Balena sound - No audio playing from 3.5mm jack; RPI4

Product support
1

I have a similar issue to many posts on this topic, but I have not found any solutions that work for me.
I am 100% confident that the speakers are not the issue, I unplugged them from my daily use PC straight into the PI and still no audio.

I am using an RPI4 with BalenaOS. I installed via CLI with a customized yml file that has PiHole services added to it. I used this guide to get started: https://www.balena.io/blog/two-projects-one-device-turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-multitool/. It requires BalenaSound to run on a different port, I chose 8080, which is set in the variables.

I am able to connect with Spotify and AirPlay, but no audio plays and then the connection breaks after a little bit.

I’ve tried the following:

  • set AUDIO-OUTPUT variable to RPI_HEADPHONES
  • set SOUND_MODE to STANDALONE
  • running PULSE_SINK=alsa_output.bcm2835-jack.stereo-fallback paplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav - this returns a “Stream error: No such entity”
  • running PULSE_SINK=balena-sound.output paplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav - this didn’t return any error or play any sounds
  • re-deploying the image

I have seen error messages in the logs like:

12.05.22 17:08:13 (-0400) audio WARNING: BCM2835 audio card not found, are you sure you are running on a Raspberry Pi?
12.05.22 17:08:13 (-0400) audio Setting audio routing rules…
12.05.22 17:08:13 (-0400) audio Routing ‘balena-sound.input’ to ‘balena-sound.output’.
12.05.22 17:08:13 (-0400) audio Routing ‘balena-sound.output’ to ‘0’.
12.05.22 17:08:13 (-0400) audio W: [pulseaudio] main.c: This program is not intended to be run as root (unless --system is specified).
12.05.22 17:08:14 (-0400) audio E: [pulseaudio] module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
12.05.22 17:08:14 (-0400) audio E: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to load module “module-alsa-card” (argument: "device_id=“0” name=“platform-fef00700.hdmi” card_name=“alsa_card.platform-fef00700.hdmi” namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes avoid_resampling=yes card_properties=“module-udev-detect.discovered=1"”): initialization failed.
12.05.22 17:08:14 (-0400) audio E: [pulseaudio] module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
12.05.22 17:08:14 (-0400) audio E: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to load module “module-alsa-card” (argument: "device_id=“1” name=“platform-fef05700.hdmi” card_name=“alsa_card.platform-fef05700.hdmi” namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes avoid_resampling=yes card_properties=“module-udev-detect.discovered=1"”): initialization failed.
12.05.22 17:08:14 (-0400) Service exited ‘multiroom-client sha256:ab0f2f2839f602d57da4d5d1f1a2f4a93bbb147bc048cc2008ef3a6adc13a585’

Not sure if another PulseAudio update caused this or what, but I have been digging into this for a while and I’m at a loss.

EDIT:
Initial output from PulseAudio -vvvvv shows errors like “Error opening PCM device hw:1: No such file or directory” over and over, “skipping profile”, “caching failure”, etc.

2

Hi, it looks like the module isn’t finding your audio card. Can you run the command

pactl list sinks short

in the audio container and post the results?

3

Error is coming from here btw: audio/entry.sh at 5a2eaee22a8fc56e780b51dac5b49436812bc876 · balenablocks/audio · GitHub

6 
1       balena-sound.input      module-null-sink.c      s16le 2ch 44100Hz       RUNNING
2       balena-sound.output     module-null-sink.c      s16le 2ch 44100Hz       RUNNING
3       snapcast        module-null-sink.c      s16le 2ch 44100Hz       SUSPENDED
8

Hi calcidius

I’d like to get a bit more info about the device to try to pinpoint the issue. It looks like the BCM2835 audio is not found. Can you ssh to the device and run cat /proc/asound/cards and copy the output here?

Thanks, Ramiro

9

If you can also run these commands on the audio container it would give us more info:

lsmod | grep snd
aplay -l

Ramiro

10

The command you ran previously should’ve printed out an entry like:

0       alsa_output.bcm2835-jack.stereo-fallback        module-alsa-card.c      s16le 2ch 44100Hz       RUNNING

But it seems the device is not there.

Have you done any specific customization to the os or app you’re deploying?

12

Hello @calcidius

Can you confirm the audio service in your docker-compose.yml has priviledge: true?
(or better paste your while docker-compose.ym)