** Description changed:
+ [ Impact ]
+
+ Alsamixer was prevented from opening ~/.asoundrc, causing it to
+ immediately exit with an error message if ~/.asoundrc existed.
+
+ [ Test Plan ]
+
+ * Install alsamixer
+ * touch ~/.asoundrc
+ * Attempt to launch alsamixer
+ * Without the bugfix: alsamixer fails to start
+ * With the bugfix: alsamixer starts successfully
+
+ [ Where problems could occur ]
+
+ The alsamixer profile change in this SRU loosens confinement on a
+ profile. However, if a user manually modified the installed profiles,
+ then the package upgrade would cause conflicts, and rejection of the
+ incoming changes (either by hand during an interactive upgrade or
+ automatically during an batch unattended upgrade) would result in end
+ users not getting the packaged fix.
+
+ [ Other Info ]
+
+ This bug was fixed as part of 5.0.2 upstream (landing first in 26.10)
+ and is being fixed in 26.04 as part of an upstream version backport.
+
+ ----Original bug report
+
When I ran alsamixer, I got the following errors:
ALSA lib conf.c:4131:(config_file_open) [error.core] cannot access file
/home/bgjenero/.asoundrc
ALSA lib conf.c:4051:(snd_config_hooks_call) [error.core] function
snd_config_hook_load returned error: Permission denied
ALSA lib conf.c:4650:(snd_config_update_r) [error.core] hooks failed,
removing configuration
cannot open mixer: Permission denied
Looking at it via strace showed that alsamixer was indeed unable to open
the file, even though it was accessible. Even if I made my home
directory accessible to all users, it still failed.
With the help of https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/801893/why-
could-a-perfectly-accessible-file-fail-to-be-opened-due-to-eacces I
found that apparmor was blocking this.
So I added the following to /etc/apparmor.d/local/alsamixer
owner @{HOME}/.asoundrc r,
Then, after
sudo systemctl restart apparmor
I was able to use alsamixer.
That file is included from /etc/apparmor.d/alsamixer . I think the line
I added ought to be added to /etc/apparmor.d/alsamixer . I am reporting
this as an apparmor bug instead of an alsa-utils bug because the
/etc/apparmor.d/alsamixer file belongs to the apparmor package.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 26.04
Package: apparmor 5.0.0~beta1-0ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 7.0.0-22.22-generic 7.0.0
Uname: Linux 7.0.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.34.0-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: wayfire
Date: Fri Jun 19 02:53:31 2026
KernLog:
-
+
ProcKernelCmdline: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-7.0.0-22-generic
root=UUID=d590f141-7b8d-421d-84b3-baa43181a241 ro resume=/dev/sda5 radeon.msi=1
zswap.enabled=1 zswap.compressor=lz4 systemd.unit=multi-user.target
SourcePackage: apparmor
Syslog:
-
+
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to resolute on 2026-05-26 (23 days ago)
** Changed in: apparmor (Ubuntu)
Assignee: (unassigned) => Ryan Lee (rlee287)
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2157575
Title:
alsamixer fails to access ~/.asoundrc
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