Sound suddenly stops

[ss900]

Hello, I've got a very strange problem while reproducing audio streams on ubuntu linux 7.10 Gusty Gibbon.
Simply while playing my MP3s (I installed restricted codecs) or one of my audio CDs the sound suddenly stops; I can not be more precise because sometimes I can hear sounds for some minutes, but sometimes the audio lacks after few seconds; sometimes after an undefined period of time the sound returns working (and will also stops...).
I already tried installing the vendor alsa package and also downloading new alsa drivers from the alsa project page but the problem remains.
Another important note: I can reproduce this problem with another liveCD linux distro.

Now I'll post some informations about my HW/SW config:

# uname -a
Linux disg1 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun Oct 14 23:05:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] (Secondary)
02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T (rev 01)

# cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0
  0: 143 IO-APIC-edge timer
  1: 6407 IO-APIC-edge i8042
  6: 5 IO-APIC-edge floppy
  7: 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0
  8: 3 IO-APIC-edge rtc
  9: 1 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi
 12: 183290 IO-APIC-edge i8042
 14: 485314 IO-APIC-edge libata
 15: 129260 IO-APIC-edge libata
 16: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb4, fglrx
 17: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb2
 18: 432242 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb3, eth0
 19: 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb5
 20: 36974 IO-APIC-fasteoi Intel ICH5
NMI: 0
LOC: 46656334
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

# cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [ICH5 ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH5
                      Intel ICH5 with ALC655 at irq 20

# asoundconf list
Please note that you are attempting to run asoundconf as a privileged superuser, which may have unintended consequences.

Names of available sound cards:
ICH5

# modinfo snd_intel8x0
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0.ko
license: GPL
description: Intel 82801AA,82901AB,i810,i820,i830,i840,i845,MX440; SiS 7012; Ali 5455
author: Jaroslav Kysela <email address hidden>
srcversion: 1C907F21389D55B678F22A0
alias: pci:v000010B9d00005455sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001022d00007445sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001022d0000746Dsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd0000026Bsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd000000EAsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd000000DAsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd0000008Asv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd00000059sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd0000006Asv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd0000003Asv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000010DEd000001B1sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001039d00007012sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d00007195sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d00002698sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000027DEsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d0000266Esv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000025A6sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000024D5sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000024C5sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d00002485sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d00002445sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d00002425sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d00002415sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
depends: snd-ac97-codec,snd-pcm,snd-page-alloc,snd,snd
vermagic: 2.6.22-14-generic SMP mod_unload 586
parm: index:Index value for Intel i8x0 soundcard. (int)
parm: id:ID string for Intel i8x0 soundcard. (charp)
parm: ac97_clock:AC'97 codec clock (0 = auto-detect). (int)
parm: ac97_quirk:AC'97 workaround for strange hardware. (charp)
parm: buggy_semaphore:Enable workaround for hardwares with problematic codec semaphores. (bool)
parm: buggy_irq:Enable workaround for buggy interrupts on some motherboards. (bool)
parm: xbox:Set to 1 for Xbox, if you have problems with the AC'97 codec detection. (bool)
parm: spdif_aclink:S/PDIF over AC-link. (int)
parm: enable:bool
parm: joystick:int

# cat /etc/asound.conf
pcm.card0 {
type hw
card 0
}

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1234
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_size 8192
rate 44100
}
bindings {
0 0
1 1
}
}

Ok, I think that's all.
Let me know if you need additional information in order to reproduce this problem...
Thank you for your attention.

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

Please try linux-backports-modules which contains ALSA 1.0.15.

[ss900 (ss900)]

Tim,
thank you for your fast response.
In order to follow your advices I completely re-installed ubuntu on my hard-drive, because alsa system after my "works" was completely corrupted.
After installing the restricted codecs I tried to play my music...And... surprise the sound works fine and stable!!!
Now I think that my previous problem was due to some software conflict: In fact i think that I can give you a list of software I installed which i think that caused the problems I described:

1) ATI restricted drivers installed by the common "bin" installer downloaded from ATI/Amd website. (This time I used restricted manager).
2) aMSN... Which is a TCL/TK MSN client which uses sound, I'll try with Pidgin this time which is part of ubuntu.
3) Skype for Linux, I downloaded from the Skype website and installed by double-clicking the deb package. Skype for Linux is normally buggy... This time I'll try using the deb package from mediubuntu, let's hope it's safe.
4) aMule the popular P2P software installed by the ubuntu repositories.
5) GoogleEarth installed using the installer provided by google.
6) PokerTh an open source card game found on ubuntu repositories, I noticed it installs a number of "sound" libraries like libmikmod and others.
7) src_ds by Valve software. This is a gameplay server for Half Life 2 based games. It do not directly uses audio but it's very heavy to run and, if executed, always on the top of the "/usr/bin/top" stack. I think that I'm going to re-install this product.

Do you know some compatibility issues with these softwares?

For now the sound works fine, anyway I'll post on this bug if I'll experience problems during the re-installation of the software I commonly use, in order to point-out the real problem.

I'm sorry to have wasted your time, but I think that this problem can return, and if so, I'll be more precise.
Thank you for now...

Ciao (Italian for Hello)

[ss900 (ss900)]

Tim,
this time I'm pretty sure to have precisely identified the problem:
While re-installing all my favorites apps I noticed that my audio problems are returned at least I installed ScummVM, the popular open source virtual machine running adventure games based on EA Scumm.
I noticed that ScummVM needs to install also libfluidsynth1: do you think that my problem can be caused by this package?

Removing ScummVM and libfluidsynth1 the sound returns to work fine.

Let me know if you need extra tests.

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

I don't really know what the interaction is, but its possible that libfluidsynth1 interferes with the media players. Its likely not a driver problem at all.

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

Not a driver problem.