No prob

This is what I expected, but idk if it is the cause (still have stock partition table on my N900).
I tried to flash my (partition table) modded N9 (note the missing 00 ) and it failed and I needed to give a parameter '--no-preserve'. So maybe check N900 flasher for such override flag?

I am sure you all are eagerly expecting the outcome so here it comes. After flashing the rootfs only, the sound problem fixed itself but having restored from the backup, it came back again. I am currently comparing the two images to see which package/driver/file might be the culprit. I am not too keen to start over installing CSSU, Thumb, all the applications and do all the manual optification I've done. Living for a while with broken sound is a lesser evil. I hardly ever use my phone for calls anyway; the only phone feature I use is SMS and that is fine with the sound as it is.

@peterleinchen, you tactically left out the bit when I pointed out that my other device with stock partitions also failed to flash the eMMC BTW, I've noticed that my device A, even though it said it failed to flash, turned out to have the partition table restored to default (2/27GB, no longer 4GB home and 25GB MyDocs) with some contents in home but unformatted MyDocs. It booted fine though and formatting MyDocs from the command line followed by another format from File Manager brought it to a pristine "as new" state.

@pichlo,

Sorry I can't be of much help. Could this be related to having (perhaps) removed alsaped or any other sound-routing-related packages?

Perhaps you could try selectively[*] restoring from that backup of yours?
[*] I know, easy to say, hard to do.

I haven't removed anything alsa AFAIK. Selective restore is what I have embarked on, although the other way 'round. Since I have now two backup images ("mine" and "stock"), I restored from "mine" and am dir by dir comparing and/or overwriting with "stock" as necessary. I suspect two slightly different hardware configs, resulting in slightly different drivers installed as per post #10.

Could you post here the output of "cat /proc/component_version" for both N900s?
Thanks in advance.

Add.: I just tried running "alsactl init" on my N900 and I get the exact same warning as you.

Mine is a hw-build 2204 (nolo 1.4.14)

Just for the sake of completeness. I just tested listening an mp3 via headphones using the stock media player. Sound came out OK via the headphones (stock N900).

The one with the sound problem:
I will add the other one when I get back home but I am 92.5% certain it was also 2101.

Can the HW flag be set wrongly by flashing/restoring the wrong ROM? I should have checked when I was flashing it, now I don't feel like going through the same ordeal again unless I have to.

I haven't got anywhere closer to fixing my problem and have resigned to reflashing and starting again but... in the process I came across a few interesting questions.

1) Some .so files were different sizes on my system compared to the freshly flashed rootfs image, even though the time stamps were the same. Note I mean only files that were not supposed to change, e.g. by upgrading to CSSU and CSSU-T. Amongst the affected packages were alsa-utils and alsa-policy-enforcement (both untouched since 2009) plus about 10 other packages. How could that happen? In all cases my copies were between 1 and 3 KB larger. Reinstalling the packages got them back to their expected sizes but did not make a splat difference in the phone's behaviour.

2) The second most noticeable difference is the contents of the file /var/lib/dbus/machine_id. What does it do? Like #1 above, changing the ID makes no observable difference.

3) How can I get a list of installed packages sorted by date of installation/last upgrade? dpkg -l only gives me the name and version number, but not the installation date. However FAM knows the date - how?

4) What files do I need to preserve to keep the PIM (contacts, call and messaging history)? I feel a bit embarrassed as I should perhaps know that by now.

Ignore that. Just some random dbus/freedesktop crap:
http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-uuidgen.1.html

Every object in this world needs a UUID, if only just for the sake of it. Has anyone ever used DBUS over a network? does it work at all over a network? what's dbus anyway and why does/did the world need it?

since pichlo bought it from me im just going to follow this

Maybe ill throw redkarma a link since it is his old N900

Thanks frost but I'd like to assure you that this is not your fault

A strange thing happened. I finally got around to fixing the USB port on my older phone and reflashed it. The flashing did not go very well: Vanilla failed to flash altogether, the first boot after the first successful Fiasco flash resulted in a muddled up screen with missing icons and fonts... So I flashed it again. Fiasco only, I've given up on flashing the eMMC. It booted fine BUT - now it exhibits the same behaviour! So now I have two phones with the same fault.

On top of that, the newly flashed phone also refuses to play any of my video or audio files (complaining about audio being used by another application), nor does it ring on alarms or incoming calls, although it happily plays the SMS notifications. To top it off, the alarm or ring tones play fine while selecting them, only not when they are needed.

I sense time for another reflash, but I need to pack for a family holiday and do not have much time. And no reliable phone to take along. Oh dear, life is so complicated...