Re: Muting only affects audio that is playing

On Fri, 2 Jan 2026, Christos Margiolis wrote:

> Sorry for the late reply.

No problem.

> On Thu Dec 11, 2025 at 8:23 PM CET, Sean C. Farley wrote:
>> Hi Christos,
>>
>> First, I tested with 14.3-STABLE:  stable/14-n272977-63b77ab1554e
>> I now tried with 15.0-STABLE:  stable/15-n281468-224d65015465
>>
>> Muting still does not work correctly even after removing any sound
>> related settings from /boot/loader.conf and /etc/sysctl.conf just to
>> make sure they were not doing anything.
>>
>> With hw.snd.verbose=4, I played an MP3 with mpv while the sound was
>> muted.  Here is the information, although, I am not sure if it helps.
>>
>> sndbuf_remalloc(): b=0xfffff80106608a80 8192 [8192] NOCHANGE
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (hardware) timeout=10 b[2048/1024/2] bs[2048/1024/2] limit=0
>> sndbuf_remalloc(): b=0xfffff8014cdfd180 0 -> 8192 [8192]
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (virtual) timeout=10 b[0/0/0] bs[8192/1024/8] limit=2048
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (hardware) timeout=10 b[2048/1024/2] bs[2048/1024/2] limit=0
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (virtual) timeout=10 b[0/0/0] bs[8192/1024/8] limit=2048
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (hardware) timeout=10 b[2048/1024/2] bs[2048/1024/2] limit=0
>> sndbuf_remalloc(): b=0xfffff8014cdfd180 8192 -> 16384 [16384]
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (virtual) timeout=10 b[0/0/0] bs[16384/2048/8] limit=4096
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (hardware) timeout=10 b[2048/1024/2] bs[2048/1024/2] limit=0
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (virtual) timeout=10 b[0/0/0] bs[16384/2048/8] limit=3763
>> pcm4: chn_trigger() dsp4.virtual_play.0: calling go=0x00000001 , prev=0x00000000
>> pcm4: chn_start(): VCHAN PARENT starting! (PCMDIR_PLAY/running) (ready=2048 force=1 i=1 j=0 intrtimeout=10 latency=10ms)
>> pcm4: chn_trigger() dsp4.play.0: calling go=0x00000001 , prev=0xffffffff
>> hdac1: 1536Kbps of 46080Kbps bandwidth used
>> pcm4: PCMDIR_PLAY: Stream setup fmt=00200010 (2.0) speed=48000
>> pcm4: PCMDIR_PLAY: Stream setup nid=2: fmt=0x0011, dfmt=0x0001, chan=0x0010, chan_count=0x01, stripe=0
>> pcm4: chn_trigger() dsp4.virtual_play.0: calling go=0xffffffff , prev=0x00000001
>> pcm4: chn_trigger() dsp4.play.0: calling go=0xffffffff , prev=0x00000001
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (hardware) timeout=10 b[2048/1024/2] bs[2048/1024/2] limit=0
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (virtual) timeout=10 b[0/0/0] bs[16384/2048/8] limit=3763
>> sndbuf_remalloc(): b=0xfffff80106608a80 8192 [2048] NOCHANGE
>> pcm4: chn_resizebuf(): PCMDIR_PLAY (hardware) timeout=42 b[2048/1024/2] bs[8192/1024/8] limit=2048
>>
>> One odd thing was that running "mixer vol.mute=off" while audio is
>> playing actually muted the sound.  However, pausing and unpausing got it
>> to play anyway.
>
> That's odd indeed. What is the output of mixer(8) once the sound is
> unmuted? Does this happen with other audio devices (if you have any), or
> only with this one?

If the mixer is in the muted state, then it remains that way even after 
the sound is being output:
     vol       = 0.50:0.50     pbk mute

Apparently, the issue is only with this card.  I just enabled the 
onboard audio device (ALC4080), and it does not exhibit the same 
problem.  This is probably why I wondered if this problem was new as I 
had switched a few months ago to the sound card.  I thought I had just 
not run into it before now.

uaudio0: <Generic USB Audio, class 239/2, rev 2.00/0.03, addr 1> on usbus0
ugen0.2: <USB Audio ASUSTek Computer, Inc.> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (100mA)

It is probably unrelated, but I did hear a hum just now from my speakers 
although nothing was playing.  Reseating the audio cables fixed it. 
They are pretty old Altec Lansing speakers but still sound very nice.

One more oddity but extremely rare.  I have heard music from my speakers 
when the power for the speakers was off.  That was when I was using the 
onboard sound.

Sean
-- 
scf@FreeBSD.org