#1 2016-04-03 14:05:45

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

[SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

Hey guys,

I'm pretty clueless with how to troubleshoot audio weirdness. There are so many different audio standards I am not sure where to begin. I prefer to use pulseaudio as an abstraction layer because it's worked well for me in the past with everything I've used (and alsa was a bit problematic). Here's the issue:

Periodically there is simply no sound. Youtube videos no longer work. Changing the volume no longer works with volti. Pavucontrol says it can't connect to the audio server. Interestingly enough mpd works (need to confirm this, don't take it as 100% accurate!). When I open vlc and load a test mp4 it says it can't connect to the audio device [default].

The simple fix for this is to open a terminal and

pulseaudio --kill
pulseaudio --start

I'd rather not have to do this. Anyone have any suggestions what I should begin investigating?

Last edited by cloverskull (2016-04-04 18:18:29)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

Website

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

troubleshoot audio weirdness

Can we see the output of:

aplay -l
cat /proc/asound/cards
lspci -knn|grep -iA2 audio

When an offending application is running and muted, what does this say:

pacmd list-sink-inputs

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pu … leshooting

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cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

`aplay -l`

ryan@razer:~/Downloads$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

`cat /proc/asound/cards`

ryan@razer:~/Downloads$ cat /proc/asound/cards 
 0 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI
                      HDA Intel HDMI at 0xf7914000 irq 33
 1 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                      HDA Intel PCH at 0xf7910000 irq 30

I owe you answers on the other stuff

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

And pacmd list-sink-inputs:

ryan@razer:~$ pacmd list-sink-inputs 
0 sink input(s) available.

lspci -knn | grep audio

ryan@razer:~$ lspci -knn|grep -iA2 audio
00:03.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller [8086:0c0c] (rev 06)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller [8086:0c0c]
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
--
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller [8086:8c20] (rev 05)
	Subsystem: Razer USA Ltd. 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller [1a58:674b]
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

Last edited by cloverskull (2016-04-03 18:35:40)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

Website

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

And pacmd list-sink-inputs:

ryan@razer:~$ pacmd list-sink-inputs 
0 sink input(s) available.

Is this with an application attempting to play sound but with no sound exiting the speakers?

That output occurs in my BL system if no audio is being played.

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Para todos todo, para nosotros nada

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

And pacmd list-sink-inputs:

ryan@razer:~$ pacmd list-sink-inputs 
0 sink input(s) available.

Is this with an application attempting to play sound but with no sound exiting the speakers?

That output occurs in my BL system if no audio is being played.

Yep. Suddenly there was no audio. Launched chromium and hit youtube; nothing. Launched vlc and it said it couldn't connect to the audio server. Something screwy with pulse methinks...but how to troubleshoot?

Thanks!

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

Website

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

how to troubleshoot?

See the link I provided in my first post for PA troubleshooting.

I don't use PA myself so I would just be copypasting from there anyway

You could check the systemd journal:

sudo journalctl

See https://www.digitalocean.com/community/ … stemd-logs for usage tips.

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Para todos todo, para nosotros nada

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

Thanks @HOAS. I'm doing a dist-upgrade today and noticed there is a lot of pulseaudio stuff in there. No issues in apt-listbugs so hopefully they sussed this thing out behind the scenes and I just didn't come across any bug reports suggesting their work in progress. Hopefully there'll be some stability and I can mark this thread as solved shortly.

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

Looks like this is a pretty common issue with no resolution. I've found reports of it going back to 2008. It could be any number of reasons. The typical response is "pulseaudio sucks, just use alsa." I'd rather maintain an abstraction layer so my hardware doesn't get tied up by one application, but meh...maybe I'll just bind a hotkey to kill and restart pulse when it acts up. I'd really prefer to resolve this somehow but I'm at a loss.

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2015-10-01

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

...and I think I may have figured it out. It kept throwing shm errors. I made a ~/.pulse/daemon.conf

enable-shm = no

Restarted pule with `pulseaudio --kill && pulseaudio --start` and so far...so good.

-- edit --

Looks like we're in the clear. Marking as solved.

Last edited by cloverskull (2016-04-04 18:18:13)

tknomanzr

BL Die Hard

From: Around the Bend

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 1,057

Re: [SOLVED] pulseaudio weirdness in bunsid

PA in sid has been having some issues for sure. And when it comes up it blames alsa lol. Perhaps I should rephrase the statement then: PA or Alsa, one, has been having some issues in Sid. When PA crashes it invariably blames Alsa in my journalctl log files.

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