Sound intermittently stops working

[Conrad J. Sabatier]

On Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:21:52 +0100
"Julian H. Stacey" <jhs at berklix.com> wrote:

> "Conrad J. Sabatier" wrote:
> > Anyone have any clues as to what might cause sound to suddenly stop
> > working?  Every so often, for no apparent reason, my audio output
> > just stops abruptly and cannot be restored without a reboot.  No
> > error messages from either the kernel or whatever audio app I may
> > be running at the time (which will continue playing, blissfully
> > unaware that anything out of the ordinary is happening).  For all
> > outward appearances (other than aurally), everything seems to still
> > be working perfectly normally.
> > 
> > # uname -a
> > FreeBSD serene.no-ip.org 10.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #1: Sun
> > Jan 1 18:03:55 CST 2012
> > conrads at serene.no-ip.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/CUSTOM  amd64
> > 
> > # cat /dev/sndstat
> > FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 64bit 2009061500/amd64)
> > Installed devices:
> > pcm0: <HDA Realtek ALC888 PCM #0 Analog> (play/rec) default
> > pcm1: <HDA Realtek ALC888 PCM #1 Analog> (play/rec)
> > pcm2: <HDA Realtek ALC888 PCM #2 Digital> (play)
> > pcm3: <HDA Realtek ALC888 PCM #3 Digital> (play)
> > 
> > Sorry I don't have any more useful diagnostic-type information.
> > 
> > Does anyone else ever experience this sort of thing?  Is there any
> > way to get the sound going again, other than rebooting?
> > 
> > Thanks!
> 
> You could save good status with
> 	sysctl -a > sysctl.good
> 	mixer > mixer.good
> then what it goes wrong,
> 	sysctl -a > sysctl.bad
> 	mixer > mixer.bad
> 	diff -c sysctl.good sysctl.bad ; diff -c mixer.good mixer.bad
> & if anything Has changed do a find & grep on the variable name.
> 
> Cheers,
> Julian

Good idea.  I'll do that.  Thanks!

-- 
Conrad J. Sabatier
conrads at cox.net