systemd alsa-restore doesn't work

Describe your issue

What's the expected behaviour?

# systemctl status alsa-restore
...
Mar 21 10:01:20 samsung-rossa systemd[1]: Starting Save/Restore Sound Card State...
Mar 21 10:01:20 samsung-rossa systemd[1]: Finished Save/Restore Sound Card State.

What's the current behaviour?

Mar 17 10:06:08 samsung-rossa systemd[1]: Starting Save/Restore Sound Card State...
Mar 17 10:06:08 samsung-rossa alsactl[1100]: /usr/sbin/alsactl: state_lock:168: file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state lock error: No such file or directory
Mar 17 10:06:08 samsung-rossa alsactl[1100]: /usr/sbin/alsactl: load_state:1715: Cannot open /var/lib/alsa/asound.state for reading: No such file or directory
Mar 17 10:06:08 samsung-rossa alsactl[1100]: /usr/sbin/alsactl: card_lock:197: card 0 lock error: No such file or directory
Mar 17 10:06:08 samsung-rossa systemd[1]: Finished Save/Restore Sound Card State.

How to reproduce your issue?

systemctl restart alsa-restore

What device are you using?

Samsung-rossa

On what postmarketOS version did you encounter the issue?

• edge (master branch)

• v24.12

• v24.06 (supported until 2025-01-23)

• I confirm that the issue still is present after running sudo apk upgrade -a

On what environment did you encounter the issue?

Environments

• COSMIC
• GNOME Shell on Mobile
• Phosh
• Plasma Mobile
• Sxmo (Wayland/Sway) Please post the output of sxmo_version.sh
• Other: Please fill out

Which init system are you using?

• OpenRC
• systemd

How did you get postmarketOS image?

• from https://images.postmarketos.org
• I built it using pmbootstrap
• It was preinstalled on my device

Additional information

It's a locking problem (the directory where the lock file should be created doesn't exist). Check the source of alsactl.c:

#define SYS_LOCKPATH "/var/lock"

a default locking directory is used, unless a different one is chosen. /var/lock doesn't exist in my phone. The problem is trivial to fix, and there are at least three ways to fix it:

Option 1.- use the alsactl parameter --no-lock Pro: easy Con: the locking must be done for some reason

Option 2.- use the alsactl parameter --lock-dir and state an existing directory Pro: easy Con: is that the only instance in which alsa needs locking? See later

Option 3.- Create the directory needed using a .conf file in /etc/tmpfiles.d/ (I use jr.conf to remind me that it's a local temporary solution)

# copied from Debian legacy.conf
d /run/lock 0755 root root -
L /var/lock - - - - ../run/lock

Pro: easy, two-line solution, and at least /run/lock should always be present Con: ??

After restart

$ ls -l /run/lock
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Mar 21 10:01 asound.state.lock
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Mar 21 10:01 card0.lock

$ ls -l /var/lib/alsa/
total 16
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13307 Mar 20 09:51 asound.state

Obviously I prefer option 3.

added audio systemd type::bug labels

As discussed in chat, we should be installing that legacy.conf thing for tempfiles, as part of the systemd pkg

@jrfern should be fixed by !6352 (merged). Would you mind testing it (once CI has finished there) by using mrtest after removing your custom conf: mrtest add 6352 (then reboot)

mentioned in commit c35ff8c6

mentioned in merge request !6352 (merged)

mentioned in commit 2d103255

closed with merge request !6352 (merged)

closed with commit 2d103255