Bug 205315

Summary: CA0132: Only Stereo no surround with Creative Soundblaster ZxR [1102:0012]
Product: Drivers Reporter: game.jaegers
Component: Sound(ALSA)Assignee: Jaroslav Kysela (perex)
Status: NEW ---    
Severity: high CC: l4vebs1mx, nebojsa, tiwai
Priority: P1    
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Kernel Version: 5.3.0 Subsystem:
Regression: No Bisected commit-id:
Attachments: alsamixer settings

Description game.jaegers 2019-10-25 19:27:20 UTC 
Created attachment 285651 [details]
alsamixer settings

I have a 5.1 sound system that is connected via three 3.5 mm audio cables with my Sound Blaster ZxR: Front Left, Center, Front Right, Rear Left, Rear Right, LFE

I only get sound from "Front Left"/"Front Right". All other speakers don't make a sound. I tested Ubuntu 19.04, Ubuntu 19.10, Manjaro 18.10, different Kernels and the Sound Blaster Patch from reddit, nothing helped. After all these tests, I started again with a fresh Ubuntu 19.10 installation with this output from "alsa information script": http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=c9d4adfbc5441c4975b6e6c7a6fb3cbfc201158a

Only thing that I did was changing the default audio device to my ZxR. Otherwise my NVIDIA graphics card is selected. I did that with ~/.asoundrc:
defaults.ctl.!card "Creative"
defaults.pcm.!card "Creative"
defaults.timer.!card "Creative"

My previous experience on this subject: On some installations if I selected Analog Surround 5.1-Output in Pulseaudio Mixer, it added a device called "dummy output". This happened when I selected Surround in alsamixer. Then speaker-test -c 6 returned a failure as the max channel cound was one. I don't know why and how..
Comment 1 game.jaegers 2019-11-15 21:47:50 UTC 
I use Windows 10 in dual boot and noticed that when I start Windows all speakers are working. Then I reboot to Ubuntu and all speakers are working, too. This effect will vanish if I shut down my PC and start directly to Ubuntu.
So something happens on Windows that is kept while rebooting to Ubuntu..
Comment 2 Takashi Iwai 2019-11-15 23:21:53 UTC 
Just to be sure: did you install the latest alsa-firmware?  Some ca0132 firmware files are included there, but not in linux-firmware package.
Comment 3 game.jaegers 2019-11-16 08:49:23 UTC 
Before I do anything wrong. I don't think that I have alsa-firmware installed, as I don't actively decided to do that.

This is the only information that I have:

!!ALSA Version
!!------------

Driver version:     k5.3.0-23-generic
Library version:    1.1.9
Utilities version:  1.1.9

Should I update/install anything, because I didn't find any information of how to do so. This is the only information I could get: https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-4.html and I am not sure if this is valid for my case.
Comment 4 Takashi Iwai 2019-11-16 09:00:47 UTC 
You need two extra firmware files for CA0132,
  /lib/firmware/ctefx-desktop.bin
  /lib/firmware/ctefx-r3di.bin
which are included in the very recent alsa-firmware package (maybe only in git repo), and they aren't included in the standard linux-firmware package.
Comment 5 game.jaegers 2019-11-17 12:15:08 UTC 
(In reply to Takashi Iwai from comment #2)
> Just to be sure: did you install the latest alsa-firmware?  Some ca0132
> firmware files are included there, but not in linux-firmware package.

Yes, I just placed the latest alsa-firmware and I get the described effect above. 
  /lib/firmware/ctefx-desktop.bin
  /lib/firmware/ctefx-r3di.bin
Comment 6 Knecker 2021-04-04 11:40:20 UTC 
Well, it's been some time, but the problem persists.

I am running Manjaro Linux, 5.12.rc3 Kernel, KDE, pulseaudio, with a Creative Soundblaster X AE-5 Plus. Same result: Stereo works, but when I select the Profile "Analog Surround 5.1" in pulse audio control (pavucontrol), I only get a dummy output and no sound.
Comment 7 dellamorte 2021-12-03 11:16:27 UTC 
Has anything changed here? I have same problem like @Knecker. Running Manjaro Linux. I tried different kernels latest/LTS but had no luck. I noticed something indicative. When I switch to "Analog Surround 5.1", and than reboot system to Windows, card enters some error state with distorted sound. I need to reconfigure channels, and reboot system again to get it working again. It looks like there is some missconfiguration in kernel that causes this.