.asoundrc added to audio configuration

[shivasiddharth]

The normal audio installation will blank the .asoundrc and just copy the asound.conf. The Raspbian Stretch tends to populate its own .asoundrc, if left empty and it will cause audio rate errors like this one googlesamples/assistant-sdk-python#127
So its advisable to copy .asoundrc as well along with asound.conf.

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[shivasiddharth]

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[jrgleason]

Looks like I may have found an answer but I have to check...

https://developers.google.com/assistant/sdk/develop/grpc/hardware/audio

If you have both an HDMI monitor and a 3.5mm jack speaker connected, you can play audio out of either one. Run the following command:

sudo raspi-config
Go to Advanced options > Audio and select the desired output device.

Going to check that config in a bit and I will post on here if that works. I already reformatted my SD card so it might take a bit.

[jrgleason]

Oh nm is that what this does options snd_rpi_googlemihat_soundcard index=0?

[drigz]

@jrgleason, the index=0 line used to make sure that the Voice HAT was sound card 0, although the name is incorrect so it won't work any more - I'll send a PR.

@shivasiddharth, does this PR fully fix the issue, or does whatever populates ~/.asoundrc also modify it? We found it that the volume widget would create/modify .asoundrc, and we tried to eliminate the situations where this happened (eg with alsa-init.service).

[shivasiddharth]

@drigz , in the tests that i did, this seemed to fix the issue. However, just to double check, someone else might as well try this.

[drigz]

What did you test? Do you know what caused .asoundrc to be created if not present? I can try to reproduce.

[shivasiddharth]

I blanked the EEPROM, compiled I2S kernels just to make sure that it was not the HAT that was causing the issue. The volume widget issue i suppose is the case where the widget appears muted without controls ? I believe that to be the result of .asroundrc being auto populated.
Though i was not able to locate the source of issue, i can say with a fair bit of confidence that, this PR will fix the auto population issue as well as the muted widget issue.

[drigz]

Thanks. I'm out of the office this week, but I'll try it out next week.

[drigz]

I've tried to reproduce this but I can't. I would merge it, but I'm concerned about confusing users who edit one file, but the changes don't work because ALSA is reading the other file.

Does it work if you use a symlink? ie ln -s $global_asoundrc $asoundrc

Also, you should check that /home/pi exists, as some distros have a different username, ie:

if [[ -d /home/pi ]] ; then
  # create new file
fi

[shivasiddharth]

1. It is actually making use of the location of .asoundrc already declared in the script. So i would assume that, those using this script with other distros would be changing that, otherwise, it would have returned an error.
2. Those using other audio config, would not even run this script, so i feel that there might not be any confusion.
3. Or else, instead of merging this PR, maybe you can drop in a line in Hacking.md or readme asking ppl to copy paste the contents of asound.conf into .asoundrc. and reference this error.

[drigz]

It is actually making use of the location of .asoundrc already declared in the script.

That's a fair point, the script won't work fully until #95 is resolved.

Those using other audio config, would not even run this script

I'm concerned about people who want to tweak the audio config, eg to work around #47.

Or else, instead of merging this PR, maybe you can drop in a line in Hacking.md

That's a good idea, and maybe we'll have a chance to find out what people to do cause ~/.asoundrc to be created. #184

[drigz]

#187 makes this unnecessary.