Ubuntu
alsa-driver package

No Sound on iMac 21.5" late 2013 with CS4206

Asked by Nils Ole Tippenhauer

I don't get sound on my headphones for a new iMac 21.5 with vanilla Xubuntu 14.04

my alsa-info.sh output (as per instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure)
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=61b19ef5f8a1f509bec25f51244c2214806feec4

I had speaker output at random occasions, but right now it does not work any more. I don't care about speaker output.

pavucontrol tells me there is the HDMI audio card, and an analog stereo ( Chip: Cirrus Logic CS4206 ).

All relevant channels are unmuted in alsamixer. Funny side-node: when muting Chip: Intel Haswell HDMI S/PDIF 2, the monitor turns off

I tried different modprobe parameters for intel_hda_audio (auto, imac_27, mbp55).

I tried running the hda-analyzer.py, but I get the following message:
ValueError: wrong proc file format (unknown dig1 bit 'KAE')

Anything left for me to do?

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Nils Ole Tippenhauer
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Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg) said : 		#1

You can try uninstalling Pulseaudio and test with the ALSA audio layer only using the following Terminal commands:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

Reboot and set the volume with the Gnome Alsa mixer (in the multimedia menu), or alsamixer in a terminal: it could be better as Pulseaudio is cpu consuming and not necessary for audio to work.

In alsamixer, make sure to unmute and increase volume to 100% on the following mixer channel:

Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0

Test headphones using all audio jacks at the front and back of your PC.

If you want to go back to Pulseaudio, look here :

http://askubuntu.com/questions/475450/audio-suddenly-stopped-pulseaudio-reinstall-has-not-helped-14-04solved

Source: http://askubuntu.com/questions/476905/imac-late-2013-audio-cirrus-logic-cs4206-issues

Revision history for this message
Nils Ole Tippenhauer (noleti) said : 		#2

Thanks for the quick answer, I'm not sure if pulseaudio is really to blame here.

I actually found at least a workaround, thanks to https://blog.sman.dk/?p=261

I patched the hda-analyzer.py to accept the KAE and 3 other smaller problems:

diff hda_proc.py /dev/shm/hda-analyzer/hda_proc.py
280d279
< 'KAE': DIG1_BITS['ENABLE'], #Hack, have no idea what this is
669,677d667
< elif line.startswith(' Devices: '):
< print ("passing (Devices): "+line[11:])
< pass
< elif line.startswith(' In-driver Connection: '):
< print ("passing (IDC): "+line[24:])
< pass
< elif line.startswith(' 0x02 0x03 0x04'):
< print ("passing (hex): ")
< pass

In hda_analyzer.py, I followed the instructions from the above blog:
"Choose Codec-0 and de-select the row [1] and select the row [2] as showed below (check the data column as the last column, or you will be unable to select it, it seems):"

This activated audio in my headphones. To have this permanently, I will follow instructions in the blog.
Should I report this as bug? (the hda_analyzer changes, and/or the settings required to get headphones to work)

Revision history for this message
Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg) said : 		#3

I suggest reporting this as a bug.