December 15, 2013 – mikeyD
Fix This! – Troubleshooting Skype Audio on Arch Linux
Tonight, wanted to setup the ol’ webcam so I could Skype with another person, but had a few issues. The default ‘skype’ package on Arch Linux provided a quick install, but I could not hear myself when I made a test call to “Mrs. Skype Lady.” Here are a few things to check when installing Skype in Arch Linux.
Check your installed plugins
Most systems are using Pulseaudio as a sound server front end on top of ALSA. The ‘skype’ package should install the necessary 32 bit libraries needed for installation. In addition, please ensure you have the ALSA plugins as well:
[code]
pacman -Qs alsa-
local/alsa-lib 1.0.27.2-1 An alternative implementation of Linux sound support local/alsa-plugins 1.0.27-2 Extra alsa plugins local/alsa-utils 1.0.27.2-1 An alternative implementation of Linux sound support local/lib32-alsa-lib 1.0.27.2-1 An alternative implementation of Linux sound support (32 bit) local/lib32-alsa-plugins 1.0.27-1 Extra alsa plugins (32-bit)
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Confirm you device is present
Maybe you device isn’t even connected, or needs a few extra software packages. My Logitech webcam was detected from the start based on this output from ‘lsusb’. If yours is not, check for available packages on the Arch forums, or in the AUR.
[code]
[email protected] ~ $ lsusb Bus 004 Device 003: ID 04fc:0c25 Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd SATALink SPIF225A Bus 004 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 413c:2003 Dell Computer Corp. Keyboard Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0c0b:0336 Dura Micro, Inc. (Acomdata) Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub <span style=”color: #ff0000;”><strong>Bus 003 Device 004: ID 046d:09a1 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Communicate MP/S5500</strong></span> Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:c049 Logitech, Inc. G5 Laser Mouse Bus 003 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
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Check mixer levels
First, take a look at the levels you have in ‘alsamixer’ My USB Logitech device runs through pulse audio’s front end, and is configurable through the ‘pavucontrol’ graphical front end. You can open up ‘pavucontrol’ and confirm that your input device shows levels of activity when you speak:
Everything seemed to be setup fine for me , but nothing was working. So on to the next area…
Checking Skype’s audio settings
Skype’s settings seemed fine here, and as suggested, and noted above, you would use ‘pavucontrol’ for pulseaudio users. Skype correctly detected everything, so what gives? Well, the icing on the cake was my default ‘asoundrc’ file under “/etc/asoundrc.conf”.
The old /etc/asound.conf:
[code]</p> <p style=”text-align: left;”># Use PulseAudio by default pcm.!default { type pulse fallback “sysdefault” hint { show on description “Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)” } }
ctl.!default { type pulse fallback “sysdefault” }
# vim:set ft=alsaconf:
</p> <p style=”text-align: left;”>[/code]