities) and download alsa-utils from here: packages.debian.org/wheezy/alsa-utils.

After the download finishes, open a terminal and use the following command to get to the file: “cd Downloads”. Once there we need to run a command as root, but for some reason the “desktop” user has a different password after post-install. To fix this run “passwd desktop” to trigger a password update (I just changed it back to “desktop”). After that’s done run “sudo dpkg –I alsa-utils_1.0.25-4_amd64.deb”. When this finishes run “alsamixer” to see your audio devices.

Use F6 to select your sound card and then make sure the volume levels aren’t muted (shortcut is “m”) or too low. In my case, the master volume was muted by default. Once this is changed double-click the “Return to steam” link on the desktop to get back to the regular interface. If all went as planned you should have working sound!

You need to use SUDO so that the ALSA utilities can PERMANENTLY change the Audio settings … without SUDO you only change them for the current user until reboot.

PS: I suggest you visit a HACKERSPACE near you for learning HOW LINUX WORKS ;-P
https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

[thorneo]

this has been their sense update 148... Or at least that is when mine got screwed up. I was told then it was something in grub when it boots. But I just go with it "it will be fixed after the other bugs"....

[shawn.eary]

I think the latest "public" version of Steam OS may be based on Debian 8. If I understand that correctly, then you will be able to do "sudo apt-get install alsa-utils" after following this tutorial:
"How To Add Debian Repositories To SteamOS Brewmaster" - Egee -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0EEcoDj_W0
With that said, I still don't have my EMU1212M working in Brewmaster. I think I need to compile the firmware. I have to do that to get my 1212M to work in UBuntu for some whacky reason.

Also, in Egee's tutorial, the following command to get the Gnome Terminal "back" is hard to read for me:
sudo localectl set-locale LANG='en_US.UTF-8'

BTW: I tend to prefer Microsoft but Overload seems to run better for me in Steam OS than it does on Windows 10. I've liked the GNU\Linux command line for years for it's ease of use, but one thing that still bugs me about GNU\Linux, Apple and Android is that they tend to name their background drivers "daemons". This offends me and I wish someone in charge over at Google or the Free Software Foundation would put an end to this offensive naming convention.

[vladislavuz]

My decision. Save settings (gamepad and sound output) and reboot the system 2 times without changing the specified settings. It `s Magic! The settings of the gamepad and sound output during the next reboots will not be lost. It looks like no one is testing development after updates, even at the login stage.