After an evaluation, GNOME has moved from Bugzilla to GitLab. Learn more about GitLab.
No new issues can be reported in GNOME Bugzilla anymore.
To report an issue in a GNOME project, go to GNOME GitLab.
Do not go to GNOME Gitlab for: Bluefish, Doxygen, GnuCash, GStreamer, java-gnome, LDTP, NetworkManager, Tomboy.
Bug 169441 - gnome-sound-recorder won't record from microphone.
gnome-sound-recorder won't record from microphone.
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: gnome-media
Classification: Deprecated
Component: gst-mixer
2.8.x
Other Linux
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: gnome media maintainers
gnome media maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2005-03-06 23:44 UTC by Erik P. Olsen
Modified: 2015-01-19 11:49 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Erik P. Olsen 2005-03-06 23:44:55 UTC
Distribution/Version: Fedora Core 3

System: FC3 upgraded to latest level (as of 3/7-2005)
Soundcard: AW320
Speakers and mic has been unmuted in alsamixer, mic has been set to capture.
Sound picked up by microphone is heard comming out of speakers. 
No sound is being recorded by gnome-sound-recorder at least nothing is being
played back.
Recording is excellent when running Windows 2000.
Comment 1 Ronald Bultje 2005-03-13 09:03:02 UTC
open the mixer, set the 'capture' track to capture (...) as well. Let me know if
that fixes it. If not, try setting other tracks to 'capture' as well. ALSA has
the nasty habbit to require more than one capture flag set to start capturing.
Comment 2 Erik P. Olsen 2005-03-13 13:46:12 UTC
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I had only capture set for "Mic"
which I thought would be the correct setting for acquiring sound from the
microphone. That didn't work, so I started playing with capture settings for
other tracks as suggested by you. 

It turned out that for my card you should set capture for "Mic", "Capture" and
"ADC" and then it picks up sound nicely and correctly.

An additional remark, you also have to play with the various argument to the
arecord command, in my case the following worked fine:

arecord -D plughw:0,0 -f S16_LE testsound.wav

Perhaps this sort of explanation ought to be documented somewhere. Also what the
purpose of the "Capture" and "ADC" tracks is.
Comment 3 Ronald Bultje 2005-03-13 14:23:32 UTC
Good point, I'll work on documenting this. Let's keep the bug open until it is 
sorted out.
Comment 4 milouny 2006-03-05 13:10:58 UTC
I had the same problem; I set the "Toggle audio capture from mic" button to capture, and assumed that would make the mic capture audio. Not too strange an assumption, I would think.

Suggestion:
Enable "Capture" capture when mic capture is enabled. If mic capture is disabled, and there are no other enabled sub-capture-devices, the master-Capture could be disabled too.

If it's somehow undesirable to enable "Capture" capture when mic capture is enabled with gnome-volume-manager, it might be a good idea to show the master "Capture" by default, so things are less confusing.

I don't really understand where a seperate capture is for, but only putting this in documentation is not really solving the problem. 
Comment 5 Ronald Bultje 2006-05-29 16:16:21 UTC
> Enable "Capture" capture when mic capture is enabled.

That is an ALSA bug, not a gnome-media bug.

> it might be a good idea to show the master "Capture" by default

done:

2006-05-29  Ronald S. Bultje  <rbultje@ronald.bitfreak.net>

        * gst-mixer/src/element.h:
          Add capture (for capturing microphone) to whitelist (#169441).

Documentation still pending, I don't have that setup right now.
Comment 6 Tamal Kanti Nath 2007-09-23 20:53:40 UTC
I am using Ubuntu 7.04 with GNOME gnome-sound-recorder 2.18.0.
I have a MSI K8NGM2 motherboard with MCP51 High Definition Audio driver (from NVIDIA). I have a microphone and it works fine (when I speak, I can hear my voice in the speaker; it also records in windows).
Now, I cannot select the proper recording device. I can see only the following devices:
1. IEC958
2. Capture
3. Capture 1
4. Capture 2
But from the volume control dialog, I have noticed, my audio input device is "Microphone" and not "Front mic" or any other device. The end result is: I cannot record as I cannot find the proper recording device.
Comment 7 Ronald Bultje 2007-09-23 21:14:21 UTC
Try selecting capture, some devices can't do input-specific recording and have all go through a single channel ('Capture').
Comment 8 Tamal Kanti Nath 2007-09-24 18:33:56 UTC
Problem fixed. Actually, it was recording correctly, we have to use "Save As" to actually save the file. Then we can playback. I have found the workaround from:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-media/+bug/92879

But the problem is still there. It needs to be fixed.
Comment 9 Marc-Andre Lureau 2010-01-12 00:22:25 UTC
this is no longer a problem in sound-recorder. Input selection is done in gnome-volume-control. On Solaris, it would be gst-mixer, or the input list provided by the GstMixer, reassigning
Comment 10 Bastien Nocera 2015-01-19 11:49:47 UTC
gnome-media has been obsolete since the release of GNOME 3, nearly 4 years ago.
Furthermore, the gnome-volume-control program in gnome-media has been replaced
by the Sound panel in gnome-control-center.

The new Settings panel should not be affected by the bugs you filed, however, please
make sure to file new bugs against the gnome-control-center product.