No sound on Aluminium iMac with PCI ID 8086:284b

This is a proper install, not a live session. See bug 147072 for the same problem with the Live CD.

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please add the output requested in the Reporting Sound Bugs section of https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSoundProblems as separate attachments? Thanks in advance.

asound.conf and asoundrc* files not found.

All the above results are from an i386 install, which has the same problems as the AMD64 install with sound. I don't have an AMD64 install at the moment, and don't have time to redo it right now. If you really need it, I might be able to get round to it in a week or so.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for providing the additional information. There is no need to reproduce it with an AMD64 install.

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, this bug is a duplicate of bug 131133 and is being marked as such. Feel free to submit any future bugs you may find.

I've unmarked it as a duplicate, because bug 131133 is now marked as "fix released", and the fix doesn't fix things on the Aluminium iMac.

I am assigning this bug to the 'ubuntu-kernel-team' per their bug policy. For future reference you can learn more about their bug policy at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies .

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The Hardy Heron Alpha series was recently released. Alpha2 and subsequent releases contain an updated version of the kernel. You can download and try the new Hardy Heron Alpha release from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hardy/ . Please note that Alpha3 will be released within the next day or two so you many want to wait. You should be able to then test the new kernel via the LiveCD. If you can, please verify if this bug still exists or not and report back your results. General information regarding the release can also be found here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks!

I've tested with the LiveCD for Hardy Heron Alpha3, and the bug still exists. If necessary, I'll do an install and gather all the information again, but that will have to wait a few days.

Thanks David!
You already made what was needed, testing Hardy Heron Alpha3, it should be enough.
I have just marked this bug as confirmed on linux (Hardy alpha 2 and more kernel version).

I note from .xsession-errors:
/bin/sh: /usr/bin/esd: not found
[I know we have the pulseaudio-esound-compat package for that, not sure when it is necessary or not]
...
** Message: don't know how to handle audio/mpeg, mpegversion=(int)1, layer=(int)3
[You tried to play an MP3 song, or movie with MP3 audio, we don't support that out of the box,
you may want to read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats, although that now the
system is supposed to install missing codecs, at least in Hardy, but it does not work from inside the
web browser according to my experience]
...
lots of messages like:
(rhythmbox:11591): RhythmDB-CRITICAL **: rhythmdb_entry_ref: assertion `entry != NULL' failed
[I don't know]

Yes, I tested rhythmbox with MP3s under Gutsy. As I recall I did install the codecs after the first attempt told me I was missing them; since sound is completely non-functional I really don't recall now. However, I tested Hardy with the .ogg files in the samples folder, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I have no idea what the rhythmbox errors mean, either, but for something CRITICAL they seemed to have remarkably little impact.

I note the following line from your dmesg file:
[ 13.068000] hda_codec: Unknown model for ALC882, trying auto-probe from BIOS...

I note that similar (well, for me all the macs seems the same ;-) ) hardware have same problem on:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=474144
well, with 38 pages, I have just read first messages.

*MAYBE* linked to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/39770

About Unknown model for ALC882, that was discussed a bit at:
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Kernel/2007-07/msg05950.html

An arch linux user with mac and similar problem:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=36215&p=2
in which the last message he/she says:
Kernel 2.6.23 as well as ALSA 1.0.15 just arrived, but still no sound. sad Is it really the right driver missing?

In a bug with similar symptom but on very different hardware (bug #137474), bug reporter say that using driver from http://www.opensound.com/oss.html made it have sound.

But my warning apply:
As far as I know, drivers from http://www.opensound.com/oss.html are not expected to go in a future version of the kernel.
They were close source for the last 10 years, and only recently been re-released open-source.
Since then, ALSA have replaced OSS (having OSS emulation from ALSA) inside the kernel.
Info mostly taken from http://www.4front-tech.com/hannublog/

I consulted /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/ALSA-Configuration.txt.gz and a possible fix is to try the following:

edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base, e.g.:

gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

and at the end add add:

options snd-hda-intel model=imac-intel

or:

options snd-hda-intel model=imac-intel-20

I am not entirely sure which of the two apply for your machine, I expect it is the latter, but I suggest trying both out one at a time (e.g. make the change and reboot and check the sound, then try the next option in the same way).

This is a required workaround for the sound device having PCI Id 8086:284b. There is an existing wiki page describing this device: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Gutsy_Intel_HD_Audio_Controller, but it does not have any suitable workarounds listed for your machine.

Please let me know if this gets any results.

The two options you suggested did nothing, but Method I on the wiki page, that is, adding:

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3

works as suggested there. That is, sound works, but the quality from the internal speakers is poor; rather tinny.

So, there are still problems with sound, but it is more-or-less working.

Thanks for the pointers.

Hi David,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad sound is at least working now. I'm going to go ahead and close this report. If you want, please feel free to open a new bug report regarding the sound quality. It is helpful to the development teams if bug reports target one specific issue against a specific set of hardware. Also, please continue to report and future bugs that you may find. Thanks!

As requested in bug 199044 I'm reopening this bug to note that the problem isn't fixed in the Desktop CD of Hardy Heron Alpha5.

And now noting that it isn't fixed in Alpha 6, either.

Hi David,

I am afraid that one cannot rely on an automatic configuration of the snd-hda-intel as each machine that has this device requires different configuration settings. To the best of my knowledge there is not a generic solution to setting these correctly for every machine that uses this hardware. I therefore suggest adding to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base the following known options:

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3

I've done that for my proper install, but can I do that for a live CD?

Does the install come with instructions for people who have snd-hda-intel? It's a long way from trivial to find out what the problem is and fix it at the moment.

Hi David,

To enable those options on a live CD boot one would need to remove the module and modprobe it with the required options. However, there will be other modules that have dependencies on snd-hda-intel so these need removing first before you can rmmod the snd-hda-intel kernel module.

I agree that finding a fix is not straight forward and finding the wiki page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Gutsy_Intel_HD_Audio_Controller for your particular sound devices is not necessarily the first place to look.

Colin,

The subvendor and device IDs are generally adequate for determining which pin table to use. The IDs used in the iMacs only also seems to be used in the recent Macbook Pros, so the mbp3 table sounds like the right one to use. Why not just key this as the default for this hardware?

I don't have enough bandwidth to do a git pull here, but something like:

case 0x106b1000: /* iMac 24 */
        board_config = ALC885_IMAC24;
        break;
+case 0x106b00a0: /* Save the universe */
case 0x106b00a1: /* Macbook */
case 0x106b2c00: /* Macbook Pro rev3 */
        board_config = ALC885_MBP3;
        break;

in l-u-m's sound/alsa-kernel/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c should make this work without modprobe.conf misery.

The code is actually in lum, not linux

Wont be fixed in kernel source

This bug was fixed in the package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24 - 2.6.24-14.18

---------------
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24 (2.6.24-14.18) hardy; urgency=low

  [Amit Kucheria]

  * Intel WiMax stack and driver for i2400m
  * WiMAX firmware and headers

  [Colin Ian King]

  * snd_bt_sco kernel Oops at startup
    - LP: #202249

  [Mario Limonciello]

  * Switch to enable second headphone jack on Dell M09 Ignore: no This adds
    a switch that enables the second headphone jack, allowing 5.1 audio and
    also two sets of headphone at the same time.

  [Stefan Bader]

  * SAUCE: Add missing SSID for suspend quirk.
    - LP: #151111
  * SAUCE: Enable audio quirk for Aluminium iMac.
    - LP: #147087

  [Tim Gardner]

  * ifdef iwlwifi debug messages
    - LP: #190475
  * lirc_serial loads but does not work
    - LP: #182530
  * Enable front input jack on Inspiron 1420/1520

  [Upstream Kernel Changes]

  * Ubuntu: Marvell: 8688: Enable WPA/WPA2 support

 -- Tim Gardner <email address hidden> Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:54:41 -0600

Sound doesn't work in 08.04LTS, so reopening.

Neither the 08.04 LiveCD nor an upgraded install have sound. The fix described as working above no longer seems to.

Note that it may be a while before I can respond to requests for further information; as described in bug 223555 the upgrade broke my keyboard, so I can't actually do much under Ubuntu right now.

Hello, David Chart!

I did as you suggested in your post dated 19th Feb 2008 (comment to Colin King's post from the day before):

gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3

saved the file, restarted my Intel iMac 24",

and voila... there is sound
Note:
I listen to embedded media content (such as YouTube) to the max, while master volume is set to 75%. What a great sound.

sanjinko,

Are you on Gutsy or Hardy? I had sound under Gutsy, but nothing under Hardy/08.04.

Good morning, David!

Installed Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04) last Saturday.

Beside this sound problem, I had a minor annoyance with recognizing and pairing Apple Bluetooth keyboard/mouse, but now all works smooth.

OK, the reinstall set the speaker to mute for some bizarre reason. (Unchecked in the second panel on the sound preferences you get by right-clicking on the panel icon; everywhere else said that sound was working. That's why it took me a little while to track down.)

Sound does seem to be working, and possibly better than before.

Found the setting that had been turned off in upgrade; sound is now working.

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.