[pulseaudio-discuss] playback from loopback over network fades, dies every few minutes and then comes back

[Georg Chini]

On 15.06.2015 05:54, Nick wrote:
> On 06/14/2015 12:03 PM, Georg Chini wrote:
>> On 14.06.2015 18:54, Nick wrote:
>>> Greetings PulseAudio folks:
>>>
>>> I'm trying to pipe audio between an amateur radio (basically a USB sound
>>> card) hooked to a Raspberry Pi and my laptop over a local network. I've
>>> built PulseAudio 6 on a Raspberry Pi B+ and set up module-tunnel-sink
>>> and module-tunnel-source, and that's all functioning. I can record audio
>>> on my laptop and it seems to work well. However, I need to be able to
>>> monitor the sounds coming out of the radio live, so I set up a
>>> module-loopback with the source set to the USB sound card on the RPi.
>>>
>>> Here are the relevant bits in my system.pa config file:
>>>
>>> load-module module-tunnel-sink server=laptop sink_name=xps rate=11025
>>> load-module module-tunnel-source server=laptop source_name=xpss
>>> rate=11025
>>> load-module module-loopback
>>> source=TI_USB_Audio_CODEC-00-CODEC.analog-stereo latency_msec=100
>>> rate=11025
>>>
>>> I've downsampled because I'm trying to minimize bandwidth and don't need
>>> hi-fi audio (after all, it's a ham radio). This works, but only for a
>>> few minutes. Then, the audio from the loopback becomes choppy and
>>> eventually fades out completely. It sits silently for about a minute
>>> (sometimes more) and then comes back in full quality. A minute or so
>>> later, the process repeats.
>>>
>>> Some interesting tidbits:
>>> 1) Only the loopback fades. If I'm recording in an application on the
>>> laptop from the networked tunnel source directly, it holds the signal
>>> nicely the whole time (even during the fadeouts).
>>> 2) If I connect to my local network over a VPN, the loopback fading does
>>> not occur at all.
>>> 3) The fading happens both on wifi connections and on hard-wired ones.
>>> 4) If I change the target of the loopback in pavucontrol's Playback tab
>>> to something else and then back to my laptop speakers, it often stops a
>>> fadeout and comes back strong for a minute or so (and then fades out
>>> again).
>>> 5) The fading occurs both with the downsampled rate set on the loopback
>>> and with the default.
>>> 6) This happens on multiple remix methods, including the default and
>>> trivial.
>>> 7) This happens on both the Raspberry Pi B+ and on the Raspberry Pi 2.
>>> CPU on the RPi2 is at about 20%.
>>> 8) The client (my laptop) has PulseAudio 4.0, not 6.0 like the server.
>>>
>>> I've uploaded a recording of the fading phenomenon that you can listen
>>> to here: http://partofthething.com/upload/pulseaudio-fadeout.mp3
>>>
>>> I'm not sure what to do to continue debugging. Any suggestions?
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> -Nick
>>>
>> Hello Nick,
>>
>> can you send some debug output from your pulseaudio session? It
>> might help to identify the problem. module-loopback should provide
>> a state update each adjust_time.
>>
>
> I: [pulseaudio] module-tunnel.c: Server signalled buffer overrun/underrun.
> D: [pulseaudio] module-tunnel.c: Server reports playback started.
> I: [pulseaudio] module-tunnel.c: Server signalled buffer overrun/underrun.
> D: [pulseaudio] module-tunnel.c: Server reports playback started.
> I: [pulseaudio] module-tunnel.c: Server signalled buffer overrun/underrun.
> D: [pulseaudio] module-tunnel.c: Server reports playback started.
> D: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Loopback overall latency is 218.50 ms
> + 254.51 ms + 0.40 ms = 473.41 ms
> D: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Should buffer 0 bytes, buffered at
> minimum 808 bytes
> D: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: [xps] Updated sampling rate to 11045 Hz.
>
> Let me know if there's more info that might help. Many thanks!
> Best,
> -Nick
>

The lines coming from module-loopback look OK.
It might be an issue with module-loopback changing the sample rate
of the sink-input. Can you try and run it with adjust_time=0 to avoid
latency adjustments?

Do you get the messages from the tunnel sink also when you are
only recording? Did you test out module-tunnel-sink-new if it makes
a difference?

Regards
              Georg