Hello,
I am using pnmixer on three other Debian boxes, without apparent issues.

But, when I tried to install it and configure it on a fourth Debian box,
I encountered the following showstopper: as soon as I start it, a
notification states "no playable soundcard found".
When I select Preferences from the context menu, I see only one card
that can be selected in the Card entry, which is "HD-Audio Generic".

My system has two possible playback hardware devices (HDMI and ALC897 Analog):

```
$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [ASUS VA27A]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic_1 [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC897 Analog [ALC897 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
```

I would like to select hw:Generic_1, which is perfectly usable from:

```
$ alsamixer -c Generic_1
```

and from:

```
$ jackd --realtime -d alsa --device hw:Generic_1 --softmode --hwmeter --rate 44100 &
```

If I try to select "HD-Audio Generic" as Card from pnmixer Preferences,
I cannot select any Channel. As soon as I click on the Ok button, pnmixer
crashes with a segmentation fault.

Please note that the old volumeicon-alsa (removed from Debian) works
flawlessly on this Debian box.

Please help me investigate this bug and/or forward my bug report upstream,
as appropriate.

Thanks for your time and dedication!

On Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:07:43 +0200 Francesco Poli (wintermute) wrote:

[...]

I tried to get a backtrace with gdb and debuginfod symbols.
I am attaching what I obtained, in the hope that it may be useful to
better understand the cause of the segfault.

Please let me know, thanks for your time!

On Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:07:43 +0200 Francesco Poli (wintermute) wrote:

[...]

Hello!
I found a way to work around this bug.

Since PNMixer seems to be only able to control the default ALSA device
and maybe HD Audio Generic, I thought I could explicitly set the
default ALSA device:

```
$ head -n 3 ~/.asoundrc
# set the default ALSA device
defaults.pcm.!card Generic_1
defaults.ctl.!card Generic_1
```

Having my sound card of choice set as default ALSA device, makes PNMixer
happy and everything works.

I would say that this bug is more a limitation, than an actual
misbehavior. But it's an annoying limitation, so it should be seen as a
bug anyway.
I am changing the bug report title and severity accordingly.

Also I found an upstream issue about this limitation.
I am hence setting the forwarded tag, as well.