Speaker channel resets to zero, no ogg notifications

[ReemZ]

On my lappy, after every login, the 'Speaker' channel in alsamixer (Card: HDA Intel, Chip: Realtek ALC272) is reset to zero. Once I turn this channel back up sound works again, except for system notifications, but after logout-login (or (re)boot) it's reset to zero again. I've tried saving the settings with alsactl store but that doesn't help either.

I've tried playing some of the files in /usr/share/sounds in VLC and that works, but when playing the previews in Dolphin only the wav-files work, the ogg-files don't. gst-plugins-ogg-0.10.36 is installed.
The version of gst-plugins-pulse that came with the install, 1.0.3, does not work at all on this system (no sound card found) so I downgraded that to the other version available in Entropy, 0.10.31.

I've searched just about every alsa- and pulse-related file in my system (KDE on top of CoreCDX) and can't find anything unusual, which most likely means I'm overlooking something or that I'm missing a package.
equo deptest and equo libtest came up clean.

On my desky, I'm in pulse and pulse-access groups (among others, of course) so I tried adding my user to those groups on the lappy as well but I get the following message:

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ReemZ-T0shiba ~ # gpasswd -a reemz pulse
gpasswd: group 'pulse' does not exist in /etc/group
ReemZ-T0shiba ~ # gpasswd -a reemz pulse-access
gpasswd: group 'pulse-access' does not exist in /etc/group

/var/log/rc.log shows "Restoring Mixer Levels" in the default section, as well as "Storing ALSA Mixer Levels" in the shutdown section.

My hardware:

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00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:ff00]
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

lsmod:

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Module                  Size  Used by
8021q                  13708  0
garp                    4351  1 8021q
stp                     1418  1 garp
llc                     3281  2 stp,garp
ipv6                  244167  22
joydev                  7921  0
psmouse                63551  0
serio_raw               3945  0
toshiba_acpi           10497  0
sparse_keymap           2330  1 toshiba_acpi
iTCO_wdt                4169  0
iTCO_vendor_support     1618  1 iTCO_wdt
uvcvideo               58088  0
videobuf2_vmalloc       2074  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops        2284  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_core         17558  1 uvcvideo
videodev               81912  2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
media                   8195  2 uvcvideo,videodev
lpc_ich                10897  0
pcspkr                  1521  0
i2c_i801               13241  0
snd_hda_codec_realtek    45617  1
snd_hda_intel          22297  3
snd_hda_codec          68446  2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               4607  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                58496  2 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
snd_page_alloc          6087  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer              14247  1 snd_pcm
snd                    46583  12 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
hid_logitech_dj         8257  0
coretemp                5241  0
microcode              11028  0
rtl8192se              48673  0
rtlwifi                47309  1 rtl8192se
mac80211              207446  2 rtlwifi,rtl8192se
cfg80211              139712  2 mac80211,rtlwifi
r8169                  39769  0
sha512_generic          4546  0
sha1_generic            1831  0
virtio_pci              6279  0
virtio_blk              8331  0
virtio_net             13052  0
virtio_console         14659  0
virtio_balloon          4012  0
virtio_ring             4757  5 virtio_blk,virtio_net,virtio_pci,virtio_balloon,virtio_console
virtio                  3358  5 virtio_blk,virtio_net,virtio_pci,virtio_balloon,virtio_console
lrw                     3190  0
xts                     2808  0
gf128mul                5339  2 lrw,xts
ablk_helper             1629  0
cryptd                  6880  1 ablk_helper
aes_x86_64              7388  1
sha256_generic          9534  0
iscsi_tcp               7677  0
tg3                   119696  0
e1000                 109315  0
fuse                   56750  0
zfs                   821656  0
zcommon                28471  1 zfs
znvpair                24478  2 zfs,zcommon
zavl                    4188  1 zfs
zunicode              316778  1 zfs
spl                   107112  5 zfs,zavl,zunicode,zcommon,znvpair
xfs                   414850  0
nfs                   101223  0
lockd                  53082  1 nfs
sunrpc                145723  2 nfs,lockd
jfs                   141447  0
reiserfs              206613  0
ext4                  252506  1
jbd2                   48908  1 ext4
ext3                  108118  0
jbd                    37551  1 ext3
ext2                   53713  1
mbcache                 4579  3 ext2,ext3,ext4
sl811_hcd               8936  0
hid_generic             1042  0
xhci_hcd               74811  0
ohci_hcd               24415  0
uhci_hcd               20291  0
ehci_hcd               45896  0
sx8                    10934  0
imm                     8678  0
parport                26712  1 imm
pata_pcmcia             9670  0
pcmcia                 38996  1 pata_pcmcia

What am I missing or overlooking, which packages should I most definitely have installed and what config files should I pay special attention to?

[ReemZ]

Forgot to mention, in /var/log/rc.log, in the boot section:

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* Starting D-BUS system messagebus ...
Unknown username "pulse" in message bus configuration file
 [ ok ]

Probably has the same cause as not being able to add my user to the pulse or pulse-access groups, now if only I knew what the right way is to create those...

[ReemZ]

Just tried from Live USB (CoreCDX) and the Speaker channel is NOT being reset to zero, not even after restarting X.
There are no ogg-files in /usr/share/sounds so I guess those are part of KDE.
Either I'm missing a package, or a part of KDE is messing with ALSA...

[ReemZ]

Just tried from Live USB, KDE Daily, and the Speaker channel is being reset to zero, both upon first login and after restarting X. Also, I get a nice shiny notification:
"The audio playback device HDA Intel (ALC272 Analog) does not work.
Falling back to default."

Funny thing is, on my desky everything just works, lspci -knn tells me it's a different chip but using the same kernel module:

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00:09.0 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation MCP73 High Definition Audio [10de:07fc] (rev a1)
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:a002]
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

Seems (some part of) KDE and Intel don't get along...

[ReemZ]

For shits 'n giggles, I tried the KDE Weekly (of September...) Live and...that just works.
Somewhere along the last four months, something was changed in KDE that scared ALSA...

[wolfden]

any thing in your /home/ReemZ/.xsession-errors file or /var/log/messages ?

[ReemZ]

~/.xsession-errors
/var/log/messages

[wolfden]

I wonder if this is it: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=249180

[ReemZ]

Nope, my problem is not with the Master, it's with one channel only.
I did try unticking "Restore volumes on login" but it makes no difference, I've also tried disabling KMix completely (the easy way: by removing it altogether) but that doesn't help either (it only leaves me without the option of setting the master volume level so I re-installed it). I've even tried changing flat-volumes in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to 'no' as per the RH bug linked to in the KDE bug, to no avail.
Sidenote: the bug is old and was marked fixed before my problem even occurred.

[wolfden]

yes I was aware of the bug status, but it's not uncommon for a bug to return. Your .xsession-errors file is crazy huge, ick at KDE.

Try with grub adding acpi_osi=Linux ?