HDMI outputs appears as “unavailable”, but running aplay command, it plays!

Motherboard: AMD Rs780 System version:

uname -a
Linux UBUNTU-2020 5.4.0-42-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 10 00:24:02 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

On pavucontrol => Configuration, all HDMI outputs appear as “(unavailable)”

Listing the HW Devices:

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC887-VD Digital [ALC887-VD Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

If I run this command, the sound flows through HDMI!

aplay -D plughw:1,3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

This command also works:

speaker-test --channels 2 --rate 48000 --device hw:1,3

I’ve tried to change /etc/asound.conf like this:

defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.pcm.device 3

The HDMI then appears as an output device, but no sound. If I run the aplay command again, it does not play anymore:

aplay -D plughw:1,3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
aplay: main:830: audio open error: Device or resource busy

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

1 Answer

There is a script

According to OP Gustavo Moeira's comment above, there is a script available to workaround this issue. The script is available at:

I have no idea what this script does. As with anything on the Internet, one should understand and verify if it is safe before using it.

Hope this helps others with this problem