mpv player question: no audio

[root]

I updated my kernel to 4.15.2 on a machine which
had been running 4.8.10. After switchin the kernel
I updated my 14.2 Slackware system with slackpkg, and
after completion I (mistakenly) said to overwrite
my .conf files. Now I have lost sound on mpv
and I have been trying to restore audio.

Sound on mplayer still works.

I found that alsamixer now cannot be started without
pulseaudio, which is not enabled in my system. I
started rc.pulseaudio, started alsamixer and enabled
the (Nvidia) hdmi audio card. That did not give
me audio.

I edited /usr/local/share/doc/mpv/mpv.conf to
change:
audio-device=alsa/default
to:
audio-device=alsa:device=plughw=1.3

The default had worked before, it no longer
works. The alsa:device is what works with
mplayer.

I'm now at a loss. I would appreciate any
suggestions.

Thanks.

[Henrik Carlqvist]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 04:08:23 +0000, root wrote:
> I edited /usr/local/share/doc/mpv/mpv.conf

I am not at all familiar with mpv, but my guess is that any .conf file
living below a directory called doc is not actually used as a
configuration file but only as an example in documentation.

Somewhere it is probably documented where to place that .conf file, maybe
in the man-page of mpv, maybe in a comment in the .conf file, maybe in
some README in the same directory as the .conf file. My guess is that a
system wide configuration file should go to a place like /usr/local/etc
and user custom configuration files should go to $HOME.

One way to find out where mpv looks for its configuration file might be
to do:

strace mpv 2>&1 | grep mpv.conf

or with tcsh:

strace mpv |& grep mpv.conf

Another way to find out where it looks for its configuration file might
be to do:

strings /usr/local/bin/mpv | grep mpv.conf

regards Henrik

[Rinaldi]

On 12/26/21 22:08, root wrote:
> I updated my kernel to 4.15.2 on a machine which
> had been running 4.8.10. After switchin the kernel
> I updated my 14.2 Slackware system with slackpkg, and
> after completion I (mistakenly) said to overwrite
> my .conf files. Now I have lost sound on mpv
> and I have been trying to restore audio.
>
> Sound on mplayer still works.
>
> I found that alsamixer now cannot be started without
> pulseaudio, which is not enabled in my system. I
> started rc.pulseaudio, started alsamixer and enabled
> the (Nvidia) hdmi audio card. That did not give
> me audio.

I found pulseaudio somewhat annoying although better now than before.
If the HDMI device was not on at boot, I had to killall pulseaudio and
it would then find the device. Not so much anymore. Pavucontrol is
very good for setting things now.

> I edited /usr/local/share/doc/mpv/mpv.conf to
> change:
> audio-device=alsa/default
> to:
> audio-device=alsa:device=plughw=1.3

Here, mpv.conf is in ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf and:

#################
# audio settings #
##################

# Specify default audio driver (see --ao=help for a list).
#ao=alsa

Also, I use smplayer as the mpv front end. Very configurable if you're
not allergic to GUI.

> I'm now at a loss. I would appreciate any
> suggestions.

HTH

Rinaldi

[root]

Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.C...@deadspam.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 04:08:23 +0000, root wrote:
>> I edited /usr/local/share/doc/mpv/mpv.conf
>
> I am not at all familiar with mpv, but my guess is that any .conf file
> living below a directory called doc is not actually used as a
> configuration file but only as an example in documentation.
>
> Somewhere it is probably documented where to place that .conf file, maybe
> in the man-page of mpv, maybe in a comment in the .conf file, maybe in
> some README in the same directory as the .conf file. My guess is that a
> system wide configuration file should go to a place like /usr/local/etc
> and user custom configuration files should go to $HOME.
>
> One way to find out where mpv looks for its configuration file might be
> to do:
>
> strace mpv 2>&1 | grep mpv.conf
>
>

> regards Henrik

Thanks for responding Henrik.

You were correct: the mpv.conf file in the doc directory was an example.
As it was the only one on my system I used that where it was.

Following your idea, I found mpv looks for mpv.conf in several places
but it also looks for a config file in an mpv directory. I already had
such a file but it did not include entries such as the sample in the
doc directory. I tried putting the (correct for mplayer) audio device
in the conf file but it did not restore my sound.

Now I can try experimenting with that config file.

[root]

Thanks for responding. With Henrik's help I found my config file.


I see in your conf file you do not define anything. That is
what I had by default and I got sound before upgrading my
system. Using mpv -ao help I see that I have options pulse,
alsa, oss and others. I tried invoking mpv with the
options --ao=pulse (when pulseaudio was running) and got
no sound. Then, again when pulseaudio was running I tried
--ao=alsa, again no sound. Finally I tried --ao=oss, again no luck.

Then I stopped pulseaudio and repeated the three command line
options --ao=xxx, and again no sound. While pulseaudio was
running I brought up alsamixer and set the sound card to
my NVidia card. Then I ran alsactl store to save the setting.

All of the following experiments were run with pulseaudio off.

Still working with the command line I tried --ao=alsa:device=plughw=1.3
and mpv didn't start. I tried putting "" around the device stuff but
mpv still wouldn't start.


Then I tried putting the audio device setting in the config file.
Here is my command line:
mpv -fs --vo=gpu --vd-lavc-threads=4 MOVIE.NAME

In the config file I tried:
audio-device=alsa/default which had been commented out.
and then
audio-device=alsa:device=plughw=1.3

again neither of these resulted in sound.

mplayer seems to work regardless of whether pulseaudio is running.

I ran through all these options exactly as written while writing
this response. Nothing works.

[Ralph Spitzner]

root wrote on 12/27/21 5:08 AM:

> I updated my kernel to 4.15.2 on a machine which
> had been running 4.8.10. After switchin the kernel
> I updated my 14.2 Slackware system with slackpkg, and
> after completion I (mistakenly) said to overwrite
> my .conf files. Now I have lost sound on mpv

hmm strange audio problem, there.
Nevertheless there should be *.orig files in /etc/....
which are the ones before slackpkg hit...
-rasp

[root]

Thanks for responding.

mpv was side-loaded, it isn't in the slackpkg set.
I'm pretty sure that if a change in some conf file
was the problem, it indirectly affected mpv.

In my experience mpv has only worked under the kernel
I was running when I first installed it. My next
step is to build it anew with the current kernel.

[root]

Well that didn't work. The procedure to build mpv
failed:

[ about 15 minutes of screwing around skipped ]

+ do_update_debian_versions
+ scripts/debian-update-versions
+ do_bootstrap
+ scripts/mpv-bootstrap
Downloading https://waf.io/waf-2.0.20...
Download failed! (<urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: certificate has expired (_ssl.c:1056)>)
Downloading http://www.freehackers.org/~tnagy/release/waf-2.0.20...
Download failed! (<urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: certificate has expired (_ssl.c:1056)>)
Could not download waf-2.0.20.
python3: can't open file './waf': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

I've been getting expired certificates frequently since my slackpkg
update. There is no place in my mpv-build script to add --no-check-certificate.

[Henrik Carlqvist]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2021 03:57:38 +0000, root wrote:
> Download failed! (<urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED]
> certificate verify failed: certificate has expired (_ssl.c:1056)>)

> I've been getting expired certificates frequently since my slackpkg
> update. There is no place in my mpv-build script to add
> --no-check-certificate.

The latest ssl certificates are in the package
ca-certificates-20211216-noarch-1_slack14.2

Is that package installed on your system? If not, you might find other
useful upgrades in places like http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/
slackware-14.2/patches/packages/?C=M;O=D

regards Henrik

[root]

Thanks again for responding. My certificates were older than those
indicated by your reference. However, when I tried to use slackpkg
to upgrade, I get an md5sum error and the update was not done.

[Ralph Spitzner]

root wrote on 12/28/21 4:36 AM:

> Ralph Spitzner <ra...@spitzner.org> wrote:

>
> mpv was side-loaded, it isn't in the slackpkg set.
> I'm pretty sure that if a change in some conf file
> was the problem, it indirectly affected mpv.
>
> In my experience mpv has only worked under the kernel
> I was running when I first installed it. My next
> step is to build it anew with the current kernel.
>

I was referring to .conf files in /etc ...

as for the certificates, just fetch them from a slackware mirror (ca-certificates-20211216-noarch-1_slack14.2.t?z)
an use installpkg --upgrade .....
-rasp

[root]

I give up. I wiped the partition and started over with the system
before updating all with slackpkg.

[root]

Thanks for responding. I tried that but got back files
that failed md5sum. I will try again, but I have
abandoned my effort to get that system working.

[John Forkosh]

Rinaldi <r...@nunya.inv> wrote:
> root wrote:
>> ...I have lost sound...
>
> ...Pavucontrol is very good for setting things...

+1. Not sure if pavucontrol is available with 14.2,
but I've found it great for solving sound problems.
If I were in a similar situation to yours, I'd start
playing some mp3 file, and look at all the pavucontrol
graphs to see which one was bouncing back and forth,
indicating which device was actually playing. Then
fool around some more from there. It's real easy to
change things around just by clicking some pavucontrol
buttons, rather than editing some conf files, restarting
some rc.xxx files, etc. You seem to have been doing lots
of fooling around; pavucontrol should let you do a lot
more, lots quicker and easier, which should presumably
eventually reveal the problem.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

[Ralph Spitzner]

root wrote on 12/28/21 9:31 PM:

> abandoned my effort to get that system working.
>

ok, if nothing relevant was on that system then just download -current, make an .iso and install from that.....

-rasp