An update: I have changed sound cards. The problems with Pulse remain; these problems are not specific to the SB 5.1.
-- Sent from my Android-powered G2. On Nov 7, 2010 8:35 PM, "Raymond" <406...@bugs.launchpad.net> wrote: > did your PA server log contain the error message when select 5.1 profile > as in Bug #455779 > > I: alsa-sink.c: Starting playback. > I: (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed > > -- > 5.1 on SB Live! 5.1 [SB0060] is very unreliable > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/406582 > You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber > of the bug. > > Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed > > Bug description: > Binary package hint: pulseaudio > > I don't know if this is actually a PulseAudio bug or a bug in some lower-level like ALSA; it seems like it's PulseAudio only because sometimes restarting it makes it work for longer or restore sound at all (more below). > > I have a SB Live! 5.1 (see /proc/asound/cards just below this ¶), which works mostly okay in Jaunty but now is exceedingly unreliable in Karmic. In Jaunty, I just told PulseAudio that it had 6 channels to output and set the mixer controls on the ALSA mixer so that I had sound coming out of all the speakers in a configuration that I liked. > > 0 [Live ]: EMU10K1 - SB Live! 5.1 [SB0060] > SB Live! 5.1 [SB0060] (rev.7, serial:0x80611102) at 0xdc00, irq 19 > > I was very happy to see the ability to just select "Output Analog Surround 5.1" as an option. This is what I did in my (fresh) Karmic install (the full profile name is "Output Analog Surround 5.1 + Input Analog Stereo"). Now, this unreliability manifests in different, multiple ways. I don't know if this should be broke out into separate bugs, but if so, please feel free to do so: > > * If the profile is switched while sound is playing, sound may stop playing at all until PulseAudio is restarted (I did this by running "pulseaudio -k" at the terminal; PA started right back up on its own after I did that). > * 5.1 only actually works when the profile is switched while sound is playing, until the next skip in sound (this is independent of the program sending audio; verified with Banshee and mpg321). This is easily reproduceable with the new control panel widget and mpg321: Start to play a song, switch the profile to 5.1. It sounds great. Send SIGINT (Ctrl+C) to mpg321, and start to play the same song with it again. It seems to revert back to regular stereo, after a few messages about ALSA underruns. Sometimes, you can get the ALSA underrun message _while_ mpg321 is playing, after setting to 5.1: once it hits those underruns, you're back to stereo. > > While it reverts back to stereo in reality, the sound preferences panel will still say that it's outputting 5.1 surround sound audio. To bring 5.1 back, one much switch to a different profile and back to 5.1 while the sound is still playing. > > There are no messages in the kernel ring buffer which indicate any audio issues at the driver level; the only visible diagnostic is getting this message while playing mpg321 music (and once the first one is emitted, it's back to stereo): > > m...@zest:~/Music/M$ mpg123 MIA\ -\ Paper\ Planes.mp3 > High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layer 1, 2, and 3. > Version 0.59q (2002/03/23). Written and copyrights by Joe Drew. > Uses code from various people. See 'README' for more! > THIS SOFTWARE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! > Title : Paper Planes Artist: M.I.A. > Album : Paper Planes - Homeland Securi Year : 2008 > Comment: XL Genre : > > Playing MPEG stream from MIA - Paper Planes.mp3 ... > MPEG 1.0 layer III, 320 kbit/s, 44100 Hz joint-stereo > ALSA: underrun, at least 0ms. > ALSA: underrun, at least 0ms. > > Every time an underrun occurs, the song skips by some small amount of time. If you see 30 or so of those messages, a good chunk (maybe 10-20 seconds?) is skipped in the song. In short, when the sound works properly, it's *really* good. After a skip, it's *really* bad. > > To unsubscribe from this bug, go to: > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/406582/+subscribe -- 5.1 on SB Live! 5.1 [SB0060] is very unreliable https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/406582 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
