Highpitched rattling like sound with 5.1 surround configuration

Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: chukysoria 2088 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: chukysoria 2088 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xefffc000 irq 21'
   Mixer name : 'SigmaTel STAC9200'
   Components : 'HDA:83847690,102801cd,00102201 HDA:14f12bfa,14f100c3,00090000'
   Controls : 13
   Simple ctrls : 7
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'PSC805'/'Philips Electronics Philips PSC805 at usb-0000:00:1d.2-1, full speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB0471:0155'
   Controls : 4
   Simple ctrls : 1
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu2
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=es_ES.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.47-generic
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare vboxusers

Also affects me.

Previously with Jaunty audio was working perfectly. After update to Karmic (in Alpha 5) I haven't been able to use the USB external sound card which is 5.1 surround. A really loud noise makes it unusable, however you can hear in some way the correct sound is playing.

I have attached the apport data if useful.

This must be a regression issue.

Luke, I know there is a team to assign sound bugs to, but I forget what the team is ... please reassign as appropriate.

Hmm. I seem to have this issue, too. But I have a Soundblaster Live 5.1 card. And it seems to have regressed. If I don't remember wrong, Karmic Beta was totally fine. Thus it must have regressed with some of the recent upgrades...

It seems to be getting worse for me. At first it was only slight but now
it's utterly unlistenable.
2009/10/17 amano <email address hidden>

> Hmm. I seem to have this issue, too. But I have a Soundblaster Live 5.1
> card. And it seems to have regressed. If I don't remember wrong, Karmic
> Beta was totally fine. Thus it must have regressed with some of the
> recent upgrades...
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

I also get this. I have a Creative X-Fi card. Stereo works fine, 7.1 works fine, but 5.1 (which is what I would like to use) has this sound. It gets worse as you move the sliders for panning and fading.

I have the same problem, Soundblaster live 5.1 Using 5.1 analog outputs.

I've done a bit of experimentation to see if I would be able to narrow down or fix the issue.

As suggested in the thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1276999 i changed the following.

Quote:

"Check in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and try uncommenting the line
enable-remixing=yes

You can also try changing the default sample rate from 44100 to 48000, some cards are only capable of 48000.

You can also try changing the default-fragments and increasing the default-fragment-size but that is usally necessary only if the sound is suttering.

You can read about these settings by typing in a terminal"

I also removed Pulseaudio the sound quality seemed to improve greatly, but only 2.0. I also attempted to build the latest Pulseaudio from source, but ran into dependency problems and have since abandoned the attempt.

I also have this problem. Im using Karmic amd64 with an OnBoard HDA Nvidia Soundcard. I tried what Mike supposed, but nothing helped.

I've tried editing /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, nothing I did seemed to work, but I found out I can set it to 4.0 surround without the sound screwing up, but as soon as I go to 4.1, 5.0, or 5.1 the sound becomes corrupt

Would you please attach separately the outputs from 'amixer' in a
Terminal after you set the profile to 4.0 surround and again after you
set the profile to each of 4.1, 5.0, and 5.1 surround?

While doing this I noticed 5.0 sounds worse than 5.1

I also have this problem.
In fact I had it with karmic alpha 5 (amd64 ) and it was fixed by maybe beta 1 but it returns a few days ago.
I have the high pitched sound for 5.1 but also bad sound for 4.0 and even 2.0 give me some crackling sounds
and when numerous sound are played the become awful. I try playing warzone 2100 and when all my units were firing
the sound was crazy and eventually crashed.
My card is a sound blaster audigy 4 recognized as a Creative Labs SB0400 Audigy2 Value.
I tried some change to the daemon conf without any result.

I reported a similar bug about my Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook. So maybe my report is a duplicate of this one. Members from the Gnome channel on freenode told me to make a bug report. Here is it:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-lib/+bug/462283

But the "AnalogMix" problem seems to be another problem.

I am using a MacBook 4,1 (aka MacBook Early 2008?). The daemon.conf suggestions don't have any effect. Also, there is only the Master slider in alsamixer output. The "speaker-test -c6" gives six channels, with front and rear, left and right, and center checking out OK (using the left and right speakers in different combos and volumes). However, it does not activate the LFE speaker under the keyboard (or so I have heard that's where it is).

However, gamix fixes the problem if the LFE button is toggled off and on. This seems to work fine, at least for a while. At some point, the audio becomes unstable, which may have been a problem with messing around with daemon.conf. Now that it is set to default, I can report later if instability arises again. For now, gamix appears to fix the LFE. I don't know why.

@mdgill Is this using "speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6"? (Please
note that the -Dplug:surround51 is *vital* for debugging.)

Using "speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6", only the front-left and front-right produces a sound. There are only 3 speakers on a MacBook 4,1, so this looks like a much better test. So, the LFE does seem to work using gamix, but definitely does not with "speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6".

Looks like a codec routing issue, then, because plug:surround51
definitely should do the right thing...

Updating my first post, the audio still becomes unstable after 20-30 minutes, at least when using Banshee with the LFE turned on using gamix. The bass end becomes very distorted in the LFE, and also in what bass comes through the left/right-front speakers.

I have this problem too. I normally listen to my music from Spotify, and I can't hear a thing because there is so much rattling! It worked fine in Jaunty, and I use the intergrated sound card.

Hi,

I have just installed the following package:

linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic

After installing and rebooting the problem has dissapeared and now worked flawlessly.

Installing linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic did not solve the problem for me.

Installing linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic fixed the high pitched problem. But If I set the Profile to 5.1 there is no sound coming from either centre channel or boss.
Didn't have any problem like this with jaunty.
I am sorry, what the f**k is going on in there? does anyone even test this OS before releasing it? every time I install new ubuntu version there is something wrong with it. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/351186
I will try opensuse as soon as it comes out but I don't think it would be any better.

Ubuntu 9.10 using default kernel
Asus P5QL Pro with Onboard realtek
ATI 3650 HD using fglrx driver
Creative surround 5.1 speakers

Installing linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic-pae, restarting alsa-utils and killing pulseaudio fixed the 5.1 problem for me. I got the center channel working by unmuting it from alsamixer.

Kernel: 2.6.31-14-generic-pae #48-Ubuntu SMP
Sound card: Creative X-Fi

Also affects me. The funny thing is: It never did for a week until now. I changed nothing big in configuration, and now I have that noise every time.

Also, installing any linux-backports-modules does not solve this for me.

Oh, it was linux-backports-modules-alsa-2.6.31-14-generic-pae.

Same problem here, with an HDA nVidia card (snd_hda_intel)

To me, the problem first occours when I modify the volume via the panel applet.

Also, I noticed that the pitch noise seems variate in strength at dfferent volume values.

Tried linux-backports-modules-alsa-2.6.31-15.50 but same problem.
I'll try to boot in 2.6.31-14 and see if problem occours

See: PULSE_NO_SIMD=1

I tried

deleting /home/.../.pulse folder
killall pulseaudio && PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 pulseaudio

and it seems to work fine.
Reading around seems a problem have been spotted in the mmx optimized volume code, isn't it ?

So next question now:
how do I spawn PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 pulseaudio automatically at boot, till a proper fix comes out ?

Either adjust /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 and/or export the variable
in the conffile of your login shell of choice, e.g., ~/.bashrc .

Problem seems to be mostly gone with PULSE_NO_SIMD set. But I still occasionally hear it when a specific sound is especially loud, or when I move the balance full to the front or back satellites through sound settings.

Adding PULSE_NO_SIMD to /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 seems to work for me too. I am using the alsa backports.

Adding PULSE_NO_SIMD does not fix this for me.

@Graham

You can't use PULSE_NO_SIMD as an empty environment variable. You need
to export it with a non-empty string, e.g.,

export PULSE_NO_SIMD=1

After some time of using PULSE_NO_SIMD, I noticed the rattling is still there, only slightly less in volume. That's probably why I thought it was gone.

However, playing around with PULSE_NO_SIMD on and off, I found a new workaround that works perfectly here. PULSE_NO_SIMD is not involved, i.e. off now.

Instead,
- Log out of the system
- Switch to a console
- Log in
- Delete ~/.pulse
- Switch to GDM
- Log in
- Open audio settings, see that settings have been reset to "stereo" (this always happens when ~/.pulse is gone)
- Change to 5.1
- Try playing sound => Works perfect for me
- Touch any of the balance / subwoofer sliders in audio settings => rattling back again

Maybe some of the settings files get corrupted? I will try that next.

Okay, when the rattling is there, replacing .pulse with a backup also works.
However, assuming that the problem was in the config files is probably stupid, it's probably the config file setting that is somehow triggering the bug in the actual amplifier code or something...

Is this reproducible when using pavucontrol?

Yes, same with pavucontrol. However, it is most prominent up to about 13% volume, then gone (or really quiet) but getting louder with the volume starting at 14%. It's really as if the amplifier was overamplifying the sound.

Also, I believe this only happens when playing with the output controls... not with the playback controls in pavucontrol. I'll test.

Yes, does not happen with playback controls. Only output controls.

Actually, the workaround that works for me is BOTH remove .pulse folder AND use the PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 variable.
This way, problem doesn't come back and the high pitch seems really disappear.

I also found helpful a workaround to ignore dB in volume control, so when volume goes over 100% (absolutely crazy...) sound doesn't get distorted anymore.

Man, when I said "karmic is the easiest for sound so far" I was SO off...

Sorry for adding so many comments. I always find something else to try out.

The default setting in pavucontrol (that I get after deleting ~/.pulse) is 71% for the left/right front/back satellites, 63% for front and subwoofer. When unlocking the separate channels, driving one up to 100% (& getting noise) and resetting it back to the original 71%, the noise is still there.

I presume this symptom is reproducible with 0.9.20 from the
ubuntu-audio-dev PPA (or by using Lucid)?

I just realize that my problem comes from the fact my volume was set at 100%.
I set it at 80% and everything works fine and even if I reset it at 100% it still works (but maybe not after a reboot,
I haven't tried). Hope that helps.

I have this problem too, afer installing ubuntu 9.10,
i solved it a little by setting in alsamixergui the level of all to the same.
or if i change output to 4.0, then is no fluctiation, but i cant hear bass and one speaker

Now the annoying sound seems to be gone forever. Unfortunately nothing comes out of the subwoofer anymore. Here are my steps (all are already named here, but I'm summing up)

1) Install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic
2) Add "export PULSE_NO_SIMD=1" to /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11
3) Delete /home/USERNAME/.pulse
4) Restart (or killall pulseaudio && PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 pulseaudio)

Does anyone know something about the subwoofer problem? Everything's a bit lame without the bass.

@Ruben Grimm
See your 'amixer' output.

Now I set disable-lfe-remixing = true in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and the subwoofer also works. Everythings fine for me. Hope that helps anyone.

@Ruben
That parameter should not be valid for 0.9.19 or 0.9.20 -- in fact,
it's downright unnecessary, because the default is not to enable LFE
remixing:

; enable-lfe-remixing = no

Yeah sorry. I set enable-lfe-remixing = true

Everything different from Analog Stereo Duplex and Analog Stereo Output option in Pulseaudio settings affects my system too.
High-pitched and distorted sound effects coming from speakers or headphones, especially audible when I click on the top panel button (eg. console launcher icon, firefox launcher icon, etc. associated sound effects).

My config:
ALC888 (snd_hda_intel) and Karmic 64 bit with official repository kernel.

I'm having the sound issue's in Karmic as well.
Sound pops and cuts out while playing Warzone 2100, Glest, and my purchased copy of X3 Reunion.
Sound seems to work okay in other applications.
Sound Card Realtek ALC889A connected to my home receiver via Optical S/PDIF.

Tried turning off Power saving by editing /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N
Problem still continues.

Having this as well, however in previous versions I could not even enable 5.1 at all. So I guess I can live without being able to fade, though my front speakers are so much louder.

As long as all the faders are in the middle nothing goes wrong.

This bug has not been reported upstream, has it? Attaching a video to illustrate the problem. Will also attach a "good quality" sound recording of the problem so PA devs can hear what it sounds like.

This sound sample complements my previously attached video. It has a much better quality/dynamic range and illustrates the problem better for those who might need to hear what this sounds like.

I'm wondering if this is
http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/697
or http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/664
...or something else.

I had added a sound example in my bugreport (duplucate 462283).

http://launchpadlibrarian.net/34599780/audio%20control%20test.ogg (balance, front/rear, sub test with strange sound (431.1 KiB, application/ogg) )

"Here is a sound sample what happens when i use the "front/rear" control and so on. I recorded it with a microphone and Audacity. I played a track of free music on jamendo.

What i did:
balance right
balance left
front
rear
subwoofer maximum
subwoofer minimum"

I have this problem, too (reported in few bugs) along with my stuttering problem (which seems to be unsolvable unfortunately).
PULSE_NO_SIMD worked for me (except stuttering), but I think this is some kind of extra bug, since many bugs have been reported and no solution provided yet.

I fixed it by updating my Kernel to 2.6.32-020632-generic
Apparently there is something wrong with the Intel Realtek ALC889A sound Driver which is updated in the new kernel.
Follow these steps in order to update your Kernel.
Download the deb files here.
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.32/

you will need 3 packages from the kernel version that you choose (the final 2.6.32 kernel has the release date of 03-Dec-2009)....download:

1)linux-headers-2.6.32-020632_2.6.32-020632_all.deb
2)linux-headers-2.6.32-020632-generic_2.6.32-020632**either i386 or amd64**.deb ...depending on which architecture you are using
3)linux-image-2.6.32-020632-generic_2.6.32-020632**either i386 or amd64**.deb ...depending on which architecture you are using
Make sure you do this in the order listed and back up all your data. Only do this if you are so pissed about your sound not working your willing to risk crashing and re-installing your os!!!
Thanks to some one else for figuring this out I have since lost the link.
My sound is now working flawlessly but now my MCE remote doesn't work?? The LIRC remotes list has changed for some reason. Oh well my sound is definitely more important than the remote.

Thanks for the info cliff.

Sadly it didn't work on my system, although it didn't crash anything. ;)

Soundblaster Live 5.1
P4 2.4g

Cheers!

> My sound is now working flawlessly but now my MCE remote doesn't work?? The LIRC remotes list has changed for some reason. Oh well my sound is definitely more important than the remote.

You have to compile lirc for your new kernel.

This is how I do it. It isn't the best way but it works.

$ sudo apt-get build-dep lirc

Download these three files to a directory

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/lirc_0.8.6.orig.tar.gz
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/lirc_0.8.6-0ubuntu2.diff.gz
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/lirc_0.8.6-0ubuntu2.dsc

Then go into that directory and follow these instructions:

$ dpkg-source -x lirc_0.8.6-0ubuntu2.dsc
cd lirc-0.8.6/
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

Regards
Achim

After updating my kernel yesterday to 2.6.32 my machine would not boot today. I had even restarted it yesterday after the upgrade to be sure it was okay. It was nice having good sound for the day but now I had to boot into recovery mode 2.6.31 and go into synaptic package manager and uninstall the new kernel. So now I'm back to 2.6.31 and my sound is crackling and stopping once again. Arrrg.
Thanks Achim for the remote help.
I can not understand why the new kernel worked yesterday but not today? I even reinstalled it a few times just to double check.

I was just reading this Italian site http://guiodic.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/linux-2-6-32-per-ubuntu-karmic-koala-nel-guiodic-repository/
Translated to English in Google apparently the 2.6.32 Kernal does not work with ATI or Nvidia proprietary drivers unless you update to Nvidia 190.42. Don't know about ATI drivers as I have a Nvidia. I guess I will try that tomorrow.

Okay so I didn't wait until tomorrow. I did learn you can update your Nvidia driver just by adding this to your repository in Karmic.

Launch Terminal and copy and paste this in
 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nvidia-vdpau/ppa
Then I updated the Kernel via my previous instructions.
Then I had one reboot and PERFECT sound but then I restarted again and it would not boot until I went back to 2.6.31.
WHY???????????????
P.S. I know this is not the Ubuntu forums but this sound problem really sucks!

Heh, Cliff thanks for comprehensive info. Let me explain why.
The one and only reason, why Linux sucked, sucks and will be sucking is thing, that it is free (mostly). Try to compare functionality Windows vs. Linux. It's still amazing how many developers work hard for "community" for no money. There are also several distros of Linux what makes it more complicated to maintain.
Despite foregoing I use and will be using Linux. Its console is too powerful to give up (maybe I'll try Mac). So I sigh and go on without having 5.1 surround even I paid a lot to have this kind of convenience.

This isn't the appropriate place to be bashing on Linux, go to the forums for that if you feel it's necessary, please stick to the issue and give relevant information only.

> I presume this symptom is reproducible with 0.9.20 from the
> ubuntu-audio-dev PPA (or by using Lucid)?

Sorry for taking so long.

I installed pulseaudio 0.9.21-0ubuntu3~~karmic~ubuntuaudiodev1 (& deps) from the ubuntu-audio-dev PPA. No change, still hissing.

I just found this out from another site.

OpenAL bug in Ubuntu, to fix -

In your home directory

create a text file:

~/.alsoftrc

and add the entry:
[general]
drivers = oss

It fixed my sound problem but now programs and Ubuntu crash randomly.
So I deleted the new file. Back to crashing sound.

I hate to whine, but is anyone actually looking into this or has it been abandoned?

I'm currently running Jaunty and Karmic and I'd like to wipe one of them to free up the hard drive.

Cheers!

I think that it being confirmed and high means it's being looked into, I don't think we can expect developers to give weekly updates. My guess is a lot of time is being put into this issue

I hope so. We have such a crappy sound stack.

2010/1/2 Jmadero <email address hidden>

> I think that it being confirmed and high means it's being looked into, I
> don't think we can expect developers to give weekly updates. My guess is
> a lot of time is being put into this issue
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

I hope so. There was a major bug with the display of Mythtv in Jaunty that was never fixed.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/+source/mesa/+bug/341898

As a result, my HTPC hasn't been fully functional since Intrepid. I'm starting to wonder if the six month release cycle is becoming a little too rapid, or perhaps I should just stick to the LTS distro's

Cheers!

6 months is way short. It annoys me because by the time the planning and
summits and stuff are over they have less than 4 months until everything
must stop development and prepare for launch. It makes things really
inefficient. I mean really, is one year really that long? Or even a rolling
release like arch?

6 months just restricts everyone.

2010/1/3 Mike Williams <email address hidden>

> I hope so. There was a major bug with the display of Mythtv in Jaunty that
> was never fixed.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/+source/mesa/+bug/341898
>
> As a result, my HTPC hasn't been fully functional since Intrepid. I'm
> starting to wonder if the six month release cycle is becoming a little
> too rapid, or perhaps I should just stick to the LTS distro's
>
> Cheers!
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

I did a test installation of Karmic on another partition and added the Ubuntu Audio Dev team PPA to get a update to pulseaudio 0.9.21. I was curious if the problem is fixed in a newer version.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I added this line to /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to get my Subwoofer working with my Audigy 2 ZS.
disable-lfe-remixing = no

With this version the problems seem to be mostly gone... The highpitched sound comes up when I set the subwooferlevel in pulseaudio to minimum. But in general pulseaudio becomes usable for me. I dont know which sideeffects will come up with this dev version, but they cant be harder than this bug.

Adding
disable-lfe-remixing = no
fixes problem for me too on Karmic & pulseaudio 0.9.21-0ubuntu3~~karmic~ubuntuaudiodev1 & alsa-base 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu5

Before this I didn't hear anything from my subwoofer (LFE), like in 5.0 configuration. When I change pulseaudio to anything else (2.0) and back to 5.1, I head my LFE, but not so long, after some time it was turning off...

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Murz wrote:
> Adding
> disable-lfe-remixing = no
> fixes problem for me too on Karmic & pulseaudio

Unfortunately this approach can't be used by default (i.e., we can't
enable LFE remixing by default due to some very poor hardware in the
wild).

Thanks for the tip. I'll try it out on the weekend.

Cheers!

I tried the suggestions from Murz, but this only fixes my subwoofer, the noisy highpitched sounds come again when i move the soundslider a little bit up and down.

my current workaround is using gnome-alsamixer to move every slider to 100% except the master slider, this slider can be used to increase or decrease the volume. when using the pulseaudio slider, the sliders in alsamixer got moved in some directions and produce bad sound.

I experience the same problem.
Sound Blaster 5.1 SB0220

Works fine in stereo mode

I found a simple fix, but it won't stay if I reboot:

- Install gnome-alsamixer (not sure about the name)
- Barely slide the PCM slider in gnome-alsamixer

here's my complete story
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1377783

I reported this bug in October but mine got merged with this bug. I had initialy said it was the gnome volume control and not pulseaudio.

The fact that the noise was tied to the precise position on the volume slider, and the fact that the slider goes all the way to 150%(!) (reminds me of spinal tap, lol) led me to think that the bug was in the volume control.

Since then I got a new motherboard and fresh install w/Karmic:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller

I think it was an ICH9 before. Same problem. FYI I also had to comment out:
"options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N" in alsa-base.conf to stop the popping noise.

I have done the following things but all of them doesn't resolve the problem fully:
- options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N is commented out in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-conf
- pulseaudio-dev PPA didn't help so i reverted back to the original pulseaudio packages with apt pinning
- i installed kernel 2.6.32, that did not help so i reverted back to 2.6.31
- /etc/pulse/daemon.conf : uncommented the line enable-lfe-remixing=yes -> now the subwoofer is working again, but the high noise is not gone

Not sure what happened but now I have no sound until I go into sound Preferences and change from Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Analog Stereo Input to something else then back. If I leave it on Analog Stereo Output I get sound on startup but lots of popping. Its going out my digital fiber optic connection to my stereo. I'm not sure why it works on Analog at all??

Cliff, this is 5.1 bug. AFAIK optic connection is not possilbe at 5.1 (only stereo). Correct me, if I'm wrong.

Yes, its only possible to use 5.1 via analog connections at this time.

cccccccc wrote 2 hours ago: #98

Cliff, this is 5.1 bug. AFAIK optic connection is not possilbe at 5.1
(only stereo). Correct me, if I'm wrong.

I always have my sound card connected to my stereo via Fiber optic.
I thought that and Spdif connections are the only way to get 5.1?

But according to Luke Yelavich comment #99 its not 5.1. However I am still getting sound through my receiver with the optical connection. I have tried the other connections and they also have the same poor quality audio problem.

Yes, maybe you can move sound to all 5.1 but it won't be surround.
I am really concerned about by 5.1 Creative channels, costs me some money and 3 months no surround using Ubuntu. Maybe should rename this bug to "5.1 for sale":)

I have this with a creative xfi on 9.10 64bit. Killing the the .pulse dir resets the issue and I'm back to normal. However changing volume seems to be causing it for me. Including setting the volume to max (via the desktop slider).

I run at 5.1output with mono input. Previously to work around, one my audio was corrupted, I would change to 4.1 output and that would work until it got corrupted, then I'd change to something else. Once my audio is corrupted though it stays corrupted (in that config). I get the same rattle sound, although to me it sound more like high frequency aliasing. Like when you try and record a 22khz sound when your sample rate supports say only sound up 8khz. It sounds like artifacting. I did not have this issue in 9.04.

There may be an issue with the flash plug in corrupting my sound as well but I don't have a reproducible test case. Now that I can correct my 5.1 audio I should be able to add a test case. Thanks for all for looking into this.

I've got the same problem. Mysterious sounds when changing volume. I'm using 5.1 analog output on Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family). Rear channel doesn't work too.
I've tried to install some old PCI Creative sound card (SB0460 I guess), and as someone has already described, noise dissapears, if I set 7.1 output, but central speaker stops working - though rear works fine.
Unfortunatly, there are no 7.1 output for my current sound card, so for now I enjoing hissing.

UPD: Well, I mean hissing in 5.1. 4.1 works almost fine, but both without rear speakers.
I have to say "almost", because in addition to rear speakers, if I pull balance slider more then 1/2 from the middle possition then there is this hissing noise again.

Well its working now after I updated the Kernel to 2.6.32-020632-generic.
By following this human's tutorial with one twist.
http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/780-upgrade-your-kernel-the-safe-way-in-ubuntu-linuxmint
After I rebooted twice my system hung and would not go on. Despite much coaxing and swearing.
Then it dawned on me to boot with the Ubuntu CD and run Gparted. After I did a check on my boot drive things got much better.
I think my problem was a driver bug in the old Kernel?

Well I take it all back!
I was in the middle of a game of Glest when the sytem crashed and I was not able to boot into the new kernel even after trying booting off the Ubuntu CD and doing a Gparted check. I had to boot into 2.6.31 and remove 2.6.32 via Synaptic. Dang. That was really nice having decent sound for 30 min.

At least you bring some hope with kernel 2.6.32
thanks for the info, I feel less desperate now ;)

--- <email address hidden> wrote:

From: Cliff1000000 <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 445849] Re: Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic Koala
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:42:09 -0000

Well I take it all back!
I was in the middle of a game of Glest when the sytem crashed and I was not able to boot into the new kernel even after trying booting off the Ubuntu CD and doing a Gparted check. I had to boot into 2.6.31 and remove 2.6.32 via Synaptic. Dang. That was really nice having decent sound for 30 min.

--
Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic Koala
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of the bug.

Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed

Bug description:
Binary package hint: pulseaudio

I'm hearing a high pitched rattling sound when I have pulseaudio set to 5.1 surround
I set PulseAudio to 5.1 surround via the PulseAudio Volume Manager under the Configuration Tab
I'm running the Karmic Koala beta with all the newest Updates
I have a 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller

I've tried other settings under the Configuration Tab, Analog Stereo seems to work perfectly but I have a 5.1 Surround Speaker Setup.

This problem seems to get worse as I increase the volume through pulseaudio, if I change the volume of a individual channel it gets almost impossible to listen to anything, all I can hear is a high pitched rattling like sound. However if I set the volume of channels individually through 'alsamixer' it doesn't screw up at all.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: chris 2096 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c: chris 2096 F...m pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: chris 2096 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf9ff8000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC1200'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,104382fe,00100101'
   Controls : 40
   Simple ctrls : 22
Date: Wed Oct 7 18:01:59 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.18-0ubuntu3
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-pae i686

To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/445849/+subscribe

I thought I had this licked... but now it's returned.

Worse, the workaround above (export PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 and remove the ~/.pulse folder) now only reduces the problem, which now seems to worsen over time.

In addition, things that previously caused the problem to abate, like setting the levels in alsamixer, no longer work.

Have there been recent updates to the sound system in Karmic...?

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried playing with Lucid Lynx to see if this bug has been fixed?

I'm tempted to get a new HD for backups and jump in on the Alpha testing a little earlier this time. ; )

Yeah I tried Lucid a couple times. The problem was still there and it's actually gotten worse for me as I no longer even have options for 4.1 or above (5.1) with my USB sound card, before at least I could just turn it down to avoid the screetching, now those options are gone

I have lost all sound now. I'm unsure what happened. It seemed to happen between reboots so it's possible a patch caused it. I'm debating between doing a full install of 10.04 alpha 3 in a few days or installing 9.10 in my alt boot partition and then slowly adding patches up to current.

I suspect I have now tinkered with enough stuff trying to restore sound that going forward is no longer viable in trying to help with a common fix. Ugh.

Yeah, lucid has made the problem even worse if anything.

On 17 February 2010 03:26, Gus <email address hidden> wrote:

> I have lost all sound now. I'm unsure what happened. It seemed to happen
> between reboots so it's possible a patch caused it. I'm debating between
> doing a full install of 10.04 alpha 3 in a few days or installing 9.10
> in my alt boot partition and then slowly adding patches up to current.
>
> I suspect I have now tinkered with enough stuff trying to restore sound
> that going forward is no longer viable in trying to help with a common
> fix. Ugh.
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

Sorry should have added: I have lost all sound once the desktop is displayed. The ubu theme sound does not play. However the sound that plays for log in (squeek tick sound?) does play. So sound is working at some point.

Please ensure that you can reproduce the symptom under the following conditions:

1. You're using at least pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu11;
2. You aren't using flat-volumes (by default you aren't).

Next things to confirm if symptom is reproducible under (1) and (2):

3. export PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 has no discernible effect (killing and restarting PA is required);
4. enabling flat-volumes has no discernible effect.

I wasn't really able to test it, because g-v-c behaves quit unexpected. I have attached a Video where you can see what happens.

pulseaudio:
  Installed: 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu11
  Candidate: 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu11
  Version table:
 *** 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu11 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Regards
Achim

I was able to stop the ringing in my 5.1 setup by running alsamixer in terminal and pushing the volume on all channels to 100.
As soon as I fiddle with any volume controls in the Sound preferences window, the ringing starts again. I control volume on my speakers now and it does not ring at all.

There appear to be lots of different mixer configurations involved. For those of you who have had success with slightly adjusting the mixer controls using alsamixer, please attach *clearly labeled* files for these two conditions:

1. amixer from after adjusting controls so that the distortion is gone
2. amixer from after using the volume controls in Sound Preferences so that the distortion appears again

Note also that amixer and alsamixer are separate utilities. I'm asking specifically for 'amixer' output.

I'm sorry what file(s) do you need exactly? could you also tell the path to them?

Jerther, e.g.,

amixer > before.txt
amixer > after.txt

All this situation is, at the least, a bit demotivating... months have passed by and the bug is still here...

Today I've downloaded the first public beta of Lucid Lynx and after live booting the cd I've been welcomed at the desktop, with my delight, by exactly the same issue: setting my sound device to 5.1 speaker configuration lead to rattling sound issue from speaker.

After that I've decided to do the only logic thing I've should had done many months ago, that is completely remove Pulseaudio and come back to use ALSA instead.
Now my audio is good again, i've no more problem configuring my 5.1 speaker system and another couple of PA bugs are also gone with it.

I'm very sad about this situation...
I really can't catch how... how Ubuntu think itself as a viable alternative to commercial OS, I can't catch how Canonical hopes to play a reliable role in the market place with situation like this going on over months and release...

I do really hope things could change, but I'm afraid it's more than likely the next Ubuntu LTS will be out with this issue still affecting the system and goes on.

Daniel, here are the requested output files of amixer in various scenarios. I hope this helps more than the flamebaits/trolls.

It would be nice to have this fixed in lucid…

I wonder why i m reading about alsa, amixer here. This is a bug report about a pulseaudio bug and to turn off pulseaudio is no way to solve the problem. It is just a way to make the system usable again. I would like to help somehow, I m not a programmer, just a user. If you need some files or system specifications I would try to help.
I used Ubuntu from 6.06 to 8.10 but now i m a bit shocked and demotivated, I stopped to recommend Ubuntu to other persons.

Pulseaudio is just rubbish. Everything just works without it. They should
just remove it from the stock installation, surround sound would work as it
should if they did that.

On 23 March 2010 10:51, Jerther <email address hidden> wrote:

>
> ** Attachment added: "Daniel T Chen, here are the files you requested,
> properly named and with attached description. Hope this helps!!!"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/41663133/amixer%20before%20and%20after.zip
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

Okay, it's pretty clear what's happening now. The volumes are being merged thanks to the configuration in /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conf and /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output.conf, so a slight adjustment using gnome-media's mixer applet results in the render being "incorrect". However, from pulse's perspective, that's precisely what *should* happen, but we live in an imperfect world of imperfect (aka broken) hardware. So, let's recap:

1) There are a lot of different mixer configs here, because just about everyone reporting "me, too" has a different audio controller/codec combo. Hooray for complexity. :-(

2) We can't enable LFE remixing universally (by default) in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, because that will only work for *some* hardware. On other hardware, you'll potentially destroy it due to the physical wiring.

3) pulse doesn't yet handle the Creative LiveDrive controls properly (rather, at all; Jerther, I may need to add a separate mixer path file for this). There are a number of "Headphone XX" mirrors of the "XX" controls that need to be handled in addition to the "Wave XX" and "Sigmatel Surround" ones.

4) You *may* be able to work around this symptom by configuring one or both of the above files to have volume = ignore or volume = zero for the following elements: Rear, Surround, Side, Center, and LFE. The latter volume parameter is preferable, but I can't predict the precise results across such a dizzying array of hardware.

Thanks particularly to Jean-François Fortin Tam and Jerther for following through and for everyone's patience in helping resolve this symptom. (It's difficult to troubleshoot remotely when I don't have any such hardware locally and have heaps of real-life issues.)

My pleasure! If you need further help, just ask.

By the way, My hardware is a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 (SB0220) which is some kind of DELL OEM stuff. It's pretty common and the two I have here have been donated to me. You can have one on eBay for about 10$USD, shipped to your mailbox.

Mine is fixed! I upgraded to Lucid again last week and just did a test run, set my USB sound card to 5.1, cranked the volume all the way up and no screeching at all....I'm happy to say the least

I have SB Live 5.1. I use Lucid with latest updates. Adding this line:

enable-lfe-remixing = yes

to /etc/pulse/daemon.conf seems to have fixed the problem for me.
Thanks!

(lowering importance due to reports of workaround on *some* hardware, and 5.1 is not the default output configuration)

Problem is still there in lucid with latest updates on
Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
disable-lfe-remixing = yes
isn't help.
What I can try else?

I think I may have made some progress toward a working config that significantly reduces this issue in Lucid beta 2 (installed w/ alternate amd64 CD). I have the Intel HDAudio (ICH10) onboard audio chip (:~$ lspci | grep Audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller) and the following steps seem to have resulted in pretty decent 5.1 analog output in 10.04 amd64. I wouldn't say that its perfect but the artifacts I'm hearing may be from the media I'm testing with. You may be able to duplicate my results with the following steps:

1. Set profile to Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input (I haven't tested any audio input whatsoever) in Sound Preferences > Hardware tab

2. Adjust /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to appropriately reflect these values:
:~$ pulseaudio --dump-conf
### Read from configuration file: /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ###
daemonize = no
fail = yes
high-priority = yes
nice-level = -11
realtime-scheduling = yes
realtime-priority = 5
allow-module-loading = yes
allow-exit = yes
use-pid-file = yes
system-instance = no
cpu-limit = no
enable-shm = yes
flat-volumes = no
lock-memory = no
exit-idle-time = 20
scache-idle-time = 20
dl-search-path = /usr/lib/pulse-0.9.21/modules
default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa
load-default-script-file = yes
log-target = auto
log-level = notice
resample-method = speex-float-9
enable-remixing = yes
enable-lfe-remixing = yes
default-sample-format = s24le
default-sample-rate = 48000
default-sample-channels = 6
# This channel map seems to have been automatically applied after rebooting, my actual conf reads: "default-channel-map = front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right,center,LFE
default-channel-map = front-left,front-left-of-center,front-center,front-right,front-right-of-center,rear-center
default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 10
shm-size-bytes = 0
log-meta = no
log-time = no
log-backtrace = 0
rlimit-fsize = -1
rlimit-data = -1
rlimit-stack = -1
rlimit-core = -1
rlimit-rss = -1
rlimit-as = -1
rlimit-nproc = -1
rlimit-nofile = 256
rlimit-memlock = -1
rlimit-locks = -1
rlimit-sigpending = -1
rlimit-msgqueue = -1
rlimit-nice = 31
rlimit-rtprio = 9
rlimit-rttime = 1000000

3. make sure relavent volume controls in alsamixer are set to 100%

4. Reboot or otherwise bounce pulseaudio to apply the config.

Note: A lot of the problems discussed here still persist, namely:
1. Some crackling when moving volume sliders.
2. Balance, Fade, Subwoofer volume sliders in Sound preferences remain absolutely useless.
3. /var/log/messages gets entries like this:
"Apr 18 14:48:24 plug1 pulseaudio[2426]: ratelimit.c: 1493 events suppressed
Apr 18 14:48:29 plug1 pulseaudio[2426]: ratelimit.c: 1708 events suppressed
Apr 18 14:48:34 plug1 pulseaudio[2426]: ratelimit.c: 1829 events suppressed
Apr 18 14:48:39 plug1 pulseaudio[2426]: ratelimit.c: 1923 events suppressed
Apr 18 14:48:44 plug1 pulseaudio[2426]: ratelimit.c: 1844 events suppressed
Apr 18 14:48:49 plug1 pulseaudio[2426]: ratelimit.c: 1926 events suppressed"

I've attached a copy of my config from /etc/pulse/daemon.conf which contains some comments pasted from the man page you may find helpful.

To encourage d...

Sorry, I meant to include this URL to the forum thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9140938#post9140938

@Daniel T. Chen (comment #127, which was quite insightful): have you
discussed with upstream pulseaudio about this? We seem to know the
cause, and we know that it used to work fine in the past, so surely
there must be a solution the pulseaudio project could come up with?

I have asked for comments some time ago but have not heard back yet.

This still happens on Lucid for me, though not as bad as it used to be on 5.1 (still not worth having the extra speaker over the working 4.0). If you switch to 4.1 its just as bad.

>> Graham Clenaghan

excellent, do you wanna suggest, we have to wait another half year to hear 5+1 sound in ubuntu?
sounds good to me:(

This sucks so bad. I moved to arch on my main machine because of this bug.
(it doesn't push the rubbish that is pulse on you like ubuntu does).

Arch without pulse + 5.1 works perfectly right out of the box. I didn't have
to do a thing. No buzz, no stutter.

Pulseaudio is stupid, just get rid of it already.

On 1 May 2010 18:55, cccccccc <email address hidden> wrote:

> >> Graham Clenaghan
>
> excellent, do you wanna suggest, we have to wait another half year to hear
> 5+1 sound in ubuntu?
> sounds good to me:(
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

that's true. i've just installed new ubuntu 10 and problem still remains. interesting...
i would get rid of pulseaudio, but I've found out that gnome is so "connected" with pulseaudio, that it is impossible for me to use only alsa. since I'm connected with ubuntu, there is no hope... anybody wanna buy my 5+1 ?

Just change distro or something, this is insane.

Why are we focusing on bloody boot speed when we can't get audio working
even marginally decently? I don't get it.

On 2 May 2010 06:51, cccccccc <email address hidden> wrote:

> that's true. i've just installed new ubuntu 10 and problem still remains.
> interesting...
> i would get rid of pulseaudio, but I've found out that gnome is so
> "connected" with pulseaudio, that it is impossible for me to use only alsa.
> since I'm connected with ubuntu, there is no hope... anybody wanna buy my
> 5+1 ?
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

Daniel, thanks for everything.

Is there anything else we can do to help get this moved forward? Additional hardware profiles? I just did a fresh install of 10.04LTS 64 (with xfi audio). My sound started off muted. Unmuted and switched to 5.1 + mono in and had the same result.

Switching to 2ch and 1 mono in has restored sound for now.

Thanks again for sticking through this.
G

I finally get rid of this annoying sound problem!

After testing a LOT of different configurations, this is what it worked for me:
1) Set profile to Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input
2) Replace volume = merge with volume = ignore in *ALL* elements (including masters sections) of files analog-output-speaker.conf, analog-output.conf, analog-output-desktop-speaker.conf and EVEN in PCM section of analog-output.conf.common (all of them located in /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/).
3) enable-lfe-remixing = yes in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
4) Restart PulseAudio
5) Use alsamixer (or Gnome ALSA Mixer) to set desired volumes for Master, PCM, Front, Surround, Center and LFE.
5) That's it!

Btw, I'm using a Creative SBLive!(EMU10K1) with pulseaudio 0.9.21-63-gd3efa-dirty
Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 amd64, kernel 2.6.32-21-generic (recently upgraded from karmic 9.10).

I think this workaround *virtually* bypasses all PA controls (like balance, fade, subwoofer and also front, rear and center faders) but this is hardly a problem for me since the annoying rattling highpitched sound seems to be REALLY GONE FOR GOOD, and I can alternatively use alsamixer to set individual volumes for each channel if I wanted to, and PA volume control works like a big "MASTER" fader.

That been said, I noticed that Master and PCM controls are kind-of mixed up in alsamixer. Both faders seems to control the same source, but in some "strange" way (I think this has something to do with what Daniel said about the for-now-missing separate mixer path file).

First of all, Master is not *really* master, but more like a Front-Left+Front-Right stereo mix and, of course, the same happens with PCM. Then, if ONLY one of those faders are down, the ENTIRE FL+FR mix gets muted, but if both faders are up (to 100%, for example), the FL+FR mix gets amplified beyond the overall 5.1 mix (and not just (logically?) doubled, but more like it only gets a 30 to 50% boost).

In fact, keeping that in mind, I discovered that setting Front, Surround, Center and LFE to 100% in alsamixer and both Master and PCM close to 80%, gets me a pretty good balance between voice (center) and music/soundeffects in 5.1 movies (and also better overall sound for stereo music/sound files).

Well, thats all for now. I'm very happy with my "new" working 5.1 setup :)

Thanks to all *positive* comments from above that helps me A LOT. Hope this can help others and, of course, let me know if there's something else I can do...

The workaround described by Pebas seems to work for me as well. 5.1 works and I don't hear any strange noises. Only thing is that Banshee now fails to play some songs and hogs the CPU... However, Amarok seems to work fine so I can't tell whether this is really related to the workaround. I've got a Creative SB Audigy LS (CA0106).

This appears to remove the high pitch rattling for me, but it seems that it
bypasses PA not solve the internal problem. I am still for a solution that
allows PA to stay in place and work effectively thanks Pebas for your help
on this

Darrin

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:51 AM, JayK <email address hidden> wrote:

> The workaround described by Pebas seems to work for me as well. 5.1
> works and I don't hear any strange noises. Only thing is that Banshee
> now fails to play some songs and hogs the CPU... However, Amarok seems
> to work fine so I can't tell whether this is really related to the
> workaround. I've got a Creative SB Audigy LS (CA0106).
>
> --
> Highpitched Rattling like Sound with 5.1 Surround Configuration on Karmic
> Koala
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: pulseaudio
>
> I'm hearing a high pitched rattling sound when I have pulseaudio set to 5.1
> surround
> I set PulseAudio to 5.1 surround via the PulseAudio Volume Manager under
> the Configuration Tab
> I'm running the Karmic Koala beta with all the newest Updates
> I have a 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
>
> I've tried other settings under the Configuration Tab, Analog Stereo seems
> to work perfectly but I have a 5.1 Surround Speaker Setup.
>
> This problem seems to get worse as I increase the volume through
> pulseaudio, if I change the volume of a individual channel it gets almost
> impossible to listen to anything, all I can hear is a high pitched rattling
> like sound. However if I set the volume of channels individually through
> 'alsamixer' it doesn't screw up at all.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> AudioDevicesInUse:
> USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
> /dev/snd/controlC0: chris 2096 F.... pulseaudio
> /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c: chris 2096 F...m pulseaudio
> /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: chris 2096 F...m pulseaudio
> Card0.Amixer.info:
> Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf9ff8000 irq 22'
> Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC1200'
> Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,104382fe,00100101'
> Controls : 40
> Simple ctrls : 22
> Date: Wed Oct 7 18:01:59 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
> Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.18-0ubuntu3
> ProcEnviron:
> PATH=(custom, user)
> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: pulseaudio
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-pae i686
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/445849/+subscribe
>

--
My profile:
http://www.google.com/profiles/darrinritter

eh ehhh... as I said, that's just ridiculous...
when I wrote this some time ago someone did even blame my post as flame and so...

Now that a new release is out I can't but confirm my original impression: this bug is frankly ridiculous because ridiculous is having it even in the new release after six months of bug report, and in a LTS release one too!!! Does it mean we can hope to benefit from such a bug for at least the next 3 years of support? Very good, wow...

In this post
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/445849/comments/121
I suggested getting completely rid of PulseAudio.
Ok, you had to manage with some inconvenient because of the thight integration devs just thought to put beetween PA and Gnome, but at least you would been able to use your 5.1 system and, as a plus, you would had seen your pc run way more smoothly than before.

Now I suggest something really better from all point of view. Skip Ubuntu Lucid completely. Just switch to Kubuntu Lucid Lynx.
Kubuntu use KDE that is a more evolute DM than Gnome and, even more important, it DOES NOT USE pulseaudio! Simply and clean. Give it a try and definetely forgot pulseaudio and its bugs.

@Desh Danz
Thanks for the tip. Although I disagree about "KDE being more evolute than GNOME" which is just a plain opinion, I shall give Kubuntu a try for sure because I'm TIRED of waiting. I bought a brand new system a year ago for a HTPC and couldn't get 5.1 sound from it yet. I was excited to try the new 10.04 and I've been WAAAYYYY disapointed to see that this stupid bug is still there. (Stupid because I strongly believe it is not taken seriously enough)

This may not be the right place to ask but has ANYBODY been able to get clean 5.1 on stock ubuntu (pulseaudio)? Somebody previously said the bug was related to specific hardware but I haven't heard anybody reporting a working 5.1 config on this as of yet...

Yes I have 5.1 running through mine. The noise starts up if I play around with the subwoofer tab a bit but if I leave that alone I have nice sounding 5.1

@Desh Danz: please refrain from comments like this. You are rude and not
helpful. Speaking as a user who's affected by this bug too.

@Jerther: I have perfectly fine surround sound... If I leave all the
speaker sliders to their default values (100% in pavucontrol, or
centered in gnome-volume-control). The damn thing works, just not if you
adjust the sound of the speakers through pulseaudio. It's not like
people are *dying* here.

Now, it is unclear what is the official position of the upstream
pulseaudio project on this. AFAICT, there seems to be a bug report
upstream (http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/697) but the devs haven't figured
out what's going on.

Users who have time to debug this should go upstream and do that. Maybe
with some help from the folks in the #pulseaudio IRC channel to speed
things up.

Here is a dump from Alsa Information Script. This provided as advice from the #pulseaudio support channel in irc.freenode.net.
wget -O alsa-info.sh http://alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && bash ./alsa-info.sh
Output available here: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=505654b0d5478d90d3d53213df4e4c869bc76dd2
Unknown CPU is actually (from /proc/cpuinfo): Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz

@Jean-François Fortin Tam
sorry but we're talking about a major bug dragging itself since a consistent amount of months and two different releases, that no one care of, and see effort put in lower boot time under 10 seconds as a priority over the correct functioning of the software.

I think we have proven decent patience until now but the bug is still there and make our hardware useless.

I pointed two viable and consistent alternative, either uninstall pulseaudio and use alsa instead or try Kubuntu which, thankfully, does not ship with pa. Why should I refrain from this?

@ Jerther
I'm more than persuaded of what I said, but you're right, it can be considered a mere personal opinion, therefore I should had avoid put that phrase there. However, the tip is still valid, I hope you could have a good enjoy with kubuntu ;-)

@Daniel T Chen: If there's a bug in the SIMD code why not just force PULSE_NO_SIMD, or revert to previous SIMD code, whatever it was before the issue started (for the Ubuntu package), until the SIMD code is fixed by PulseAudio?

At least, clearly this is what seemed to be the problem for me. As soon as I set PULSE_NO_SIMD, it's clear the problems vanished. Although there may still be some problems with volume>80% amplifying things, that's a separate issue than the rattling. It seems like this would be a good solution for people in the meantime, unless it makes the volume control too slow or too inaccurate without SIMD or something.

If there's any information I can personally provide you that would expedite the fixing of this bug, then please let me know.

What Pebas suggests I guess makes it so the SIMD code isn't "hit in the wrong way" as to cause a bug. I would try my hand at it, but it's very hard to find a bug in someone's code by limiting it down when you have no experience with the PulseAudio code base or with the x86 variant of assembly. Is two days of constant work really worth it when someone out there probably knows the fix anyway?

Hi folks.

Thanks for all the comments, especially #127 (Daniel) and #143 (Pebas).

As Daniel mentioned in #127, the problem is based in the way newer PA versions are merging the PA channel volume settings into the physical channel volume settings. Furthermore, it seems to be unclear, whether this is a PA bug, an ALSA driver bug, or a hardware bug.

In order to circumvent the merging problem, in #143 Pebas has left PA in place but has pretty much completely withdrawn PA from doing any volume control. Instead, he uses ALSA directly for this purpose. I tried and it worked (many thanks for that), although I was left without any kind of control from PA. How did you manage to retain a "big Master", as you called it? Your method disables ANY volume control via the configuration files.

I would still like to propose (yet) another workaround, which so far has proven to work flawlessly for me, without any "at any reboot I have to do this", or "I must not touch the XYZ slider, otherwise ..." things, and with letting PA in control over the volume.

It uses the same basic idea as Pebas' approach: Avoid the merging problem by keeping PA away from the hardware volume controls, and instead do this via alsamixer or gnome-alsamixer. Nevertheless, PA can still perform the volume control on a per-channel basis, but in software, and then pass these modified values to the channels directly, without this merging stuff. Instead, each PA channel maps directly to a single hardware channel.

This can be achieved as follows (for the beginning user, I tried to give more detailled instructions at http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9363330&postcount=30):
1. Start with unmodified files in /usr/share/pulseaudio, /etc/pulse, and ~/.pulse.
2. Edit /etc/pulse/default.pa, outcomment the auto-detection modules (module-udev-detect, module-hal-detect, module-detect)
3. Instead, at this place in the file add a line "load-module module-alsa-sink device=surround40:0". Replace surround40 with whatever fits your config (i.e., 5.1), and :0 with what fits your card (if you have only one, than 0 is correct already)
4. Go to alsamixer and adjust the hardware controls appropriately
5. Restart PA via "killall pulseaudio"
6. Adjust the volume in PA's panel applet (initially, it is set by PA to 100%!).

You should now have PROPERLY working volume controls in PA, and no crackling, hissling, rattling. At least for me it worked that way. To test it, open alsamixer and adjust the volume via the panel applet. In alsamixer, nothing should change, but your speaker volume should.

Advantage: Working per-channel volume controls in PA (use pavucontrol to access the PA channels individually)
Big disadvantage: Static setup (haven't even included microphone yet, but this could be achieved).

I hope, this is helpful for at least some of you and does not only more noise to the overall confusion.

If you test it, please give feedback.

Best wishes to all of you
-- Stefan

@Stefan Goldmann: When I tried this PA became unreponsive, two of my cpu threads were at 100% and no sound. Reverting the changes brought back sound. Any ideas? Tried both surround40, surround51 and other surround**'s.

Wish this bug had a bit more attention.

Spelling typo: unreponsive -> unresponsive

@Nate: I'm sorry for that.

No, at the moment I have no idea, but if you like, we can try to investigate.

What Ubuntu version do you have? (I use 10.04)
What sound card? (I have SB Live Value)

Can you attach?
1. The output of "aplay -L " and "aplay -l" (this is a lower case L)
2. A pulseaudio log (when trying the workaround). This can be done as follows (in a terminal):
   a) echo autospawn = no > ~/.pulse/client.conf
   b) killall pulseaudio
   c) pulseaudio -vvvv > pulselog.txt 2>&1
3. Your default.pa, and any other pulse files, you may have tampered with.
4. The output of top, when your CPU's are at 100%

I will browse through them and see what I can do.

-- Stefan

@Stefan Goldmann

I did what you said in both your post here and in the post you made on another forum, which are basically the same thing.
I'm sorry to tell that It doesn't work for me. Although, when I move some sliders in PA applet, nothing moves in alsamixer, which is what we want.

But then, I've got no sound at all and I even get an error in Totem Movie Player:

"pa_stream_writable_size() failed: Connection terminated"

There's nothing in the device list of PA Applet but there's one in its output devices.

If I revert the default.pa file back to the original and killall pulseaudio, sound gets back to, may I say, usual...

I'm using LTS 10.04 AMD64
My sound card is a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 SB0220 (Chip: SigmaTel STAC9708,11 as reported by alsamixer)

I have included an attachment with all the files you requested from Nate except the "top" one since I don't experience any issue with stability and CPU usage.

thanks for your help, it's very appreciated on my side.

You don't need to bypass pulseaudio or rip your entire system apart. How about just commenting out the block where it says getenv..NO_SIMD...

keyword "NO_SIMD"

src/daemon/pulseaudio/main.c ln ~877

    // fixes cracking/rattling/buzzing sounds with 5.1
/* if (!getenv("PULSE_NO_SIMD")) {
        pa_cpu_init_x86();
        pa_cpu_init_arm();
    }*/

    pa_log(_("ANDY_FIX: Disabled SIMD."));

pulseaudio -vvvv will show ANDY_FIX so you can make sure the code worked, and also you should have no crackling.

It fixed it for me instantly and I can't imagine the problem I'm having is different than what anyone else is having, as it matches the original description. I suspect if there are other problems then different bug reports should be made. This works around the SIMD issue.

Typo, src/daemon/main.c I mean.

I posted a patch on my PPA. If people are having a problem other than SIMD, IMO they should post another bug report as it's not the same problem. Not that I think the problem *I'm* having is "king", but then another report should be made for this one. I don't care. I'm just trying to prevent confusion for the developers.

https://launchpad.net/~xt-knight/+archive/ppa/+packages

If you don't want to have to deal with GPG keys and whatever else, you can use some scripts I posted here to help you download all the files (and hopefully help you test pulse, too).

i386: http://pastebin.com/7qMLwHhE
amd64: http://pastebin.com/yFPaeuAW

I hope this fixes the problem for you guys. If not, sorry for getting your hopes up; it worked for me.

If it works, as described in the script, ANDY_FIX should appear in red when you execute pulseaudio, even with no parameters.

Nope, this is not an official fix, but hopefully an official is available soon.

Debdiff attached. Please let me know if it works for you, too. :D

@xtknight
your fix didn't work for me.

here's what happends:

W: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
E: main.c: ANDY_FIX: buggy SIMD optimizations disabled.
E: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
E: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_emu10k1'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
E: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.
Killed

and now I've got no sound as PA won't start anymore.
This is driving me nutz

Jerther:

Very sorry, I don't think this is a direct result of my patch, but perhaps a side effect of its installation. Are you sure that you cannot start PulseAudio manually? Also you can re-enable the autostart by typing the following, as long as you don't have any other options in that file (you would have deliberately had to put something in there):

rm ~/.pulse/client.conf

After typing this, try typing "killall pulseaudio", and then "pulseaudio". If you still cannot use PulseAudio, please reply with the output of the "pulseaudio" command as you did above, once again.

@xtKnight

I did a clean install (for the >10th time) 10.04 AMD64

First thing I did was to run your script. The following line appeared last:

E: main.c: ANDY_FIX: buggy SIMD optimizations disabled.

in your script, you tell to hit ctrl+c. so did I, and the same line appeared again. then I set the sound to 5.1 in PA Applet and played a simple sound file and here is the result:

E: main.c: ANDY_FIX: buggy SIMD optimizations disabled.
E: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
E: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_emu10k1'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
E: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.

Also, synaptics reports libpulse-dev as broken.

I've included a file with some videos of what's happening.

PA.ogv is my config. In the application tab, I first play a mp3 in 5.1 mode and no sound comes out. Then I set the sound to analog strereo and sound is back.
pa-systray.ogv is what's happening to the PA icon when in 5.1 mode and trying to preview an audio file. No sound.

Another interresting thing is that if I put autospawn=no in pulse/client.conf and start pulseaudio &, i cannot get to the PA applet: the icon stays with three dashes. If I remove the autospawn, pulseaudio restarts by itself and the two right parentesis are back so I can get into pulseaudio applet and fiddle with settings.

So bottom line: your patch makes my 5.1 unusable with only stereo left working.

should there be anything else I could do, just let me know.

Jerther:

Okay, so you said, without my patch you get full working 5.1 with crackling, but with my patch you get only left channel with no crackling, is that correct? I know my patch works with at least two channels and I suspect it should work with any number, so let's see what's going on. (Actually, it's really the same as typing PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 pulseaudio, but a permanent way of doing that.) I'm definitely not saying my script is correct, although the four lines I commented in the code I don't think would cause these troubles. It's most likely script issues.

Did you try my script with just the wget and dpkg parts, and just type "killall pulseaudio" after it? That means, "autospawn=yes" (or nothing) should be in your pulse/client.conf... In other words, only until the "# enter your pw" line. This will install all the packages, and "killall pulseaudio" should kill any running instances. I *think* it will restart my new pulseaudio version after you do this too, although you're not going to see any messages because it restarts on its own where messages won't go to your console. I guess your subjective observations of crackling and all channels working will prove whether my version is running.

If there are any problems, I really need the log of what my script did (more specifically any dpkg messages). If libpulse-dev is broken I need the error log of this. I don't know why it would be, and it's probably? not your fault, but regardless..I guess we can find out for sure. Really even if you run my script, up until the "# enter your pw" line, ten times, it should not make a difference with anything. So if you're getting errors, you can just run it again up until that point and I can see what's going on. I don't know how you're running the script right now, but just truncate it at that point, after the dpkg -i...

If you would, do this before you run it, but it shouldn't make any difference. "rm -r ~/pa_no_simd"

Don't reinstall; this should be not so bad to fix. It is important to delve deeper into the problem, so we can all come up with a proper solution. Thanks for your patience though. I have had to uproot my system several times (well, not because of *this* patch) to debug things. I guess this is what you signed up for.

Andy

Jerther:

Okay, I think there are problems with me installing lirc pulseaudio packages with lirc not installed, or other things like avahi. I guess I did not catch this because I had the packages installed. However, trying it in a clean chroot revealed the issues.

It seems like all that needs to be done is to type "sudo apt-get install -f" afterwards with "sudo dpkg -i --force-all *.deb" before that instead of "sudo dpkg -i *.deb" in the script. This will have the side effect of installing a few more packages on your system pertaining to audio although it should fix package issues. Also you can just try doing "sudo dpkg -i --force-all *.deb" and "sudo apt-get install -f" even after the fact, at any time, to fix the problems. Nothing I've told you so far should be irreversible. I'm not sure if this could account for some issues you're having but I really do need an entire log. I attached what happened with a barebones non-desktop system (maybe even missing a few packages you might have).

Right now, I really want to test the binary fix (it's deep in there somewhere), not the script, so ideally it would be written so you do not have to install these extra packages. I mean, you could just add my launchpad ppa to your sources.list. It would probably be more reliable this way, but there's no reason we can't get it working like this either.

However, I cannot test pulseaudio within my chroot for many reasons. If we cannot fix it like this I will have to try it in a virtual machine.

I attached a log of package issues with the chroot. At the end I execute this, which prove there should be no package dependency problems.

root@mattes18:~/pa_no_simd# apt-get install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.

Andy

@xtknight

Just to clear things up, with a clean install of ubuntu, stereo sound is perfect. however, in 5.1 mode, I hear high pitched rattling sound, just like this bug reports.

When I install your patch using your script or your PPA in my source.list, stereo stays fine, but 5.1 gets worst. See below.

First thing I did on another clean install was to clear everything in my source.list so that I only install stuff from your repository. Not even official updates, so we start from an easy common point.

then I did what's in the attached file. (remove all repositories from source.list, add only yours and start an upgrade: pulseaudio gets updated)

Then I play desktop-login.ogg and it plays fine because PA is in stereo mode.

Then I set PA to 5.1 surround. The file doesn't play except for a continuous loop of 10ms or so which won't stop until I move PA main volume slider. The same happens with ubuntu's default "beep" sound. Looks like a buffer problem which gets emptied when I move the volume slider, I don't really know...

At this point, I didn't install any more software. Not even updates. Unless you need further testing on my current setup, next step for me would be to start a fresh install again and try the no_simd thing manually as described earlier in this discussion. Sorry I didn't try it before as it's known to only lessen the problem. Well, at least if I do this now, we'll also know if your patch has anything to do with my new problem. Hey it's a new problem! I was getting bored with the old one :P

Oh and just so you know, it takes about 10 minutes to reinstall clean so it's easier and faster than trying to undo everything.

Jerther:

Okay, yup, I have the same exact bug. And yes this fixes it for me with no side effects. I've been using 5.1 mode for a week or more, in games that use alsa emulation mode, gstreamer apps, and pretty much everything, with nary a problem. And there is no buzzing.

Yea as for your install log looks, it looks perfectly fine. You're doing it even better than I did in the script.

Wow that's pretty strange. Disabling SIMD optimizations shouldn't do that. But it's hard to know when the developers aren't telling us, isn't it? lol! I don't recall them mentioning problems like this earlier, though.

Yeah I would recommend you try PULSE_NO_SIMD=1. You need to make sure you know how to kill pulseaudio before it starts again, and the only way I know is to either have really, really fast fingers or use autospawn = no then killall pulseaudio (a COUPLE times so it reads the new config? idk), lol. Bottom line, make sure it's actually using the flag. Putting it in bashrc didn't do it for me, even. It's beyond me why this isn't just something in the client/conf file, but hey, who wants consistency or an option that's easy to adjust? That would take the fun out of things. I mean come on, you can have contests for how fast people can kill pulseaudio and try to start it manually again.

If PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 works but my patch doesn't...well I suppose we'll deal with that when we find out for sure!

Thanks for the time you have put into this, and dealing with several possibly incompetent developers, myself included.

Jerther:

Hmm it's possible your CPU just cannot handle the "speed of sound" without the SIMD in there :-) Doubtful though. I don't think sound volume controls should take 100% CPU. If they do, something's seriously wrong.

Jerther:

Doh, sorry for posting many times. But, I want you to try (with your current setup) to go back to stereo mode in the control panel and see if it works once again, after having switched to 5.1. All with my patch in there. So make sure it is consistently reproducible it is *5.1 mode during my path* that breaks the sound output.

After that tell me the results, reinstall, and try PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 in a fashion that will send that flag reliably to pulseaudio and that you can prove pulseaudio is getting it (I think it says if you run pulseaudio -vvvv).

I shut the machine down yesterday night. So I turned it on today to do your tests. Everything was as usual: can't play anything and PA was still in 5.1 mode. So I tried it in stereo mode. As expected, sound was okay. Then I switched it back to 5.1 and... you're not gonna believe it: it worked! What the...

Anyways, after that, I did the following in a terminal:

cinema@cinema-desktop:~$ gedit .pulse/client.conf <-- add autospawn=no
cinema@cinema-desktop:~$ killall pulseaudio
cinema@cinema-desktop:~$ pulseaudio &
[1] 1976
cinema@cinema-desktop:~$ E: main.c: ANDY_FIX: buggy SIMD optimizations disabled.
E: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
E: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_emu10k1'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
E: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.

And sound still plays fine in 5.1. I can switch between 5.1 and stereo and everything stays fine! I figured I needed to reboot the machine once your patch is applied...

As of this writing, I'm about to clean reinstall and try the patch again plus a reboot.

[later that day...]

Okay so I did the following on first boot on [yet] another clean install:

remove all entries in sources.list
add your repository to my sources
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade

all went fine. Now I'm doing a reboot.

[seconds later...]

Now, I switch to 5.1 surround in PA and..... Sound works!!!!

Alright so now we're sure that all that was needed was a reboot... I'll put back the removed entries in sources.list, do some updates and install some software and see how it goes.

[later again]

Yep, everything is working fine. Seems like I FINALLY have acceptable 5.1 sound. Except that volume control for each channel is ACKWARD! I'll just leave it to default and adjust sound manually using my external amps.

I can finally watch a 5.1 movie... It's been like 6 months since I bought this computer and never had a chance to use it for what I bought it for :) I just watched Cars. Ah, it's so great to have good sound!

I haven't been able to try the submitted .debdiff... I'm sorry I don't know how to use this. Although I must admit I didn't try to figure out how to, and my sound is okay now.

I hope your patch gets officially implemented and/or the SIMD optimizations code gets better soon. And by soon, I mean sooner than two ubuntu releases... *wink wink*

--------------------------------------------------------

so to put it back in four easy steps!

In a terminal do the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xt-knight/ppa
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade

then reboot the computer. very important.

when back in gnome, go to Sound configuration and set 5.1 surround mode.

And that's it! 5.1 without high pitched crackling!

Jerther: thank you for your work. You have made instructions from a user's perspective at least, something I didn't have the patience to do. I know my script was trash since the beginning, just had no patience to continue the project.

We knew the problem all along, but as I suspected, people weren't testing PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 correctly. When you try something...you've gotta...actually..try it.. (who would have thought). Besides, software configurations are full of entropy. We need to test things properly and using the scientific method.

I also had problems playing back files in Totem just starting today. They would stop after a short amount of time. I don't think it's because of my 4-line patch though, it just wouldn't make any sense. I've had so many PA problems regardless. The whole totem interface froze and the sound KEPT PLAYING, probably indicating it's not only the sound daemon. I always noticed my volume controls were different (just quieter) using 5.1 than headphones. Again my patch should not have touched any of that territory, although I did not write the assembly code I bypassed so I can never be 100% sure anyway.

You don't need to test the debdiff. I did it correctly...I am pretty sure. It's a pretty simple patch. I used the quilt patch system. A quick look inside it obviously indicates it's not going to do anything hugely bad at least. I don't want them to commit the 'comment patch' yet, anyway. I'd rather have them fix the SIMD. I want to know if a) they are willing to just remove SIMD optimizations for now, and if they are, then I will make a patch with deleted lines instead of commented lines. or b) this is just going to sit in a pipe until real PA people fix it.

If you're curious, installing debdiffs goes something like this (sometimes -p0 can be varied anywhere up to like -p5, what happens is the patch specifies a relative path and this specifies how many subdirs to ignore):
$ mkdir -p ~/compiles/pa
$ cd ~/compiles/pa
$ sudo apt-get build-dep pulseaudio
$ apt-get source pulseaudio
$ patch -p0 < /home/andy/Desktop/pulseaudio_fix.debdiff
$ cd pulseaudio-...
$ debuild
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Again I'm just writing this on the run, not 100% certain. Typically a debdiff is committed to a "proposed" archive where certain people that signed up for "proposed" packages test them. My debdiff comments the code out. It would be better to delete the code. Hell, it would be better to track down the bug in the assembly, but that's probably asking too much. I don't do x86 assembly (yet). And I've got no clue what's going on in that code. It's like a huge hairy bear. Sorry =)

Glad it worked for you. Let's rally and get a patch (and SRU--stable release update) into the official repositories. I'll try to do this when I get the time. It would be glad to at *least* hear an official word before we started all that, but hey who knows. Maybe that's what will prompt them.

***** THE CRACKLING FIX (works for 2/2 people!) *****
(Jerther went through the pains to figure the clean-room installation out)

Following the steps exactly, no omissions (last one will reboot your computer).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xt-knight/ppa
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade
sudo reboot

{ Reboot your computer! Don't just logout! PA is resident! }

When back in Gnome, go to System->Preferences->Sound and set 5.1 surround mode (may be called "Analog Surround 5.1 Output") under Profile for the hardware you are using. Not sure if IEC958 / S/PDIF 5.1 ever had the issue.

:)

Problem is much worse again with the newest updates (could have been the kernel update). I had gotten mine working relatively well as long as I didn't adjust the "front/back" or "sub" settings, now if I adjust the volume at all the screech comes in and is horrible.

I can confirm that xtknight's patch does indeed fix the problem for me.

xtknight, you did a lot of work here. thanks. but, who are you? are you pulseaudio developer? i really do not understand why we all write here almost one year.... and yet still we have only fuzzy answers.
shouldn't we write to some pulseaudio forums?
yet i did not try xtknight's repo, i'm little bit paranoid:)

cccccccc:

hehehe...well i am no stranger to this bug tracker :) i have a few patches (i think around 5+) in the ubuntu system although probably not in the latest versions any more. in most cases my debdiff leads to the final patch.

I try to help every now and then. first off, it does not make sense that some people are saying NO_SIMD fixes it and some saying it doesn't...that screamed at me. that's where i stepped in and tried to make a scientific experiment for it. either they were not doing it correctly, or it was another bug. in this case, they were not testing it correctly.

plus, it takes a very long time sometimes for the upstream developers to respond to things. in that case, ubuntu often does backports or patches. i am hoping they will patch this while we wait for the developers to fix the actual SIMD code (IMO it's not critical, but I don't really know why there is SIMD code in here to begin with).

Thanks for answer. I wonder why you're helping us without having direct benefit.
I decided to install your package (not that your authentication convinced me, but since it's year my 5+1 is not working in "great Ubuntu", I'm in mood to kill). I am afraid, I will not help you with support, because I have another strange problem, that sounds from my speaker stutter (I am no english speaker... maybe wave, flicker, stagger) so much (frequency about 3 times per second), that I am not able to tell you, if the sound is still distorted. But I had this problem before installing your deb. Take care.

cccccccc:

I do benefit, as actually I fixed the bug for myself as well. ;) Truthfully other people found the SIMD bug and I just packaged the fix.

Sorry, I'm not sure what to do about your other problem.

Regards

papukaija, pls, what this karmic tags and summary suppose to mean?

10.10 RC (meerkat) still doesn't fix this.

xt-knight ppa was fixed for me this issue in lucid, but in this ppa there are no packages for maverick, so the issue is back to me after upgrade to Maverick :(
xtknight, can you update ppa?

https://tango.0pointer.de/pipermail/pulseaudio-discuss/2010-October/007955.html

I've uploaded a version in my ppa which I hope fixes the problem the right way here:
https://launchpad.net/~diwic/+archive/maverick
Once it has finished building, please test it (make sure you upgrade not only pulseaudio, but also all packages starting with "pulseaudio-" or "libpulse"). Given a few positive responses here, I'll go ahead and request an SRU (stable release update).

David Henningsson, many thank's! It helps me, no noize from today in my 5.1 speakers! Will this patched version included in updates for Maverick core?

It very likely will be. I'll start preparing an update. It would be good to get some more reports from others with this proposed fix.

OMG.

It freaking works! I have to say, I didn't' have high hopes considering how
many times I've had to mess around with the crap that is pulseaudio. But
this time it freaking worked.

I can confirm for me on my Asus Xonar DX and Logitech X-530 that on 5.1
there is no (and I mean NO) whistling/grinding/high-pitched rattle.

I could kiss you!

On 13 October 2010 09:34, Luke Yelavich <email address hidden> wrote:

> It very likely will be. I'll start preparing an update. It would be good
> to get some more reports from others with this proposed fix.
>
> --
> Highpitched rattling like sound with 5.1 surround configuration
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445849
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug (440921).
>

Thx, with sb live 5.1 works fine too now

Accepted pulseaudio into maverick-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

I'd like to be yet another person to thank everyone involved with this bug. The open source community always impresses me with how much support we give to each other. David, I wish I could buy you a beer, the fix appears to be perfect.

Thanks again!

I also can confirm, that I wasn't able to reproduce this problem with the new package version.
So far everything seems to work like it should.

pulseaudio:
  Installiert: 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1
  Kandidat: 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1
  Versionstabelle:
 *** 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick/main amd64 Packages
        500 file:/media/mirror/ubuntu/ maverick/main amd64 Packages

THX

Thanks to all the testers. marking as verification-done

In my case the patch don't work.

I have a Philips PSC805, and the problem continues. In order to check, I have deleted the PulseAudio config files, restart my pc. I can play sound but just after moving the volume slider the bug appears, no apparent change.

I'm running Maverick with the last updtes. If you need some debug I'm able to provide it.

Did you make sure to enable the proposed repository? If you're just using the standard repo you won't have the newest version installed

Yes,

I have added the ppa, updated and verified that all the packages related to pulseaudio are updated. For example, for pulseaudio the version installed is: 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu22~diwic

> installed is: 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu22~diwic

This is not the correct version, and it is not the version in
maverick-proposed. I presume it does, however, contain the patch.
Please downgrade to 21.1.

I have downgraded to 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1, and the problem persists. Deleting pulseaudio conf and moving the pulseaudio volume slider provokes the bug

How did you downgrade? I have the same version that you had installed

Carlos, to be sure its the same bug, please follow the procedure outlined here, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio/Log but at the beginning of the line where you call pulseaudio -vvvv, add PULSE_NO_SIMD=1. So the line should look something like this:

LANG=C PULSE_NO_SIMD=1 pulseaudio -vvv > ~/pulseverbose.log 2>&1

If you still get odd sound when changing volume/using 5.1, then you are not affected by this bug and the above fix won't help you, so you will need to file a new bug.

it doesn't work in my case either. At first I have upgraded to version 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu22~diwic using PPA posted by David Henningsson in #183 but it didn't solve the problem.

That was before pulseaudio was accepted in maverick-proposed.

Then I restore (downgrade) to the original packages from maverick (1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21) and tried "selective upgrading from -proposed" following instructions posted by Martin Pitt in #189 but sadly it didn't work either.

At this moment I can confirm that all packages and dependencies from pulseaudio are running at version 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1 but still having the bug when moving volume slider.

I'm using sblive(EMU10K1) in maverick i386 2.6.35-22-generic and again, the only way that I can get rid of the buggy sound is by replacing the "volume = merge" with "volume = ignore" in config files as I proposed in msg #143.

Thanks in advance.

Pebas, please try what I asked Carlos to try in my last comment.

Done it.

Still getting weird behaviour in sliders of ALSA Mixer when changing master output volume in pulseaudio, but the odd sound is definitively gone with PULSE_NO_SIMD=1

I have done as said by Luke and get the weird sound after change the volume.. Attached the log

I have done as said by Luke and get the weird sound after change the volume.. Attached the log

@Simon, Jmadero, thanks for the positive feedback! I'm glad that you enjoyed the fix. Slightly more realistic than kisses and beer, I (and the company I work for, Canonical) always appreciate contributions to Ubuntu and its upstreams.

@Pebas, Carlos, so it seems that this fixes the rattling noise for most people but not all. Perhaps I'll have to go looking to see if there are more places that need similar fixes...

@Luke, Martin, so although this doesn't seem to fix the problem for *all* people, and no people have reported regressions, I still think it qualifies for an SRU.

Carlos, if you still get the same odd behavior/sound, then you have a different bug. It is probably best if you file a new bug, so we can get your hardware info and work through that separately.

@Carlos, You're probably suffering from bug #434042

I do the ppa-purge ppa:diwic/maverick adn upgrade to packages from proposed and hear noise again!
So packages from maverick didn't fix the bug for me, but from the diwic ppa fix!
My audio device is:
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)

Tested the maverick-proposed packages with an Intel 82801I (ICH9 Family)
HD Audio Controller (rev 02), and this doesn't fix the bug for me.

Aactually, it seemed to get worse, as I heard the sound distortion even
when I set the volume back to 100% with all the channels locked
together.

@David. Thanks a lot!!!

It seems I also suffer bug #434042, even the bug is expired, one of the workarounds worked!
Related to the current bug, I can say 5.1 works correctly for me and I'm not hearing any distortion.

Funny fact: The bug has been fixed for me 1 year and 1 day after my initial report comment #2

This bug was fixed in the package pulseaudio - 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1

---------------
pulseaudio (1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1) maverick-proposed; urgency=low

  * 0195-SSE-MMX-ARM-Fix-high-frequency-noise-with-unusual-nu.patch:
    - Pull fix from the upstream stable-queue branch a8d76e9 to Fix a high
      frequency noise with an nunusual number of channels, when either SSE,
      MMX, or ARM optimized volume scaling code is used. (LP: #445849)
 -- Luke Yelavich <email address hidden> Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:38:46 +1100

Copied to natty as well.

>> Launchpad Janitor
>> This bug was fixed in the package pulseaudio - 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu21.1

so you mean, there is no need to add unofficial (not trusted) repositories? and the one's in default Ubuntu handles this?

That seems to be the case for most cards affected by this symptom, yes.

It still doesnt work here. The same highpitched rattling like in the last ubuntu version. Stereo works, but 5.1 rattles like hell.
I am using Ubuntu 10.10 as 32bits version with a Creative Audigy 2 ZS. I wanted to give Ubuntu a try again, but till this does not work, I ll switch to Windows. Ubuntu is unusable for me for one year now, because of this.

I have tested my onboaed soundcard (mainboard: ASUS M3N HT Deluxe) too, same problem there. Also my laptop with its PCMCIA Audigy 2 ZS notebook has got the same rattling problem.

The problem is fixed for adjusting volume on my machine but if I change the fade at all (make the speakers 60% front, 40% back making sound quality better for movies) the high pitched noise back. This isn't a deal breaker as the change in volume was clearly the major issue but none the less the problem is still there. Thanks again for the patch :)

Finally fixed after last update to 0.9.22-0ubuntu2~diwic from the repository

ppa:diwic/ppa ( deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/diwic/maverick/ubuntu maverick main )

has anybody from the "problematic group" tried plafuro's solution with diwic repository? I am pretty reluctant to test a new repository, which are not default in system.

Diwic is a developer so his repo is clean and safe. As for adding it, I believe it's been committed to the regular repository now so there should be no need to add the repo. Someone correct me if I'm wrong

It's in Natty, yes.

@Jmadero, c x 8, plafuro:

* The actual fix for this issue has been released through maverick-updates already, but if many people experience that 0.9.22 fixes their problems whereas the maverick-updates version does not, perhaps we need to look into this more closely.

* For my personal ppa, do not assume that things there are stable unless told so for a specific package. E g, the pulseaudio version there, is for testing a new module I wrote last week.

* Pulseaudio 0.9.22 for Maverick has just been made available through the ubuntu-audio-dev ppa, so please use that instead if you want to test 0.9.22: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-audio-dev/+archive/ppa

guys, i just tried this stuff and 5.1 works (from normal ubuntu repo)!!!!!!!!!!!!!! after almost 2 years!!! I can now use my surround system! many thanks! im going to enjoy all the movies now!