I dug out an old sound card from my closet and dusted it off, popped it into my pcie slot, and booted into KDE.
It’s a Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium (old, I know)
Now, on my first boot after installing it, KDE picked it up just fine! Should be noted I’m using Pipewire.
I even put on the headphones and did an audio test through the audio control panel, and yep! Got sound.
Then, poking around with the output settings, the device just vanished! Not sure why, nor do I recall which output dropdown option I selected to make that happen.
It’s not listed as an inactive card. It’s just nowhere to be found in KDE’s audio settings, neither in the dock widget nor in system settings.
lspci lists the card as 04:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs EMU20k2 [Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Series] (rev 04)
lspci -v shows it as
04:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs EMU20k2 [Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Series] (rev 04) Subsystem: Creative Labs EMU20k2 [Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Series] Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16 Memory at f4200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Memory at f4000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M] Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64M] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel modules: snd_ctxfi
Doesn’t show in pactl
It doesn’t show up in alsamixer nor pavucontrol either
Any idea what I may have done to “lose” my card?
Currently investigating further.
Issue doesn’t seem related to pw nor pa.
snd_ctxfi module exists in kernel, but seems like the issue is related to the module itself (journalctl -xe | grep snd_ctxfi just gives me "Something wrong!!!" lol, not helpful but it tells me its module related at least)
Not KDE related at least, I originally suspected a UI issue or something.
Reading further into other posts folks have touched on in other forums re: this card, will report back if I end up solving it.
Thanks for the tips.
I tried updating the module by first removing it then reinstalling the extra linux modules. No change re: my errors.
That said, here’s some more details in my troubleshooting:
- Disabled onboard audio, just in case there was a conflict. No change.
- Set
options snd_ctxfi index=1 in alsa-base.conf. No change.
- Tried reloading the module. No change.
lsmod | grep snd_ctxfi returns
snd_ctxfi 176128 0 snd_pcm 192512 8 snd_ctxfi,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core snd 135168 22 snd_ctxfi,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_intel,snd_usb_audio,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_hda_codec,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi
So, the module is there.journalctl -xe | grep snd_ctxfi returns
Nov 09 13:31:29 whimsicott kernel: snd_ctxfi: unknown parameter 'dsp_status' ignored Nov 09 13:31:29 whimsicott kernel: snd_ctxfi: unknown parameter 'dsp_status' ignored Nov 09 13:31:29 whimsicott kernel: snd_ctxfi 0000:04:00.0: chip 20K2 model SB0880 (1102:0043) is found Nov 09 13:32:06 whimsicott kernel: snd_ctxfi 0000:04:00.0: Something wrong!!! Nov 09 13:32:06 whimsicott kernel: snd_ctxfi: probe of 0000:04:00.0 failed with error -1
Which is the result when reloading the module.
Googling explicitly chip 20K2 model SB0880 and Something wrong!!! got me this forum post which is very similar to my issue, so Im walking through it now:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=256648
Thanks again.
I think I exhausted almost every option on the Linux side of things. Nothing wants to see it, and inxi shows the card but with the driver listed as N/A despite it being loaded (tried both snd_ctsfi and snd_hda_intel)
I noticed the card is supposed to have an LED on when in use (took it apart to clean the board), but isn’t lit when slotted in, so I suspect maybe the card is bad.
Alright, this just happened to me on KDE 6 on Endeavour OS. I picked the “Pro Audio” option on the hamburger menu on the upper right of the device in the system tray list, and pooof - my main sound card that has always worked is just GONE. Reboots, updates, no way to get it back.
Except it’s not completely gone? The microphone device which I didn’t touch from the same Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 is still there. I tried unplugging the card (USB external) and re-connecting it and still the main audio seems forever gone.
I have a suspicion this is something in KDE user confs… going to try another user.
Can confirm, new user shows the card. Something smells like a bug here… Now I need to hunt down wherever this setting is in my homedir
Found it. The sound card and mic were not in sync with the settings. When I set the audio output to Pro Audio and the Mic was still on 4.0 + 2.1, the audio output vanished. Setting them both to Pro Audio made them both appear. Same thing by vice versa when switching back… That was odd UX.