Re: [gentoo-user] KDE Plasma sound not working

[Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>]

On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 17:29:54 BST Julien Roy wrote:
> On 6/15/22 06:52, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > I do something like that by copying a good user account as a basis for the
> > next iteration. The problem is just the fineness of granularity that's
> > needed, now that a coarse grain hasn't helped. Hey-ho. Here we must go
> > again...
> What is certain is that the issue is caused by a file in your home
> directory, since creating a new user fixes the problem.

Having spent several hours at this today, I've concluded that the problem is 
caused by the Startpage add-on to Firefox. Specifically, startpage 1.3 and 
Firefox 71.10. Early in the stepwise setting everything up, I started Firefox, 
set its typefaces and so on, then installed Startpage. The sound system 
stopped working instantly. I removed Startpage and the sound came back. A 
reboot confirmed that no lasting damage had been done. So, I'm now using 'EU 
Startpage - Unofficial', which seems to working well so far.

> What may help you to be more specific with this would be to list what
> files were modified since the last time audio worked; for example, `find
> $HOME -mtime 0` will show files modified in the last 24 hours
> 
> You might want to run this command on .config or .kde directories to see
> what could have changed, although it's true that it might take a while
> to pin point it...
> 
> Another option, since you mention that you re-created your user multiple
> times, is to just delete specific folders, reboot, and try audio. Maybe
> start with .config as that would be the most obvious culprit. If that
> doesn't work, try .kde (not sure if that folder is in ~/  or ~/.config),
> then other directories.

I'll stick with the system I have for the moment, thanks. I'll also report the 
problem to the developers.

> Also, did you check `dmesg` to see if there are any errors related to
> the audio device/driver? Try `dmesg --level=err,warn`

Thanks for your ideas, Julien.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.