Sound reacts very slowly in Amarok... sound card issue?

[SpectrumDT]

Hello.

I am a newbie to Amarok and Linux in general.

I just recently installed the Amarok music player, and so far I like it. But I have a problem: It reacts very slowly: When I press Pause or Play, or skip to a new track (by mouse or hotkey), there's a delay of a second or more before anything happens.

Now, I don't know what I am talking about, but my guess is that it's not a directly Amarok-related problem, but rather sound card related (ergo I chose this forum section to post in). Maybe my sound card drivers are not properly installed or configured?

Can anyone help? If it's Amarok-related, then how do I fix it? And if it's sound card related, then how do I identify my soundcard and fix drivers (or whatever)?

My Linux is Fedora 8.

Thanks in advance.

[phoxis]

i have the same problem

[adrianx]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is what you are referring to, but have a look at your Amarok settings.
Settings > Configure Amarok > Playback. You may want to change the Transition and Fadeout settings.

PS - I have noticed that pause is not immediate though....

[phoxis]

no no it is not about transition.
i have set to fade out , but after i click the pause button the sound keeps playing for 1 or 1.5 secs and then stops abruptly somtimes the sound cuts

[forkbomb]

What are your system specs? Is it a computer that's marginal for running Fedora in the first place? (I assume you're good to go on specs, but I have to ask because you never know.)

Are you noticing the behavior anywhere else?

I doubt it's a sound card issue; if it were, you'd probably notice the audio delay in other programs as well (e.g. video players, flash in browsers). It's probably due to Pulse Audio somehow, but I'm no expert. (Just thought I'd add my two cents saying I don't think this is a sound card issue.)

Soundcard can be identified by running Fedora's soundcard configuraiton utility. Open a terminal and put in "system-config-soundcard". Maybe try fiddling with some settings there if you want to test the sound card hypothesis. For example, hit the play button there and see if there's a delay there as well.

[Cogar]

For the record, I have the exact same problem as SpectrumDT with Amarok. I seldom use it for this reason. All other sound applications in F8 work as expected--you click the stop button and it stops then--not a second or so later (as an example). Incidentally, my hardware is all new--Core 2 Duo processor etc. I also doubt that it is a sound card issue, since my speakers and headphones use separate sound cards and both exhibit this behavior.

[adrianx]

It's probably due to Pulse Audio somehow, but I'm no expert. (Just thought I'd add my two cents saying I don't think this is a sound card issue.)

I suspect Tom is on the right track (excuse the pun). I've changed the "Output plugin" from pulseaudio to oss and now when I pause/play, there is no delay. That is if you are using the xine engine.

[SpectrumDT]

I suspect Tom is on the right track (excuse the pun). I've changed the "Output plugin" from pulseaudio to oss and now when I pause/play, there is no delay. That is if you are using the xine engine.
Thank you, this worked. :) (Mine was set to "autodetect". I set it to "oss", and now it plays fine.)

I have a related issue, however: When I adjust the volume control, it takes a while (a half to a whole second) before the actual sound volume changes. This happens not only in Amarok, but also in the Rhythmbox music player.

Is this supposed to happen?