No state is present for card CMI8738

No state is present for card CMI8738

[Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists]

Since alsa-user is rather ... errr ... silent, I dare to repost the same 
question here.

I've seen that Alsa likes the Terratec cards, however since they're also 
based on the CMI chipset, and at least /my/ onboard CMI chipset here sucks 
badly I wonder what low cost card I can use?

I hope somebody can give me a clue,
*t

PS: Mic input is barely loud enough with my onboard sound. Mic boost has
     no effect.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
   Tomas Pospisek
   http://sourcepole.com -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
-----------------------------------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 14:39:36 +0200 (CEST)
From: Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists <tpo2@sourcepole.ch>
To: alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: [Alsa-user] No state is present for card CMI8738

The following is my problem:

$ alsactl -f .alsavoip restore
No state is present for card CMI8738

I see this "sometimes". Sometimes the above works and sometimes it returns
with that error message.

It needs to be noted that I am suspending to ram. Nevertheless, the
behaveour is not consistent in between "s2ram"s and I don't know whether
that has anything to do with it either.

It also needs to be noted that alsamixer *never* has any problems
accessing the card. But even after changing the card settings with
alsamixer, alsactl will keep on repeating that error message.

* $ lspci
    00:0d.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)

* alsa userspace is at 1.0.13
* kernel is Debian's 2.6.18-4-686

Further, minor problems:

* After waking up from suspend the card looses its microphone   settings -
    that is - "Mic Capture" is allway reset to zero.

* Further on the choice to hide the microphone setting "Mic Capture" in
    alsamixer behind F5 irritates me a bit - there are *a lot* of very
    obscure settings (such as "IEC958 5V" - huh?), that are displayed by
    default.

What's up with that error above? What does it mean? Is there any
way I can fix or circumvent it? Anybody a hint?
*t

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
    Tomas Pospisek
    http://sourcepole.com -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
-----------------------------------------------------------

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Re: No state is present for card CMI8738

[Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists]

Since I got no feedback neither here nor on the users list, may I ask why?

* is it that nobody knows the answer to my question?
* or is it because the question is stupid (as in: read the FAQ, the wiki,
   the archive and use google (all of which did not help me btw.))

?
*t

On Wed, 14 May 2007, Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote [modified for 
clarity]:

[...]
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 14:39:36 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists <tpo2@sourcepole.ch>
> To: alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: [Alsa-user] No state is present for card CMI8738
>
> The following is my problem:
>
> $ alsactl -f .alsavoip restore
> No state is present for card CMI8738
>
> I see this "sometimes". Sometimes the above works and sometimes it returns
> with that error message.
>
> I happen to be suspending to ram regulary. Nevertheless, the behaveour 
> is not consistent in between "s2ram"s and I don't know whether that has 
> anything to do with it either.
>
> It also needs to be noted that alsamixer *never* has any problems
> accessing the card. But even after changing the card settings with
> alsamixer, alsactl will keep on repeating that error message.
>
> * $ lspci
>    00:0d.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)
>
> * alsa userspace is at 1.0.13
> * kernel is Debian's 2.6.18-4-686
>
> Further, minor problems:
>
> * After waking up from suspend the card looses its microphone   settings -
>    that is - "Mic Capture" is allway reset to zero.
>
> * Further on the choice to hide the microphone setting "Mic Capture" in
>    alsamixer behind F5 irritates me a bit - there are *a lot* of very
>    obscure settings (such as "IEC958 5V" - huh?), that are displayed by
>    default.
>
> * I've seen that Alsa likes the Terratec cards, however since they're
>   also based on the CMI chipset, and at least /my/ onboard CMI chipset
>   here sucks badly I wonder what low cost card (other than CMI based
>   ones) are recommended?
>
> * Mic input is barely loud enough with my onboard sound. Mic boost
>   has no effect.
>
> What's up with that error above? What does it mean? Is there any
> way I can fix or circumvent it? Anybody a hint?
> *t

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
   Tomas Pospisek
   http://sourcepole.com -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
-----------------------------------------------------------

Re: No state is present for card CMI8738

[Takashi Iwai]

At Fri, 18 May 2007 16:42:51 +0200 (CEST),
Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote:
> 
> Since I got no feedback neither here nor on the users list, may I ask why?
> 
> * is it that nobody knows the answer to my question?
> * or is it because the question is stupid (as in: read the FAQ, the wiki,
>    the archive and use google (all of which did not help me btw.))

Because you pasted the whole things below your signature.
I didn't read texts below the signature because they are usually
quoted texts.

Regarding the alsactl problem.  When alsactl returns 'no state is
present', then it's not necessarily a driver problem but could be
rather a system problem.  At least, you have to figure out what is the
cause. For example, check /proc/asound/cards whether the driver is
really loaded when you call alsactl.


Takashi

[patch] Re: No state is present for card CMI8738

[Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 2148 bytes --]

On Mon, 21 May 2007, Takashi Iwai wrote:

> At Fri, 18 May 2007 16:42:51 +0200 (CEST),
> Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote:
>>
>> Since I got no feedback neither here nor on the users list, may I ask why?
>>
>> * is it that nobody knows the answer to my question?
>> * or is it because the question is stupid (as in: read the FAQ, the wiki,
>>    the archive and use google (all of which did not help me btw.))
>
> Because you pasted the whole things below your signature.
> I didn't read texts below the signature because they are usually
> quoted texts.

Thanks a lot for your reply and sorry for that.

> Regarding the alsactl problem.  When alsactl returns 'no state is
> present', then it's not necessarily a driver problem but could be
> rather a system problem.  At least, you have to figure out what is the
> cause. For example, check /proc/asound/cards whether the driver is
> really loaded when you call alsactl.

Well, actually I figured out one cause of the problem, namely that alsactl 
wasn't able to access the configuration file. My dumb, but nevertheless, 
alsactl could be way clearer about telling the user what's wrong.

I suggest the attached patches to improve the comprehensibility of 
alsactl's (error-)behaveour.


Description of patches:

* diff_display_error_on_failing_open_in_load_state:
   Tells the user that it was not able to open the config file with the
   precise error message.

* diff_more_explicit_open_w_error_message:
   Include more explicit error message when open config file in write
   mode (this is for the "names" command)

* diff_more_explicit_open_w_error_message2
   same as last patch, this time for the store command


Other little patches:

* diff_missing_space_in_help:
   adds a space in the help text between "restore" and "<card>" and indents
   the rest of the text accordingly to fit

* diff4_display_help_for_names_command:
   shortly explain the "names" command in the help text


*t

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
   Tomas Pospisek
   http://sourcepole.com -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
-----------------------------------------------------------

[-- Attachment #2: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 402 bytes --]

diff -u state.c state.c
--- state.c	2006-09-29 13:53:26.000000000 +0200
+++ state.c	2007-05-22 22:12:21.000000000 +0200
@@ -1312,7 +1312,10 @@
 			error("snd_config_load error: %s", snd_strerror(err));
 			return err;
 		}
-	}
+	} else {
+	  error("Cannot open %s for reading: %s", file, snd_strerror(err));
+          return err;
+        }
 
 	if (!cardname) {
 		int card, first = 1;

[-- Attachment #3: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 1577 bytes --]

--- alsactl.c.orig	2006-09-29 13:53:26.000000000 +0200
+++ alsactl.c	2007-05-22 22:03:36.000000000 +0200
@@ -41,16 +41,16 @@
 {
 	printf("Usage: alsactl <options> command\n");
 	printf("\nAvailable options:\n");
-	printf("  -h,--help       this help\n");
-	printf("  -f,--file #     configuration file (default " SYS_ASOUNDRC " or " SYS_ASOUNDNAMES ")\n");
-	printf("  -F,--force      try to restore the matching controls as much as possible\n");
-	printf("  -d,--debug      debug mode\n");
-	printf("  -v,--version    print version of this program\n");
+	printf("  -h,--help        this help\n");
+	printf("  -f,--file #      configuration file (default " SYS_ASOUNDRC " or " SYS_ASOUNDNAMES ")\n");
+	printf("  -F,--force       try to restore the matching controls as much as possible\n");
+	printf("  -d,--debug       debug mode\n");
+	printf("  -v,--version     print version of this program\n");
 	printf("\nAvailable commands:\n");
-	printf("  store <card #>  save current driver setup for one or each soundcards\n");
-	printf("                  to configuration file\n");
-	printf("  restore<card #> load current driver setup for one or each soundcards\n");
-	printf("                  from configuration file\n");
+	printf("  store   <card #> save current driver setup for one or each soundcards\n");
+	printf("                   to configuration file\n");
+	printf("  restore <card #> load current driver setup for one or each soundcards\n");
+	printf("                   from configuration file\n");
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char *argv[])

[-- Attachment #4: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 549 bytes --]

diff -u alsactl.c alsactl.c
--- alsactl.c	2007-05-22 22:03:36.000000000 +0200
+++ alsactl.c	2007-05-22 22:06:43.000000000 +0200
@@ -51,6 +51,8 @@
 	printf("                   to configuration file\n");
 	printf("  restore <card #> load current driver setup for one or each soundcards\n");
 	printf("                   from configuration file\n");
+	printf("  names   <card #> dump information about all the known present (sub-)devices\n");
+	printf("                   into configuration file\n");
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char *argv[])

[-- Attachment #5: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 395 bytes --]

--- names.c.orig	2006-09-29 13:53:26.000000000 +0200
+++ names.c	2007-05-22 22:15:29.000000000 +0200
@@ -535,7 +535,7 @@
 			err = snd_output_stdio_open(&out, cfgfile, "w+");
 		}
 		if (err < 0) {
-			error("Cannot open %s for writing", cfgfile);
+			error("Cannot open %s for writing: %s", cfgfile, snd_strerror(err));
 			return -errno;
 		}
 		err = snd_config_save(config, out);

[-- Attachment #6: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 402 bytes --]

diff -u state.c state.c
--- state.c	2007-05-22 22:12:21.000000000 +0200
+++ state.c	2007-05-22 22:19:37.000000000 +0200
@@ -1278,7 +1278,7 @@
 	else
 		err = snd_output_stdio_open(&out, file, "w");
 	if (err < 0) {
-		error("Cannot open %s for writing", file);
+		error("Cannot open %s for writing: %s", file, snd_strerror(err));
 		return -errno;
 	}
 	err = snd_config_save(config, out);

[-- Attachment #7: Type: text/plain, Size: 160 bytes --]

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Re: [patch] Re: No state is present for card CMI8738

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 22 May 2007 23:02:29 +0200 (CEST),
Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote:
> 
> > Regarding the alsactl problem.  When alsactl returns 'no state is
> > present', then it's not necessarily a driver problem but could be
> > rather a system problem.  At least, you have to figure out what is the
> > cause. For example, check /proc/asound/cards whether the driver is
> > really loaded when you call alsactl.
> 
> Well, actually I figured out one cause of the problem, namely that alsactl 
> wasn't able to access the configuration file. My dumb, but nevertheless, 
> alsactl could be way clearer about telling the user what's wrong.

Glad to hear it's no real bug :)

> I suggest the attached patches to improve the comprehensibility of 
> alsactl's (error-)behaveour.
> 
> 
> Description of patches:
> 
> * diff_display_error_on_failing_open_in_load_state:
>    Tells the user that it was not able to open the config file with the
>    precise error message.
> 
> * diff_more_explicit_open_w_error_message:
>    Include more explicit error message when open config file in write
>    mode (this is for the "names" command)
> 
> * diff_more_explicit_open_w_error_message2
>    same as last patch, this time for the store command
> 
> 
> Other little patches:
> 
> * diff_missing_space_in_help:
>    adds a space in the help text between "restore" and "<card>" and indents
>    the rest of the text accordingly to fit
> 
> * diff4_display_help_for_names_command:
>    shortly explain the "names" command in the help text

Thanks for patches.  I applied them to HG tree with minor fixes:

- fix indentation in
  diff_display_error_on_failing_open_in_load_state
- added "(DEPRECATED)" to help text in
  diff4_display_help_for_names_command
  (names command is deprecated and provided just for compatibility)

Please check the latest tree if it's OK for you.


Takashi