kClock (or kclockd) fails to output any audio

General system Applications
1

I installed kclock (and some other kde plasma utilities) and noticed that kClock doesn’t make any sounds when an alarm goes off.
Weirdly enough, checking qpwgraph, it outputs the alarm to “GA104 High Definition Audio Controller Pro 8”, which I think is am HDMI audio output, even tho my system default is set to my UMC204HD audio interface.
When I disable the GA104 audio outputs, it shows this in journalctl, when an alarm goes off:

Mär 24 17:35:00 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: Utilities::wakeupCallback called with cookie: 11
Mär 24 17:35:00 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: PowerDevilWakeupProvider::wakeupCallback called with cookie: 11
Mär 24 17:35:00 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: Ringing alarm “” and sending notification…
Mär 24 17:35:00 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: Alarm sound:  QUrl(“file:///usr/share/sounds/ocean/stereo/alarm-clock-elapsed.oga”)
Mär 24 17:35:00 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: Scheduled alarm wakeup at “Tue Mar 24 21:30:00 2026” .
Mär 24 17:35:00 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: Cannot find device:  “alsa_output.pci-0000_2b_00.1.pro-output-3”
Mär 24 17:35:02 philipp-eos-pc kwin_wayland[1214]: :1:13693: Could not resolve property: #linearGradient10962
Mär 24 17:35:02 philipp-eos-pc kclockd[1646]: Alarm “” dismissed

and yesterday it simply said something like “No audio device detected” in journalctl.

All my other audio works perfectly fine, it’s just kClock and I don’t know why :confused:

2

Here is some system information

System:
Kernel: 6.18.19-1-cachyos-lts arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.6.3 Distro: EndeavourOS
Machine:
Type: Desktop System: Micro-Star product: MS-7C56 v: 6.0
serial: 
Mobo: Micro-Star model: B550-A PRO (MS-7C56) v: 2.0
serial:  Firmware: UEFI vendor: American Megatrends LLC.
v: A.J0 date: 03/19/2025

CPU:
Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 3561 min/max: 561/4654 cores: 1: 3561 2: 3561 3: 3561
4: 3561 5: 3561 6: 3561 7: 3561 8: 3561 9: 3561 10: 3561 11: 3561 12: 3561

Audio:
Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-3: BEHRINGER GmbH UMC204HD 192k driver: snd-usb-audio type: USB
Device-4: AVerMedia Live Streamer CAM 313 driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
type: USB
API: ALSA v: k6.18.19-1-cachyos-lts status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.6.2 status: active
3

Welcome to the community @Knopfi! :partying_face: :enos_flag:

I can’t see any audio device settings within kClock, or its config files. If you’d like to check yours just to confirm:

cat ~/.config/kclockdrc

cat ~/.config/kclockrc

When you say you’ve disabled the HDMI audio output and your system default is your UMC204HD interface, was that done using Plasma’s Sound settings?

Here’s mine, which like yours, I’ve disabled the HDMI output, and set my headphones as the default.

image
image1280×692 68.8 KB

4

Thanks for the reply :​D
In kclockdrc there is just the test alarm I created:

[Alarms]
{91f969c4-39c1-4be0-b810-953eab802a1c}={“audioPath”:“/usr/share/sounds/ocean/stereo/alarm-clock-elapsed.oga”,“daysOfWeek”:0,“enabled”:false,“hours”:11,“minutes”:27,“name”:“Test”,“ringDuration”:5,“snoozeDuration”:5,“snoozedLength”:0,“uuid”:“{91f969c4-39c1-4be0-b810-953eab802a1c}”}

andkclockrc is literally just:

[TimerPresets]
timerPresets=[]

Yes, I disabled the HDMI audio outputs through Plasma’s sound settings.
Okay wait, I just enabled the HDMI audio outputs again for testing and it actually plays the sounds through my monitors speakers now. It didn’t do that yesterday. (Allthough I did reinstall kclock a few times and reset the configs since then)
So at least it is playing some audio, just not through the correct output.
When disabling HDMI outputs again, it says “No audio device detected” in journalctl.
Veery weird.

5

Oh right. That sounds solution-ish? :sweat_smile:

Perhaps more work-around.

You could try assigning the default for ALSA using the options presented here:

It’s getting pretty messy though.

7

I FIGURED IT OUT

Okay so I think when a program uses Qt Multimedia for playing audio, which kClock does, it really doesn’t like it when my audio output is set to “Pro Audio” in the system settings. Switching from “Pro audio” (well it was on “Default”, but the default apparently IS Pro audio) to “Direct UMC204HD 192k” fixes the issue!

So in short (for others or my future self):

  • Go to the KDE Plasma system settings
  • Click on “Sound”
  • Change the dropdown next to your playback device from “Pro Audio” (or possibly “Default”) to something else.