OpenSUSE 11.4 Sound Crashing Every Day

English Multimedia
#1

OK, here we go. Updated last week from openSUSE 11.3 to 11.4 via upgrade process.

Everything is fine except that every day I wake up and sit down at the computer and go through my Twitter, RSS, etc., and end up going to YouTube or some other Web site to play something - and there’s no sound. Sometimes there’s also no sound in Kaffeine.

So the first time this happened, I did some research, downloaded the S.T.A.R.T. script (which includes running the alsa-info script), and ran it, capturing all the info and put it in a text file which you can see here:

Richard Hack Audio Specs - Pastebin.com

Running rcalsasound restart usually crashes the Flash Player in my Firefox 3.6.16. Reloading the page then restores the sound.

In one case, closing and restarting Kaffeine restored the sound.

But in every case, the next day, for three days now, as soon as I sit down at the computer, the sound is dead again.

Anyone got any ideas based on the info about my sound setup as shown in the Pastebin link?

#2

And here are my MMCheck script results:

Richard Hack MMCheck - Pastebin.com

Weirdly, it showed I didn’t HAVE flash-player installed! So I have installed it. I also removed the openJDK which was installed at one point really without my asking for it since I have regular Sun Java installed.

I do see some things missing in the MMCheck results - do I really need them? For example, I don’t use totem, do I really need to install it?

#3

If you use kde
Try unchecking PulseAudio in Yast > Hardware > Sound >other

#4

Why would I uncheck PulseAudio support?

#5

Could it be to see if makes any difference?

#6

Fine. I did that. No difference that I can see. Currently sound is working since my last restart of alsasound. If things go as they have been, sometime by tomorrow sound will be disabled again.

I should note that when this problem started, PulseAudio WAS disabled in Yast. I enabled it on advice from a post elsewhere. It made no difference.

Anyone have any real ideas - and reasons for their suggestions - other than disabling the main sound system? If PulseAudio is not needed, why is installed by default?

#7

If you try and play sound from 2 applications. Eg: let us say you are playing music in Amarok and browsing the web and decide to play a Youtube music video, this can screw up the audio.

Could this be what is happening?

#8

Well, is any of this helpful? Looking in the system log, I find these entries:

04/05/11 04:23:48 PM spectrum2 kernel [13538.906990] operapluginwrap[17831]: segfault at e9d6 ip 000000000000e9d6 sp 00007fff5bf56d78 error 14 in operapluginwrapper-native[400000+3b000]
04/05/11 04:23:48 PM spectrum2 kernel [13539.267101] operapluginwrap[18017]: segfault at e9d6 ip 000000000000e9d6 sp 00007fff943aeb28 error 14 in operapluginwrapper-native[400000+3b000]
04/05/11 04:24:07 PM spectrum2 kernel [13558.134844] operapluginwrap[18062] general protection ip:7f000f8d3bd7 sp:7fff0fe31170 error:0 in libflashplayer.so[7f000f808000+9be000]

04/05/11 04:38:35 PM spectrum2 smartd[3159] Device: /dev/sda [SAT], SMART Usage Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 113 to 114
04/05/11 04:51:49 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[4670] alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
04/05/11 04:51:49 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[4670] alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver ‘snd_hda_intel’. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
04/05/11 04:51:49 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[4670] alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set – however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.
04/05/11 04:52:18 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[4670] ratelimit.c: 14 events suppressed

04/05/11 05:23:30 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[25127] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:23:30 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[25128] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:23:30 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[25129] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:23:31 PM spectrum2 kernel [17122.606812] HDA Intel 0000:00:07.0: PCI INT A disabled
04/05/11 05:23:31 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[28530] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[28575] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17122.769853] HDA Intel 0000:00:07.0: PCI INT A → Link[AAZA] → GSI 21 (level, low) → IRQ 21
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17122.769858] hda_intel: Disable MSI for Nvidia chipset
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17122.769919] HDA Intel 0000:00:07.0: setting latency timer to 64
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[28577] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[28580] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113030] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1524: SKU: Nid=0x0 sku_cfg=0x00008321
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113035] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1526: SKU: port_connectivity=0x0
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113037] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1527: SKU: enable_pcbeep=0x1
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113040] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1528: SKU: check_sum=0x00000000
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113042] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1529: SKU: customization=0x00000000
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113044] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1530: SKU: external_amp=0x4
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113046] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1531: SKU: platform_type=0x0
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113048] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1532: SKU: swap=0x0
04/05/11 05:23:32 PM spectrum2 kernel [17123.113050] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1533: SKU: override=0x1
04/05/11 05:24:06 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[32033] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:24:06 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[32034] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:24:06 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[32035] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17158.772763] HDA Intel 0000:00:07.0: PCI INT A disabled
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[3043] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17158.896669] HDA Intel 0000:00:07.0: PCI INT A → Link[AAZA] → GSI 21 (level, low) → IRQ 21
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17158.896674] hda_intel: Disable MSI for Nvidia chipset
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17158.896745] HDA Intel 0000:00:07.0: setting latency timer to 64
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[3086] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[3089] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[3090] pid.c: Daemon already running.
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232062] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1524: SKU: Nid=0x0 sku_cfg=0x00008321
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232070] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1526: SKU: port_connectivity=0x0
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232076] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1527: SKU: enable_pcbeep=0x1
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232080] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1528: SKU: check_sum=0x00000000
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232084] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1529: SKU: customization=0x00000000
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232088] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1530: SKU: external_amp=0x4
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232092] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1531: SKU: platform_type=0x0
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232096] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1532: SKU: swap=0x0
04/05/11 05:24:08 PM spectrum2 kernel [17159.232100] ALSA patch_realtek.c:1533: SKU: override=0x1
04/05/11 06:38:31 PM spectrum2 rsyslogd – MARK –
04/05/11 06:52:16 PM spectrum2 pulseaudio[3043] alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy
04/05/11 06:53:45 PM pulseaudio[3043] last message repeated 5 times

This stuff was repeated on April 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 as I was having trouble with the sound and running the Start script multiple times.

I also got this one today:

04/09/11 06:19:45 PM spectrum2 kernel [366096.159448] pulseaudio[17574]: segfault at 7fcabb8b0080 ip 00007fcabb8b0080 sp 00007fff06bd2878 error 14 in pulse-shm-2246405270[7fcabbed6000+4001000]

I did a Google search on that and found in an Arch Linux forum a post saying the following:

"My problem, though, is that whenever I open pavucontrol and leave it open for a few seconds, the message “Connection failed: Connection Terminated” appears and PulseAudio segfaults. If I don’t open pavucontrol, everything works fine.
dmesg:

pulseaudio[26919]: segfault at 7fdceb0fb010 ip 00007fdceb0fb010 sp 00007fffee42af58 error 14 in pulse-shm-3705512939[7fdceb71a000+4001000]"

And just now I tried to run pavucontrol and got “connection failed: connection refused” - which is odd because I just ran it a little while ago and it ran fine.

More weirdness: I had exited Kmixer earlier. I just restarted it - and I have completely different mixer control layout! It’s showing controls for HDA NVidia. Presumably that comes from disabling the PulseAudio. Probably that’s why pavucontrol doesn’t work anymore - duh.

Let’s see what happens with the new HDA NVidia channel. Everything is running OK now. I’ll wait until tomorrow and see if anything comes crashing down.

#9

If you try and play sound from 2 applications. Eg: let us say you are playing music in Amarok and browsing the web and decide to play a Youtube music video, this can screw up the audio.
Could this be what is happening?

Very possibly because I do that - that is, I’m not trying to run two things soundwise at once, but I may play a music video or something on my machine, then go to Youtube as a result of seeing something on Twitter or my RSS feed that sends me there to play something. Which means Kaffeine is still open while I’m playing something with Flash on a site even though it’s not playing anything at the same time. And I have had the suspicion that either the flash player was screwing up, or Kaffeine (my usual media player) was screwing up. I know when I restart alsasound the flash player crashes instantly and I have to reload the page. And in one case, exiting and restarting Kaffeine restarted the sound.

#10

Yes pavucontrol will not work with PA disabled.
You need to use kmix only.

However it may be that you could use pavucontrol with PA in kde, you would just need to experiment carefully with audio playback, making sure not to run two devices simultaneously.

I have PA enable in kde but use kmix and sound is fine, but I am always careful not to use more than One application on audio.
I should add though, that most of the time, I am using Gnome (albeit a kde fan), but gnome is giving me better performance I’m afraid.

#11

I’ll leave things as they are for tonight and see if sound is still working tomorrow morning. If there are no further problems, I’ll just leave PulseAudio disabled - I really don’t care where I get my sound from as long as it’s working. But I think the openSUSE team needs to start looking into it as there seems to be a lot of people with PA problems posting here and elsewhere.

#12

On Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:36:02 +0000, richardstevenhack wrote:

> Everything is fine except that every day I wake up and sit down at the
> computer and go through my Twitter, RSS, etc., and end up going to
> YouTube or some other Web site to play something - and there’s no sound.
> Sometimes there’s also no sound in Kaffeine.

When YouTube and the like give me no sound, I kill npviewer.bin and then
reload. Also cures jittery video. Only a get-around and not a solution, I
admit.

–
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change boy to man
openSUSE 11.4; KDE 4.6.00; AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+;
Video: Radeon HD 2400 Pro; Sound: MCP61 HDA (nVidia); Wireless: BCM4318

#13

It doesn’t make sense having working pulseaudio a user to take care how many audio streams exists. In that case Pulseaudio is not necessary and we get back in the time of OSS.
I have always have one or the other trouble with Pulseaudio , but it improves with every next OpenSuse distro. Nevertheless I agree the OpenSuse team should take care about pulseaudio posts.
I have the next issue with PulseAudio - everything works fine Amarok, vlc and chrome and firefox all together and suddenly sound of Amarok disappears, turning it back doesn’t produce sound but grind. Then I turn off the Pulseaudio Manager and delete the process pulseaudio, sometime the pulseaudio reappears again immediately, sometimes I have to started with pulseaudio -D and have the sound normal again till next crashing.
I have installed Open SuSE 11.4 on four computers and on all of them have the same problem.
As far as I know pulseaudio re-encode every audio streams and it seems to me as sometimes something crushes the re-encoding process.

#14

Trouble seems to be with device detection and configuration.
Any upgrade destabilizes the system and it seems every time I look at Configure Desktop > Multimedia > Phonon I get a different set of options - which I must say don’t make that much sense to me.
Then if I look at PA Manager and trying to reconcile the two is not easy. Then look at the mixer - it’s impossible to understand what’s going on.
BTW if you open up the mixer and Yast Sound > Volume for the same device they read differently until you alter one of the sliders in Yast - then the mixer will move.
Sorry to say it seems a mess to me, so I’ve abandoned it and removed pulseaudio through Yast - and Yast does a good job of removing everything else associated with pulseaudio.
Now I can manage the hardware through Configure Desktop > Multimedia > Phonon - seems to work reliably.
I am forced to ask what problem Pulseaudio is supposed to solve; that’s not a sarcastic comment - I would like to know please.

#15

I logged off and shutdown a week ago. Left town. Just booted and no sound. Nothing changed that I know of for weeks. It has always worked fine. Now nothing. pid.c: Daemon already running. over and over. I can stop it, and start it and it says “done”. ??
[22448.923493] input: HDA Intel Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input7
ratelimit.c: 23 events suppressed
[22445.265952] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A disabled

Any ideas? Wonder if this is related to the other. I tried it as root, and I tried it as Gnome and still nothing.

#16

Try this

su -
rcalsasound restart
#17

Any chance that someone who was cleaning knocked the cables lose ? (its happened to me).

Just before you logged off and shut down did you do an update ? You can check by the command:


rpm -qa --last | less

and scroll to the date(s) when you last had the PC powered and look for the updates.

We have a stickie which notes the information best provided where there are such audio problems: Welcome to multimedia sub-area (follow the guidance in the quoted part in the stickie)