Aadebug

This is a simple shell script to aid ALSA audio debugging. If you are requesting help on the mailing list or at a friend, it's output may be very usefull. To use it, copy and paste the code below into an editor and save it as aadebug, then execute chmod +x aadebug. Run the script by typing ./aadebug in a shell and send the result to the person who is going to help you.

The script

#!/bin/bash

echo "ALSA Audio Debug v0.2.0 - $(date)"
echo "http://alsa.opensrc.org/aadebug"
echo "http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt"
echo
echo Kernel ----------------------------------------------------
uname -a
cat /proc/asound/version
echo
echo Loaded Modules --------------------------------------------
lsmod | grep ^snd
lsmod | egrep -q '(^usb-midi|^audio)'
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   echo "Warning: either 'audio' or 'usb-midi' OSS modules are loaded"
   echo "this may interfere with ALSA's snd-usb-audio."
   if [ ! -f /etc/hotplug/blacklist ]; then
       echo "You should create a file '/etc/hotplug/blacklist' with"
   echo "both names on it to avoid hotplug loading them."
   else
   egrep -q '(^usb-midi|^audio)' /etc/hotplug/blacklist
   if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then
       echo "You should add both modules to '/etc/hotplug/blacklist'"
       echo "to avoid hotplug loading them."
   fi
   fi
fi
echo
echo Proc Asound -----------------------------------------------
if [ ! -d /proc/asound ] ; then
   echo "Warning: /proc/asound does not exist"
   echo "This indicates that ALSA is not installed correctly"
   echo "Check various logs in /var/log for a clue as to why"
else
   cat /proc/asound/{cards,devices,hwdep,pcm,seq/clients}
fi
echo
echo Dev Snd ---------------------------------------------------
if [ ! -d /dev/snd ] ; then
   echo "Warning: /dev/snd does not exist"
else
   /bin/ls -l /dev/snd
fi
echo
echo CPU -------------------------------------------------------
grep -e "model name" -e "cpu MHz" /proc/cpuinfo
echo
echo RAM -------------------------------------------------------
grep -e MemTotal -e SwapTotal /proc/meminfo
echo
echo Hardware --------------------------------------------------
lspci | egrep -i "(audio|video|multimedia|vga)"
echo
echo Interupts -------------------------------------------------
cat /proc/interrupts
echo
if [ "$(echo $(uname -r) | grep 2.6)" -a -f /proc/config.gz ]; then
echo Proc Config -----------------------------------------------
zcat /proc/config.gz | egrep "(CONFIG_SOUND|CONFIG_SND)"
echo
fi

Changelog

2011-04-16: Rearranged some items, removed modprobe.conf check, long list /dev/snd, add /proc/interrupts, AGPLv3 license change
2007-02-10: ingomueller.net - Changed the link in the script to this page
2005-10-11: Pedro Lopez - I've included a test in aadebug to check if the OSS modules for USB devices are loaded, which is a common source of problems. Also included a suggestion pointing the user to /etc/hotplug/blacklist to solve the issue. Another addition is to include the contents of /proc/asound/seq/clients, which is useful to diagnose problems with ALSA sequencer.
2005-02-27: Many thanks to P Fudd, Ilja Kogan, vb, Russell Harris and Robert Wenner for suggestions to this script
2004-06-02: Changed test for /etc/modules.conf to /etc/modprobe.conf, thanks to Ilja Kogan
2004-02-08: Added a test to show kernel config parameters for a 2.6 kernel with /proc/config.gz

Notes

If you are new to linux then these notes on using the command line shell may help. You may need to change to the root user, if so then type su - and enter your root users password. When finished with executing the script, type control-d to return to your normal user identity. You can capture the output to a file by typing...

aadebug > aadebug.txt 2>&1

The 2>&1 will ensure that any error messages are also captured to the aadebug.txt output file. If you want to get really fancy you could do something like...

aadebug | mail -s"My aadebug output" to@someone

if you system is set up to allow this.

GITHUB | EDIT