Hi, balena_NOOB here. Tech savvy, just brand new to balena.
I’m having trouble getting sound through HDMI from a rpi 4, 8gb.
I’ve looked through the other “sound trouble” posts on the forum.
My steps:
Press Deploy with Balena on BalenaDash github page
Accepting all defaults - name balena-dash, Pi 4, Starter, press Create and deploy button on the dashboard popup that shows up
From applications screen click on the balena-dash application
On the devices page wait for the “building release” to finish
Click on the Add device button
On Add new device screen rpi4, balenaOS, V2.73.1+rev1, click on development, Ethernet only – then click on Download
Unzip img file, burn to microsd card
Boot pi4. Wait for it to show up on devices tab
Click on name of device. Wait for updating to finish
Under Device Variables tab, add AUDIO_OUTPUT variable with a value of RPI_HDMI0
Under Device service variables add variables to the kiosk service: SHOW_CURSOR value 1, CONFIG_MODE value 1, LAUNCH_URL value https://youtube.com
Wait for pi to start service - YouTube shows up
Click on a video - YouTube looks like it is starting the video, then gives a black screen with Audio renderer error. Please restart your computer.
Help! I’m trying to make solid units that I can deploy for 4 teachers at the school where I teach. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks! Yes, I am using the HDMI port next to the USBC power connector. Yes, I’ve seen similarities with other posts and have been scouring them for help.
Simply for troubleshooting purposes Leo, can you hook up some speakers or headphones to the audio-out port on the Pi, and see if any audio is present there? You might also need to unset that AUDIO_OUTPUT Device Variable that is currently set to RPI_HDMI0, and reboot. I realize it’s not what your end goal is, but, I am curious to see if that works, and can at least confirm audio works in that scenario… Also, I see that other user that Kyle linked to has a similar problem. I will try to do a fresh build and see if I can duplicate this behavior myself, as well. Thanks!
No problem - I appreciate your help! I removed the AUDIO_OUTPUT variable and rebooted. No joy - it is still reporting Audio renderer error - so I can’t tell if I could get sound out of the audio output port. I would actually prefer the audio output port, but am willing to use it either way. THANKS
Thanks for the quick test Leo! I haven’t had a chance to build mine yet, it will likely need to be over the weekend…but I am going to attempt to duplicate this and will report back.
This is probably totally spurious - but just in case. I used dmesg|less to look at the boot log. It had one line that looked like it could be related to sound:
4.386700] snd_bcm2835: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
I don’t know for sure - but to me, this looks OK.
root@5c461ff:~# lsmod | grep snd_bcm2835
snd_bcm2835 28672 0
snd_pcm 135168 5 snd_usb_audio,vc4,snd_bcm2835,snd_soc_core,snd_pcm_dmaengine
snd 106496 10 snd_seq_device,snd_hwdep,snd_usb_audio,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_bcm2835,snd_timer,snd_compress,snd_soc_core,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi
When I try to go to a jit.si meeting, it is saying - Audio error: Requested device not found – as if Chrome just can’t see the audio stuff or that the needed services aren’t running. Don’t know if this helps.
@LeoW - just to let you know that the bug you found has now been resolved. You can get the fix by redeploying the balenaDash app, and it will have the fix included in the latest release.
FYI: the issue was a mismatch between the Raspbian base image and the latest version of Chromium. The latter expected the OS to have a pulseaudio backend, but crashed when it found the ALSA bridge we were installing as part of the browser block. We have removed the bridge, and it now works again.
