Bug 56893 - Distortion when kaffeine is playing
Summary: Distortion when kaffeine is playing
Status: RESOLVED MOVED
Alias: None
Product: PulseAudio
Classification: Unclassified
Component: core (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium critical
Assignee: pulseaudio-bugs
QA Contact: pulseaudio-bugs
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-11-08 22:22 UTC by Frederik Himpe
Modified: 2018-07-30 10:32 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:


Attachments
pulseaudio log (499.01 KB, text/plain)
2012-11-08 22:22 UTC, Frederik Himpe
Details
Recording of distorted sound (167.96 KB, video/3gpp)
2012-11-08 22:23 UTC, Frederik Himpe
Details

Description Frederik Himpe 2012-11-08 22:22:09 UTC
Created attachment 69776 [details]
pulseaudio log

Quite often, sound suddenly starts to become totally distorted on my system. This happens quite often (but not always) when I'm watching DVB-T television with Kaffeine and pidgin IM client plays a notification sound for an incoming message.

The attached log contains a complete pulseaudio session where this bug is occuring. In the beginning kaffeine is playing fine, but near then suddenly the sound becomes distorted, and then I shut down pulseaudio.

I also attach a recording of the distorted sound coming through the speakers, made with my phone.
Comment 1 Frederik Himpe 2012-11-08 22:23:29 UTC
Created attachment 69777 [details]
Recording of distorted sound
Comment 2 Tanu Kaskinen 2012-11-09 09:12:24 UTC
Unfortunately, I don't think I can help much with fixing this issue. There are no errors in the log, and I think this sort of distortion tends to be a bug in the alsa driver. You can try sending a mail to the alsa-devel mailing list describing the problem. Referring to the recording is a good idea, and the alsa guys will want the output from this script: http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh

As a band-aid, when the problem occurs, you can run "pavucontrol -- true". That will make pulseaudio close and reopen all alsa devices, which often sufficiently resets things so that the distortion disappears.

Question to David (added to cc): do you see this sort of bugs a lot in your alsa work? Do these bugs generally get fixed?
Comment 3 David Henningsson 2012-11-09 09:20:53 UTC
With distorted sound, rewind related it seems like, I usually start by recommending this: 

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/PositionReporting
Comment 4 Frederik Himpe 2012-11-21 18:26:40 UTC
pavucontrol -- true does not help.

I now had this problem with the native Spotify Linux client. Pausing Spotify and then resuming play in the Spotify client, brings back normal sound.

When I move the distorted Spotify audio stream to another audio card (ATI HDMI output), and then switch it back to the Built-in Audio Analog Surround 5.1 sound card, the distortion continues.

However, when changing the default audio output device with GNOME 3 sound settings, and switching it back, the sound also starts working fine.

alsa-info.sh output: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=8654c005882a529296837a408ae98eb1741d0baf
Comment 5 Tanu Kaskinen 2012-11-22 22:33:20 UTC
Did you try the position_fix thing that was mentioned on the page that David linked to?
Comment 6 GitLab Migration User 2018-07-30 10:32:47 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/issues/498.


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