Public bug reported:

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)

** Affects: apparmor (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug resolute wayland-session

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2157575

Title:
  alsamixer fails to access ~/.asoundrc

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