[pulseaudio-discuss] Various pulse issues on F11

[Richard Shaw]

Ok, recently updated to F11 and now I'm having a few pulseaudio
issues. I've gotten several error messages but I'm not always sure
what specific actions cause them but I'll do my best to explain them.

#1 When adjusting the volume from the Output Devices tab of
pavucontrol (0.9.8) I get the following error "Connection failed:
Connection terminated"

#2 Unreliable audio from flash video. The default gnome volume control
app has no effect on volume (from the panel). Volume control sliders
from inside the Sound Preferences does work but break audio. After
that I have to log out and log back in to get audio. (Maybe same as #1
but the panel app doesn't show errors?)

#3 Probably related to #1 but the tabs inside the panel app are often
very unresponsive and it can take a few seconds to change between
tabs. volume sliders are can also be sluggish.

#4 Rhythembox: glitchy audio. Panel volume control has no effect.
Probably the same as #1

That's all I can think of right now. Some specs, logs, etc, below.

Hardware:
AMD X2 2.7GHz on AMD 770 MB.

lspci -v output for audio:
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
	Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device a022
	Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
	Memory at fe024000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
	Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

grep pulseaudio from /var/log/messages: (to long to post but interesting bits)
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_delay()
returned a value that is exceptionally large: 6377097072352565504
bytes (326791786697 ms).
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: Most likely this
is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_hda_intel'. Please report this issue
to the ALSA developers.
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_dump():
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: Soft volume PCM
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: Control: PCM
Playback Volume
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: min_dB: -51
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: max_dB: 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: resolution: 256
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: Its setup is:
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   stream       : CAPTURE
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   access       :
MMAP_INTERLEAVED
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   format       : S16_LE
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   subformat    : STD
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   channels     : 2
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   rate         : 44100
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   exact rate   :
44100 (44100/1)
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   msbits       : 16
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   buffer_size  : 88192
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_size  : 44096
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_time  : 999909
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   tstamp_mode  : ENABLE
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_step  : 1
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   avail_min    : 44096
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_event : 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   start_threshold  : -1
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   stop_threshold
  : 6205960286516543488
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   silence_threshold: 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   silence_size : 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   boundary     :
6205960286516543488
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: Slave: Hardware
PCM card 0 'HDA ATI SB' device 0 subdevice 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c: Its setup is:
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   stream       : CAPTURE
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   access       :
MMAP_INTERLEAVED
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   format       : S16_LE
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   subformat    : STD
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   channels     : 2
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   rate         : 44100
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   exact rate   :
44100 (44100/1)
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   msbits       : 16
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   buffer_size  : 88192
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_size  : 44096
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_time  : 999909
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   tstamp_mode  : ENABLE
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_step  : 1
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   avail_min    : 44096
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   period_event : 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   start_threshold  : -1
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   stop_threshold
  : 6205960286516543488
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   silence_threshold: 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   silence_size : 0
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   boundary     :
6205960286516543488
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   appl_ptr     : 1014208
Jul  3 07:42:47 hobbes pulseaudio[2922]: alsa-util.c:   hw_ptr       : 0

This looks like the runaway latency issue I've read about on this list
but I had no issues on F10 on the same hardware. Is this a regression
in alsa? I haven't checked but I assume the alsa under F11 is newer
than what's user F10...

Thanks,
Richard