9.10 Internal Microphone Does not Work on Aspire One

As a side note the packaged sound recorder makes the microphone work. The microphone does not work with Skype, and there is no input level being displayed with the sound control on the desktop.

same thing here, I guess:
1) pulseaudio's volume meter (recording) works fine, displaying a healthy microphone input level variation up to almost 100% when I speak.
2) the corresponding microphone input level in pulseaudio's volume control does not display any input level, total silence, even with the mic volume sliders at max. If I tap the microphone with force, I can see a tiny bit of input level; but this causes the volume meter (recording) in (1) to explode and oversaturate, so there's a weird discrepancy somewhere inside pulseaudio.
3) gnome sound recorder works (mic is fine)
4) skype does not work (mic is silent)
5) arecord does not work (mic is silent, even though it says 'playback/recording through the pulseaudio sound server')

if I go in pulseaudio manager and increase on the devices tab the alsa_input...analog-stereo volume properties to any values between 100% and 480%, then (1) saturates, (2) shows a good activity in the mic input level, but gnome-record, arecord and skype only record noise and static, probably because the mic input is being clipped. So, for skype and arecord the choice right now is either no mic sound or noise.

As a followup 9.10 solves this issue for me with just a little
amplification. Tested with skype as well.

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Marcus Granado <email address hidden> wrote:

> same thing here, I guess:
> 1) pulseaudio's volume meter (recording) works fine, displaying a healthy
> microphone input level variation up to almost 100% when I speak.
> 2) the corresponding microphone input level in pulseaudio's volume control
> does not display any input level, total silence, even with the mic volume
> sliders at max. If I tap the microphone with force, I can see a tiny bit of
> input level; but this causes the volume meter (recording) in (1) to explode
> and oversaturate, so there's a weird discrepancy somewhere inside
> pulseaudio.
> 3) gnome sound recorder works (mic is fine)
> 4) skype does not work (mic is silent)
> 5) arecord does not work (mic is silent, even though it says
> 'playback/recording through the pulseaudio sound server')
>
> if I go in pulseaudio manager and increase on the devices tab the
> alsa_input...analog-stereo volume properties to any values between 100%
> and 480%, then (1) saturates, (2) shows a good activity in the mic input
> level, but gnome-record, arecord and skype only record noise and static,
> probably because the mic input is being clipped. So, for skype and
> arecord the choice right now is either no mic sound or noise.
>
> --
> 9.10 Internal Microphone Does not Work on Aspire One
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/433055
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “alsa-driver” package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> The internal mic works fine with 9.04. There is no sound now with 9.10 and
> any level of amplification.
>

I'm having the exact same problem Marcus is having on my A150. I've also tried amplifying the input volume via the Pulseaudio manager but no sound is recorded still in skype.

I have tried the following programs to see whether the mic works in each:

Sound Recorder -- works
Sound Properties -- shows little to no input
Pulseaudio Volume Meter (Recording) -- shows input
Pulseaudio Volume Control -- shows little to no input
Skype -- no input
arecord -- works

David, please file a separate bug using "ubuntu-bug pulseaudio".

On Oct 8, 2009 6:55 PM, "David O&apos;C" <email address hidden> wrote:

I have tried the following programs to see whether the mic works in
each:

Sound Recorder -- works
Sound Properties -- shows little to no input
Pulseaudio Volume Meter (Recording) -- shows input
Pulseaudio Volume Control -- shows little to no input
Skype -- no input
arecord -- works

-- 9.10 Internal Microphone Does not Work on Aspire One
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/433055 You...

David, I'd say that you don't have skype configured correctly. I'd actually suggest trying the latest beta of skype, as that works with pulseaudio natively, so should work much better.

Also don't forget the microphone settings in the sound preferences window. You have to set an audio profile that includes audio output and audio input.

Did a System Test in 9.10 UNR, internal mic doesn't work on my Aspire One 110 either.

Same problem here on my Acer Aspire One A150.

Same problem for me on Asus eeetop 1602. Works with gnome recorder, but not arecord nor skype

I have the same problem, although not on the Acer Aspire One (since I don't have one), but on the Sony Vaio VGN-NW21MF notebook.

Everyone, please file *separate* bugs. We can't collect hardware information by your adding "me too"s.

Well the thread says Acer aspire one so the hardware is about the internal mic that aspire one has.

@Michael
Different codec revisions are in the Aspire Ones. Please try to
understand that providing your sound device's hardware information
helps us resolve the issues.

@ Danel

This is what 'lspci' says: 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)

@ArmiDuctor
That's insufficient, really. That's why we need either
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh output or a new bug that
contains all the information.

@ Daniel
And here it is:
http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=e2f10a698b87296477b35c4d136885084bc11fb4
If you need more ... just let me know.

Ok here is my lspci
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)

I also think that i accidentally discovered something that might help you tracking the problem. Except from skype mic which doesnt work i also tried to fix my microphone for rosetta stone through wine. I am using the latest compiled alsa but the default that linux had was returning the same results.

So in my search for making the mic to work under wine i realized that the problem is the same as skype. I installed the pulse audio volume control and pulse audio device chooser. What i found was tha from the pulse audio device chooser when i would open the sound monitor it would show that its receiving sound from the mic while the pulse audio volume control will show only i small steady signal of sound being received by the mic.

I dont know how the programming code is for both of these utilities but obviously if you can check how the device chooser works and gets the sound the only thing need to do is fix the volume control and that's all (in theory at least and in my mind)

Hope it helps

Workaround

Not sure if everyone is aware of this but one point that is not explicitly mentioned in any of the previous reports/comments is that when the internal microphone is "not working" in Skype, the application is actually receiving its audio input from the external microphone socket.

So anyone who just wants a workaround just needs to plug an external mic. into the ping 3.5mm socket.

I have found that installing pavucontrol and then using that to unlock and set the input levels from the internal microphone so that one channel is maxed and the other zeroed allows the internal mic to work with Skype! Nothing ever plugged in to the mic socket. I read this suggestion somewhere else, but I've lost my record of where. It's an AOA-150 (ZG5).

Steve,
that's it! Unlocking the two mic channels in pulseaudio's volume control input devices and setting one of the two mic channels to 0% works around this bug in pulseaudio! I can now see the mic level bar in the volume control follow closely the volume meter (recording) level bar, and arecord and skype are now receiving the expected signal from the internal mic. Re-locking the two mic channels together makes pulseaudio lose the mic signal again, so the problem is likely in how pulseaudio is handling these two mic channels together.

HW: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=a6a27f825b91fd44463b7fec8ee4d66a6851ebe5
Acer Aspire 1 AOA150 v0.3309
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1b.0 0403: 8086:27d8 (rev 02)
 Subsystem: 1025:015b

Bug 331130 discusses a problem on the eee with its array microphone. I wonder if in some circumstances PA or the ALSA driver on the Aspire One is assuming that we have an array microphone too, where really we only have a single one (as far as I know, anyway). If you treat the input as sum and difference, as described in 331130, and subtract one from the other where really we have identical input on both channels (mono really), you end up with silence!

I can confirm that the workaround with muting one of the two channels and leaving the other one maxed works for skype. I am guessing that this fixes also the problems with wine microphone working with programs like Rosetta Stone.

same on toshiba

Yes, Pavucontrol works here too. Thanks for the workaround guys. Now the question remains "what to do to get it to work by default in ubuntu?"

yip, works here too

you dont have to make one channel 0% you can make it 90% or anything but the same as the other channel. i did this because i was concerned that those on the other side would only hear me from one channel if it was 0% 100%.

My problem is difference. I use 1 home partition for 9.04 and 9.10. I couldn't use Intenal Microphone in 9.10 but in 9.04 I could. After that I found that the 2.6.32 kernel (from Ubuntu). I came back to 2.6.31 and i work perfectly.

There is a mystery, sometime i could record from Pulse. when i'm listen to music, it record exactly what i'm heard (when the sound is muted, it stop). It feature like what you heard Function from Windows.

But there problem with audacity is still here, i doesn't work anymore.

I too have had the issue shown here and instead of mixing the levels 0% and 100% I just clicked the Configuration tab in pavucontrol and set the Profile to:

Analog Stereo Output + Analog Mono Input

And all my issues were resolved.

Appears the Stereo Input setting is what is causing the issue.

I should also add that I'm running VMware fusion on mac so I don't think the issue is limited to specific machines or chipsets.

i can fix so:

install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic

reboot

use the line-in channel (don't know why..).

it's work now

Steve's (#20) suggestion on unlocking and changing left/right volume settings works perfectly on my Acer Aspire 1 AOA150. I found that any mix of input volumes so long as they differ. Thanks Steve. I look forward to trying this on a fresh install on my new Dell Zino HD in a couple of weeks.

Chris

the pavucontrol-solution also works for my Acer Aspire 4810TZ, as long as I ignore the static. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the solutions:

I upgraded my kubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10 and Skype 2.1 microphone stopped working. I did lots of research and found the solution here.

1) I just remove skype:
sudo apt-get purge skype-common
sudo apt-get purge skype-static
sudo apt-get purge skype

2) Installed padevchooser (it also installed pulseaudio)
sudo apt-get install padevchooser

3) Open Volume mixer window by right clicking master volume icon on taskbar
4) Configured mic volume
5) did a test call on Skype 2.1

BINGO!!! All worked well.

Cheers,
Ajay Lulia.

@Steve Jackson and @Christian Blessing

Geniuses! :)

My Acer Aspire One 110L suddenlty stopped working with the internal mic. I then saw your posts and tried your workaround of setting the L and R microphone channel levels so that they were different (e.g. 89 and 91) and now the internal microphone works!!!

This is in Twinkle and in Ekiga (VOIP clients) on Ubuntu 9.10 NBR

Thanks a million! :)

If I use pavucontrol to unlock the Front Left & Front Right bars for Microphone1 port & set the Front Right to 0, Sound Recorder just picks up static. This is on karmic unr on a Acer Aspire One A110L.

My AA1 is a 150, but it only has an "Internal Audio Analog Stereo" input device - no "Microphone1".

dont install or remove anything!
just open a terminal and type:

alsamixer

 then find Line in part and change volume.

sadegh,
thank you a lot!!!

In my case, I had to change volume of «Capture» channel (press F4 in alsamixer to see it).

So, it is Ubuntu 10.10 and bug is still here.
I have Aspire One 110L.

In raring, I'm still suffering this bug. Internal mic not functioning. Anyone else or is this my hardware's problem?

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) reached end-of-life on April 30, 2011.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Please upgrade to the latest version and re-test.

[Expired for alsa-driver (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]