volume control disabled for mixer control PCM

[Oliver.Freyd@…]

If I set mixer device ALSA:default and mixer control to PCM, mythfrontend does not find the PCM control and disables the volume control:

mythfrontend.log:

2010-12-30 14:00:49.219 ALSA, Error: no playback control PCM found on mixer device default 2010-12-30 14:00:49.219 ALSA, Error: Unable to open audio mixer. Volume control disabled 2010-12-30 14:00:49.219 AudioPlayer?: Enabling Audio

If I select mixer control "master" it seems to control the master level, and the 2 "Alsa error" lines disappear.

This worked in 0.23.

[JYA]

You may have thought that it worked in 0.23 when it probably didn't and just reverted to master.

Those two lines indicates that there's no PCM volume control for the "default", nothing abnormal here, default is usually an alias to another device, with no attached PCM device

[Oliver.Freyd@…]

Well, I've found that putting "ALSA:hw:0" into mixer device makes it find the PCM control. But amixer definitely lists the right device with a PCM control, so to me it seems mythtv is not using the same "default" all the other ALSA applications are using.

cat /proc/asound/cards:
 0 [SB             ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
                      HDA ATI SB at 0xfe6f0000 irq 16
 2 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfe8e8000 irq 44

amixer -D default
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined penum
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Mono: Playback 29 [94%] [-3.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pswitch penum
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback [on]
  Front Right: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
  Capabilities: pvolume penum
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 255
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 97 [38%] [-31.60dB]
  Front Right: Playback 97 [38%] [-31.60dB]
...

BTW, I had to do "scan for audio devices", and ALSA:default did not work, so in audio devices I have something like "ALSA:front:CARD=SB,DEV=0". The same syntax in mixer device does not work, so it would be nice if the scan for audio devices would also scan for mixer devices, so one would not have to guess how to specify that...

Well, thank you anyway, your answer brought me onto the right track...