audio skipping

Akheron · #1 18th June 2009, 08:58 PM

Hey everyone. Got a slight problem. Whenever im listening to music via any player (banshee, rhythmbox, amarok, etc.) my sound skips anytime i do pretty much anything eg. open a folder, launch firefox, minimize a window, etc. the sound is perfectly fine if i dont touch my computer while its playing but thats no fun...

im running a presario v6000 with fedora 11 inlcuding all the current updates. im using gstreamers plugin (gstreamer-plugins-ugly) for mp3 playback.

i figure its either a slight hardware incompatibility or the mp3 plugin? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

JeremyLeonard · #2 18th June 2009, 09:12 PM

I've had the same issue, and I am using a Dell GX270.

Volpe · #3 18th June 2009, 09:28 PM

There are a few regressions for audio in F11.
First try here: http://www.fedorafaq.org/#sound-pops and here http://fedorasolved.org/Members/fenr...=pulse%20audio
If that doesn't help then post the output of this command when you run it on a terminal:

Code:

lsmod | grep snd

Maybe I'll be able to help.

Akheron · #4 18th June 2009, 11:50 PM

yeah those didnt seem to work. ive used that website before, it comes in handy. heres the output:

Code:

snd_hda_codec_conexant    33312  1 
snd_hda_intel          29000  1 
snd_hda_codec          65376  2 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               8600  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                79960  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer              22496  1 snd_pcm
snd                    65096  8 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               7024  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          9216  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

EDIT: i think its pulseaudio. i found another thread and someone solved there problem by uninstalling pulseaudio. i did the same thing and it seemed to work but id like to keep it. otherwise i have no mixer. is there an alternative to pulseaudio?

pulseaudio conf dump output:

Code:

/etc/pulse/daemon.conf ###
daemonize = no
fail = yes
high-priority = no
nice-level = -11
realtime-scheduling = no
realtime-priority = 5
disallow-module-loading = no
disallow-exit = no
use-pid-file = yes
system-instance = no
no-cpu-limit = no
disable-shm = no
flat-volumes = yes
exit-idle-time = 20
scache-idle-time = 20
dl-search-path = /usr/lib64/pulse-0.9.15/modules/
default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa
load-default-script-file = yes
log-target = auto
log-level = notice
resample-method = auto
disable-remixing = no
disable-lfe-remixing = yes
default-sample-format = s16le
default-sample-rate = 44100
default-sample-channels = 2
default-channel-map = front-left,front-right
default-fragments = 4
default-fragment-size-msec = 25
shm-size-bytes = 0
log-meta = no
log-time = no
log-backtrace = 0
rlimit-fsize = -1
rlimit-data = -1
rlimit-stack = -1
rlimit-core = -1
rlimit-rss = -1
rlimit-as = -1
rlimit-nproc = -1
rlimit-nofile = 256
rlimit-memlock = -1
rlimit-locks = -1
rlimit-sigpending = -1
rlimit-msgqueue = -1
rlimit-nice = 31
rlimit-rtprio = 9
rlimit-rttime = 1000000

Volpe · #5 19th June 2009, 08:14 AM

Quote:

EDIT: i think its pulseaudio. i found another thread and someone solved there problem by uninstalling pulseaudio. i did the same thing and it seemed to work but id like to keep it. otherwise i have no mixer. is there an alternative to pulseaudio?

If you're asking about an alternative mixer for alsa then "System -> Preferences -> Advance Volume Control" works for me. If you're asking about an alternative for pulseaudio then your only option is ALSA on F11.

You have an intel audio chip, just like me and the snd_hda_intel driver doesn't play well with pulseaudio right now. In my case, the 'tsched=0' option, combined with adding my user to the 'pulse-rt' group sort-of worked. Did you try that?
What's your output for

Code:

lspci | grep Audio

It should show the ICH audio controller. Mine's ICH8.

Akheron · #6 19th June 2009, 12:16 PM

Code:

00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)

theres the output. yes i actually have tried adding that segment and i couldnt tell a difference. ive fiddled with so many things and have gotten slightly better/worse results with each but none have totally fixed it other than killing pulseaudio whenever i wanna listen to music. i rememeber alsa working ok but it had its own set of problems. ill give it a try. from all of my research it seems pulseaudio is giving quite a few people problems.

Fedora 11 already comes with ALSA correct? Now if i totally uninstall pulseaudio i lose the volume control in the top corner. is there anyway i can replace it with the alsa one?

sonoran · #7 19th June 2009, 12:45 PM

There is an alternative to PulseAudio - OSSv4. On my system the sound quality is superior and it uses about half the cpu cycles. And you don't have to uninstall Pulse to use it. Whether you lose the Gnome volume control seems to vary from system to system, but Ossv4 has a beautiful mixer - ossxmix - which makes every feature of your sound card available (not just standalone cards but motherboard integrated codecs as well).

You can download the rpm and installation instructions from here: http://www.opensound.com/

Note that you need the Fedora development packages (gcc, kernel headers) installed before you install the OSS rpm because it compiles its kernel modules based on your hardware. It's all done automatically.

Volpe · #8 19th June 2009, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akheron

Code:

00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)

theres the output. yes i actually have tried adding that segment and i couldnt tell a difference. ive fiddled with so many things and have gotten slightly better/worse results with each but none have totally fixed it other than killing pulseaudio whenever i wanna listen to music. i rememeber alsa working ok but it had its own set of problems. ill give it a try. from all of my research it seems pulseaudio is giving quite a few people problems.

My experience exactly. Finally I've given in and disabled pulseaudio completely as a temporary workaround.
The steps are as follows:

1) Disable pulseaudio respawing
As root edit '/etc/pulse/client.conf' and replace the line

Code:

; autospawn = yes

with

Code:

autospawn = no

2) Kill pulseaudio via

Code:

$ pulseaudio -k

(execute in a terminal as a normal user, not root)

3) Remove the ALSA plug-in for pulseaudio

Code:

$su -c yum remove alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.x86_64

4) Logout, Login and your done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akheron

Fedora 11 already comes with ALSA correct? Now if i totally uninstall pulseaudio i lose the volume control in the top corner. is there anyway i can replace it with the alsa one?

You will lose the volume control applet but a normal ALSA volume mixer is accessible via 'System -> Preferences -> Advanced Audio Control'.

In my case this has resolved all audio problems including stuttering, crackling etc.
Audio stream mixing with ALSA works flawlessly with Skype, Ekiga, Flash, SDL games (pretty much everything I've thrown at it).

I'm going to reinstall pulseaudio and submit a proper bug report when I have the time.

sonoran: Thanks but ALSA works for me.

Akheron · #9 19th June 2009, 10:03 PM

thanks everyone for the help. thanks volpe for that information. i guess pulseaudio is gonna have to go away until they can fix its many bugs.

what i dont understand is why fedora doesnt fully integrate alsa as a backup. they must have known how glitchy pulseaudio is. i can understand them using it because there on the bleeding dge of technology plus its easier for them to program into linux. but alsa was working perfectly fine for so long.

theres gotta be a way to get an alsa volume control for the top corner. ill keep doing research. again thanks everyone. i appreciate all the help!

Volpe · #10 20th June 2009, 10:55 PM

Pulseaudio depends on ALSA so you always have the option to bypass PA.

From what I've heard over in the past year the thing with pulseaudio is that:
- has loads of new features
- it's easier to interface with from a programming perspective
- provides support for USB soundcards

Figuratively speaking: Fedora is on the cutting edge of the proverbial fan and we have to plough through this PA mess. But I have to say that nothing frustrates me like regressions caused by improvements which won't benefit me in the slightest.

JEO · #11 7th July 2009, 10:50 AM

Volpe in your message #8 you say change "autorespawn" in /etc/pulse/client.conf on mine the parameter is "autospawn", also the same in 'man pulse-client.conf'. Could these references be typos in your original message?

JEO · #12 7th July 2009, 11:03 AM

One other thing I had to do to get pulseaudio not to start in gnome. I had to go to system, preferences, startup applications, and uncheck PulseAudio Sound System.

By the way, pulseaudio is not the reason why my sound skips in sun java plugin in firefox. Disabling pulseaudio had no effect. I suspect that there are changes made to alsa in F11 that are regressions also, or perhaps advances that the sun java plugin has yet to catch up to.

JeremyLeonard · #13 7th July 2009, 12:10 PM

I just got done following the instructions at http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=225660 and so far it's working for me. Hope that helps.

Volpe · #14 7th July 2009, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JEO

Volpe in your message #8 you say change "autorespawn" in /etc/pulse/client.conf on mine the parameter is "autospawn", also the same in 'man pulse-client.conf'. Could these references be typos in your original message?

Yes, obviously. My bad.

BeeMac · #15 1st August 2009, 12:37 AM

MP3 was playing part way and would cut out halfway through and skip to the end, then start next song and do the same. It didn't matter which player I used.
Followed the guide and it works great!

Many thanks.