Crashes after first tone played with "pa_simple_Write failed"

[PaulSchulz]

*** Ubuntu Vivid SRU Justification -- see Comment #7 ***

-----

On a recently upgraded Ubuntu 15.04

- installing the morse' package,
- Run 'morse a'

Heard a short beep, then program exits with message: "pa_simple_Write failed"

[Kamal Mostafa (kamalmostafa)]

Note that the 'morseALSA' program (supplied along with 'morse' in the same package) seems to still work fine.

[Kamal Mostafa (kamalmostafa)]

The bug in 'morse':

morse.d/beepPA.c opens a two-channel (stereo) PulseAudio stream, but then
mis-handles it as if it was just one channel of audio data, including
trying to write a non-mulitple of the (stereo) PulseAudio frame size via
pa_simple_write(). Earlier versions of PulseAudio silently ignored the
discrepancy, but newer versions rightly return a PulseAudio "Invalid
argument" error.

Attached patch to morse.d/beepPA.c fixes the bug.

 -Kamal

[Kamal Mostafa (kamalmostafa)]

This is now fixed in Debian's morse (2.4-3), which also merges the only pending ubuntu1 patch, so will land in Wily soon with a Vivid SRU to follow.

Fixed morse (2.4-3) packages for supported Ubuntu versions are available now from the Ubuntu Hams Updates PPA:
    https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-hams-updates/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package morse - 2.4-3

---------------
morse (2.4-3) unstable; urgency=high

  * Open a mono (not stereo) PulseAudio output stream and hence avoid
    improperly passing non-multiples of the frame size to pa_simple_write
    (Closes: #784285, LP: #1461755). Thanks to Kamal Mostafa for providing
    the patch.
  * New patch fixing FTBFS (LP: #770766). Thanks to John Nogatch.

 -- Nanakos Chrysostomos <email address hidden> Sat, 06 Jun 2015 12:26:41 +0300

[Kamal Mostafa (kamalmostafa)]

Ubuntu Vivid SRU Justification

[Impact]

 * This bug makes 'morse' crash when it tries to sound a "dash" at its
   default speed, rendering the program useless.

 * Vivid's morse (2.4-2ubuntu1) exhibits this bug.

 * This bug is fixed by Debian's morse (2.4-3), which is comprised _only_
   of this bug fix plus the pending ubuntu1 patch currenlty carried in Vivid.
   I.e. the morse (2.4-3) package is the appropriate SRU fix package for
   Vivid.

 * This bug also affected Wily and was fixed by the morse (2.4-3) package.

[Test Case]

 * To reproduce and verify with Vivid's morse (2.4-2ubuntu1).

   1. Run 'morse a' expecting to hear "dot dash" but get "dot <crash>" instead.
   2. Install morse (2.4-3) then run 'morse a' and hear "dot dash".

[Regression Potential]

 * The fix affects only the PulseAudio output back-end; Possible regressions
   would (like the bug) probably affect only the PulseAudio back-end and would
   likely manifest the same way: pa_simple_write failures.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello PaulSchulz, or anyone else affected,

Accepted morse into vivid-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/morse/2.4-3~0ubuntu0.15.04.0 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Kamal Mostafa (kamalmostafa)]

Verification done for vivid:

ii morse 2.4-3~0ubuntu0.15.04.0 amd64 training program about morse-code for aspiring radio hams

"morse a" and other invocations work fine now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package morse - 2.4-3~0ubuntu0.15.04.0

---------------
morse (2.4-3~0ubuntu0.15.04.0) vivid; urgency=high

  * Open a mono (not stereo) PulseAudio output stream and hence avoid
    improperly passing non-multiples of the frame size to pa_simple_write
    (Closes: #784285, LP: #1461755). Thanks to Kamal Mostafa for providing
    the patch.
  * New patch fixing FTBFS (LP: #770766). Thanks to John Nogatch.

 -- Nanakos Chrysostomos <email address hidden> Sat, 06 Jun 2015 12:26:41 +0300

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for morse has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.