Bug 425892

Summary: KDE Neon 5.19.4 Updated Caused Most Audio Devices to Disappear
Product: [Plasma] plasma-pa Reporter: Paul Feakins <paulfeakins>
Component: generalAssignee: David Rosca <nowrep>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE    
Severity: major CC: daniel.skapunk, nicolas.fella, plasma-bugs, rechapita21
Priority: NOR    
Version: 5.19.4   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Output of "pactl list sinks" as requested.

Description Paul Feakins 2020-08-28 10:27:46 UTC
SUMMARY
After the recent update to 5.19.4 most of my audio devices have disappeared such as analogue output, USB webcam, and others. A USB headset still remains.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Connect various sound devices - they are all visible when clicking the volume icon in the system tray.
2. Update to 5.19.4

OBSERVED RESULT
Many of the devices will now have disappeared with no way to get them back.

EXPECTED RESULT
The devices should have remained.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: KDE neon 9.19
KDE Plasma Version: 5.19.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.73.0
Qt Version: 5.14.2

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Various other bugs were introduced with this update but this is the most serious so I will report those separately at a later date if they aren't fixed soon.
Comment 1 Nicolas Fella 2020-08-29 10:20:04 UTC
Please attach a screenshot and the output of running "pactl list sinks"
Comment 2 Paul Feakins 2020-08-29 13:09:50 UTC
Created attachment 131258 [details]
Output of "pactl list sinks" as requested.
Comment 3 Nicolas Fella 2020-08-29 14:37:40 UTC
I assume you are talking about the Neon 18.04->20.04 update?

From the output I can tell that PulseAudio only reports one output device (the headset) so Plasma is behaving as expected here.

The devices disappearing is likely caused by the new PulseAudio version from Ubuntu 20.04
Comment 4 Nicolas Fella 2020-08-29 14:46:32 UTC
Another way to check would be opening pavucontrol or pavucontrol-qt

If the devices appear there but not in Plasma it's a bug in Plasma, if they also don't appear there the bug is in PulseAudio or lower
Comment 5 Martín Perazzo 2020-08-31 17:32:33 UTC
Like I said in this forum post (https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=309&t=167621&p=436838&hilit=pipewire#p436857) the issue seems to originate from the kde neon provided pipewire package.
Reverting to Ubuntu version seem to fix the issue, not just for myself but other people too (https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=309&t=167621&hilit=pipewire&sid=db82cb5d66300d2a9743449450faafc8&start=15#p436890)
Comment 6 Paul Feakins 2020-09-01 09:27:24 UTC
Today I'm on a computer that has not been updated and both sound and Shutter work perfectly. 

To confirm, it was indeed the update to "KDE neon on 20.04" that caused all the issues.

I won't be updating this computer but I would like to roll back my other computer if possible?

I will be forced to re-install otherwise.
Comment 7 Paul Feakins 2020-09-02 11:26:23 UTC
"pavucontrol" has allowed me to find and select the correct audio device - thanks!
Comment 8 Paul Feakins 2020-09-02 11:27:19 UTC
I will let you decide if this bug should be marked as resolved or as unrelated to KDE.
Comment 9 Martín Perazzo 2020-09-02 12:42:53 UTC
(In reply to Paul Feakins from comment #7)
> "pavucontrol" has allowed me to find and select the correct audio device -
> thanks!

Did you managed to select the audio device once you downgraded the package pipewire from 0.3.8-1+20.04+focal+build1 to 0.2.7-1?
Because if that's the case, while not technically a kde problem, it would be a kde neon packaging bug. Version 0.3.8-1+20.04+focal+build1 of pipewire is provided by the kde neon package archive.
Comment 10 Paul Feakins 2020-09-02 13:18:53 UTC
Thanks for the reply Martin, this was indeed after I had downgraded pipewire and rebooted but that alone had not fixed the issue.
Comment 11 Daniel 2020-09-02 18:26:43 UTC
(In reply to Martín Perazzo from comment #9)
> (In reply to Paul Feakins from comment #7)
> > "pavucontrol" has allowed me to find and select the correct audio device -
> > thanks!
> 
> Did you managed to select the audio device once you downgraded the package
> pipewire from 0.3.8-1+20.04+focal+build1 to 0.2.7-1?
> Because if that's the case, while not technically a kde problem, it would be
> a kde neon packaging bug. Version 0.3.8-1+20.04+focal+build1 of pipewire is
> provided by the kde neon package archive.

I've just added the bug to KDE Neon
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=426108
Comment 12 Paul Feakins 2020-09-02 19:02:52 UTC
What you're seeing in that bug is actually subtly different from what I'm seeing. You mention the volume icon is greyed-out, but for me the icon is there, I can click it, and some outputs are shown - digital ones - but the analogue one I would usually use was not there. As above, pavucontrol allowed me to select it and get it back.
Comment 13 Daniel 2020-09-02 20:01:21 UTC
(In reply to Paul Feakins from comment #12)
> What you're seeing in that bug is actually subtly different from what I'm
> seeing. You mention the volume icon is greyed-out, but for me the icon is
> there, I can click it, and some outputs are shown - digital ones - but the
> analogue one I would usually use was not there. As above, pavucontrol
> allowed me to select it and get it back.

I think it may be because we have different hardware, for my case I suppose that all my audio hardware is controlled by Intel HDA Sound in the intel chipset, that's why I have only dummy output.
My guess is that hda_intel outputs are the one affected.

Do yo have several audio outputs/hardware managed by different chips?
Comment 14 Martín Perazzo 2020-09-03 02:48:44 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 426108 ***