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ALSA not recognizing soundcard when webcam plugged in at boot time

Skype beta now supports video. We purchased some logitech QuickCams to allow them to try out the video. When we plug in the QuickCam after boot, everything works fine. However, if we plug before booting, we lose sound. The problem is with the microphone on the webcam not the webcam driver. snd_usb_audio is loading before the soundcard. I added an index option to snd_usb_audio and voila it works fine after a reboot. Here is my modprobe.conf before and after:
Before:
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-hda-intel index=0
remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-hda-intel

After:
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
alias snd-card-1 snd_usb_audio
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-hda-intel index=0
options snd-card-1 index=1
options snd_usb_audio index=1
remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-hda-intel
One odd thing I noticed is that the file on disk is called snd-hda-intel.ko, but lsmod shows the module name as snd_hda_intel. Curious, it doesn’t seem to matter whether I use underscores or dashes in modprobe.conf either. Someone probably knows why… Here is my src rpm for the gspca driver for the webcam also… gspca-kmod-1.00.20-0.1.2.6.18_53.1.13.el5.src.rpm

7 Responses to “ALSA not recognizing soundcard when webcam plugged in at boot time”

  1. Dan Allen Says:

    Thanks so much! You saved the day! I was getting tired of having to remember what I needed to have unplugged when I booted my computer. I have RHEL5 with a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 and this configuration change was just the trick I needed for my regular soundcard to be enabled on boot when leaving the webcam permanently plugged in.

  2. Dan Allen Says:

    Rats, although the sound works perfectly in most programs, for some reason Skype will only give me one channel on playback when using this fix. If I leave the webcam unplugged on boot, sound in Skype works as expected. I can’t figure out what the difference is. It must be some minor module.

  3. uphill Says:

    hmmm, people here use skype and i haven’t heard this complaint…yet. I’ll have to try this myself, I guess you can tell in the test call?

  4. Marco Says:

    Excellent! Works for me on Fedora 9 x86_64

  5. Georg Says:

    Thanks for this nice hint!

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