Audio Shuts Down with Screen Blanking

[Cliff Carson]

Noticed that in the last week or so when my system is playing audio when the screen timer expires the screen blanks but also the audio stops playing. Starting up as soon as the screen returns (moving the mouse). Was setting up a trial run to document by playing audio and setting the screen to blank after 1 minute. When the minute expired the screen start the blank but I got a crash in gnome-shell. The screen was returned to normal and I got a bug report notification which I sent. After another minute (did nothing else on the system) and the screen started to blank and this time completed the process. As soon as the blanking process was complete the sound turned off. Moving the mouse returned the screen and the sound.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.38.0-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-20.21-generic 5.8.10
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu48
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
Date: Wed Sep 30 15:18:19 2020
DisplayManager: gdm3
GsettingsChanges:

InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-09-29 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.10 "Groovy Gorilla" - Alpha amd64 (20200923)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.38.0-1ubuntu1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

First, can we assume your sound is not going through HDMI or DisplayPort? If it is then this is expected. What kind of sound connection are you using?

Second, please follow these instructions to report the crash:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Responses#Missing_a_crash_report_or_having_a_.crash_attachment

[Cliff Carson (ccarson1)]

I'm using the Audio IO ports to connect to a Bluetooth transmitter to provide whole house sound. The only audio device in this system is a follows;

        *-multimedia:0
             description: Audio device
             product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 3
             bus info: pci@0000:00:03.0
             version: 06
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
             resources: irq:39 memory:dfd34000-dfd37fff

This setup has been working for a long time up until very recently. Found the crash file from yesterday and submit a new bug because I don't know for certain that this problem and the crash are related.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Can you please provide a link or bug ID for that crash report?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Also, I can't seem to reproduce the same problem with Ubuntu 20.10 here...

Could you please try fully wired (remove Bluetooth from the equation)? Just in case that's a factor.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Hmm, is your Bluetooth transmitter powered by a USB port that loses power when the screen blanks?

[Cliff Carson (ccarson1)]

the bud id of the associated crash 1898090

[Cliff Carson (ccarson1)]

The audio feed from the io ports is indeed going to a stand alone bluetooth transmitter located central in the house. I did split off the audio cable to feed a stereo located next to the desktop. The stereo also looses the audio feed when the screen blanks.

[Cliff Carson (ccarson1)]

The problem is with Pithos 1.5 which I recently installed. It has two optional setting. One looks like it disables the screen saver (screen blanking) and the other is not to pause in screen saver mode (my problem os loosing audio).