Sound from ES1978 Maestro 2E garbled when USB CD-ROM drive plugged in

[Stephen Drake]

Since installing Colony-4 the sound produced through my laptop's speakers is
garbled. It is first detectable by the sound as gnome starts up after login, the
drum beats at the login sound fine though. Both rhythmbox and totem are
affected, so I presume it's gstreamer where the problem lies. When playing music
files, the speakers are out of sync. The left one lags behing the right, every
now and then it catches up. Then splits up again. Sometimes it also sounds a bit
like the volume level is too high for speakers but this is not the problem as it
still happens a low volume. I've tried a music CD and an ogg file from the HDD.
The sound works fine on hoary and also on Breezy Colony-3.

I also noticed that sound juicer was very slow. Peak rate was 0.5x, averaged at
0.4x even though the cpu activity was only running at about a third. Not sure if
this is related.

I have an approx six year old laptop, pentium III based, apm only, sound card is
an 'ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)'. See the laptop testing team
page at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/Kapok3300C.

Cheers

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

Oops I was mistaken. This problem does exist in hoary and breezy colony-3. I
have installed xmms on hoary and when I change the output plugin to libALSA.so
the sound seems fine. It also works fine through the libOSS.so plugin. So it's
the libesdout.so plugin where the playback is dodgy.

CD Player, Totem and Music Player (Rhythmbox) are affected and Realplayer seems
to be unaffected.

Steve

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

Okay i think i've found where the problem lies. I think it's got something to do
with my external cd drive. Before i found this problem i did not have my usb cd
drive plugged in. After unplugging it, the music files play perfectly. The cd
drive is an external Freecom 24B. It's capable of usb2 but my laptop can only
use usb1.1. It may have something to do with power draw? I'm on mains not
battery. Perhaps it's a driver conflict. It uses scsi_mod, sr_mod and usb_storage.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

What is the load average while listening to a music file with the external USB
CD-ROM plugged in?

Also, please attach the output from ''dmesg''.

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> What is the load average while listening to a music file with the external USB
> CD-ROM plugged in?
>
> Also, please attach the output from ''dmesg''.

The average cpu load is about 10%. I plugged in the usb cd-rom drive and played
track using cd player and here is the output from dmesg

[29735.950686] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[29741.714585] SCSI subsystem initialized
[29741.910598] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[29741.917147] scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[29741.922214] usb-storage: device found at 3
[29741.922228] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[29741.922762] usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
[29741.922773] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[29746.953832] Vendor: GENERIC Model: FREECOM24B Rev: 1.51
[29746.953864] Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[29746.969507] usb-storage: device scan complete
[29747.291747] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 40x/40x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[29747.296223] Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
[29747.382035] Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 5
[29822.692112] sg_write: data in/out 56/56 bytes for SCSI command 0x12--guessing
 data in;
[29822.692121] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.696753] sg_write: data in/out 26/26 bytes for SCSI command 0x5a--guessing
 data in;
[29822.696762] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.699265] sg_write: data in/out 12/12 bytes for SCSI command 0x43--guessing
 data in;
[29822.699273] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.702209] sg_write: data in/out 12/12 bytes for SCSI command 0x43--guessing
 data in;
[29822.702216] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.707658] sg_write: data in/out 12/12 bytes for SCSI command 0x43--guessing
 data in;
[29822.707666] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.710455] sg_write: data in/out 12/12 bytes for SCSI command 0x43--guessing
 data in;
[29822.710463] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.713181] sg_write: data in/out 12/12 bytes for SCSI command 0x43--guessing
 data in;
[29822.713189] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29822.716653] sg_write: data in/out 2352/2352 bytes for SCSI command 0xbe--gues
sing data in;
[29822.716662] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29824.273579] sg_write: data in/out 30576/30576 bytes for SCSI command 0xbe--gu
essing data in;
[29824.273589] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29824.376889] sg_write: data in/out 30576/30576 bytes for SCSI command 0xbe--gu
essing data in;
[29824.376899] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29827.713847] printk: 33 messages suppressed.
[29827.713867] sg_write: data in/out 16464/16464 bytes for SCSI command 0xbe--gu
essing data in;
[29827.713874] program gnome-cd not setting count and/or reply_len properly
[29833.370599] printk: 24 messages ...

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Oops I was mistaken. This problem does exist in hoary and breezy colony-3. I
> have installed xmms on hoary and when I change the output plugin to libALSA.so
> the sound seems fine. It also works fine through the libOSS.so plugin. So it's
> the libesdout.so plugin where the playback is dodgy.
>
> CD Player, Totem and Music Player (Rhythmbox) are affected and Realplayer seems
> to be unaffected.
>
> Steve
>

I presume you imply that the ALSA and OSS output plugins in XMMS both work fine
regardless whether the external USB CD-ROM is connected?

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

(In reply to comment #5)

> I presume you imply that the ALSA and OSS output plugins in XMMS both work fine
> regardless whether the external USB CD-ROM is connected?

I thought this at first but then when i retried it i found that with the usb
cd-rom plugged in it sometimes works with ALSA and OSS, but not everytime. I
have tried internet streams with realplayer 8 and it seems to act in a similar way.

Just to clarify the situation i will recap.

First of all the laptop sound works fine on it's own. CD's work as do media
files. The problems start when i plug in the usb drive. At first it will sound
garbled in the right speaker, then the right speaker goes out of sync and seems
to play faster. After about a minute it's nearly a second ahead of the left speaker.

This always happens when i try to play an audio cd from the USB drive. I've
tried cd player and xmms with ALSA, esound and OSS drivers. I can only use
digital input. If i switch to analog i get no sound at all. It will also garble
in Rhythmbox and Totem when playing an ogg file from the hard drive.

When i play a cd from my internal dvd-rom drive i get different results. Using
xmms and the Alsa or OSS output drivers it can play fine sometimes but not
always, i often get around 40 secs of fine then it starts to garble. Other times
it starts immediately or doesn't occur at all. It seems quite hit and miss. With
the esound driver though it always goes bad. I get similar results with internet
streams and realplayer 8. Once again ALSA and OSS are intermittant and esound
always goes bad.

If i change the DVD drive input to analog in xmms it seems to work perfectly.

Oh and the usb drive is a Freecom FX-1 CD-RW.

I think that about covers it.
Thanks

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Please ensure with hdparm that DMA is enabled for your internal DVD-ROM.

The analog input works fine because it does not use digital audio extraction,
and because the sync issues only occur with DAE I'm inclined to look at hdparm
settings first and then whether "plughw:0,0" works better than "default" for the
ALSA virtual device.

Presuming your internal DVD-ROM is /dev/hdc (you'll need to confirm with
/var/log/dmesg output):
$ sudo hdparm -d /dev/hdc

If it's disabled, please enable it using -d1, and test CD Player's and XMMS's
DAE again.

If it's enabled, please change XMMS's ALSA plugin configuration in Preferences.
In the device drop-down menu, please replace "default" by typing "plughw:0,0".
This will temporarily disable dmixed sounds, so please ensure esd is not running
by unchecking System> Preferences> Sound> Enable sound server startup. Then test
XMMS's DAE again.

In both cases, make sure you've checked the multithreaded mode checkbox in
XMMS's ALSA plugin configuration (Advanced settings). For testing, please
UNCHECK the mmap mode checkbox.

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Please ensure with hdparm that DMA is enabled for your internal DVD-ROM.
...
> UNCHECK the mmap mode checkbox.

Ok, i tried these things and nothing changed. I also managed to try the usb
drive on another pc with ubuntu hoary. The pc has an nforce2 motherboard and i
used the onboard AC97 sound. It worked fine, i couldn't detect any problems. So
i suppose the problem is related to the laptop. I'll try to be more restrained
when looking for bugs in future.
Thanks for your help.

Steve

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

Try booting with each of the following kernel options:

    acpi=off
    pci=noacpi
    noapic
    nolapic

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Try booting with each of the following kernel options:
>
> acpi=off
> pci=noacpi
> noapic
> nolapic
>

I've tried each of these to no effect. The problem always still occurs. I
noticed that in dmesg it says that apic is disabled usually anway. As far as I
know it's not needed on single processor systems. Turning off acpi seemed to
cause the wireless card to be started later, so ntp sync failed. But that's all
I saw different to normal.

I thought about trying other distros to see if that changes things. The trouble
is with only 128MB and a 600MHz P3, I'm limited in choice. As Ubuntu is debian
based I thought it best to stay away from other similar distros. Since I have
Zenwalk 1.2 (formally Minislack) on a mag cover cd I thought I'd start there.
But sadly, that didn't show any improvement.

I have looked into ALSA and found that the driver is for the previous revision
i.e. es1968 rather than my es1978 and that sound capture is not supported. As
the specs were never released for this chipset it seems likely that there will
be problems. I must confess I've no idea how the sound system works so I can't
really comment, though I'd be surprised if this driver will see any more updates.

[Djief (jean-francois-burguet)]

I've got the same bug :)
I've got the same soundcard (ES1978 Maestro 2E) and a Sweex Wifi Usb Adaptor.
The sound is perfect as long as the USB adaptor isn't plugged, but when it is,
my sound start to garble.
I believe the bug is in the kernel because aplay also doesn't work well.

here is my dmesg :

395000] EISA bus registered
[4294669.395000] ACPI: bus type pci registered
[4294669.395000] PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd9a6, last bus=1
[4294669.395000] PCI: Using configuration type 1
[4294669.395000] mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
[4294669.397000] ACPI: Subsystem revision 20050729
[4294669.448000] ACPI: Interpreter enabled
[4294669.448000] ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
[4294669.450000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs *11)
[4294669.451000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 11) *0, disabled.
[4294669.452000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 5 6 7 11) *0, disabled.
[4294669.453000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 11) *0, disabled.
[4294669.464000] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)
[4294669.464000] PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
[4294669.470000] ACPI: Assume root bridge [\_SB_.PCI0] segment is 0
[4294669.470000] ACPI: Assume root bridge [\_SB_.PCI0] bus is 0
[4294669.510000] Boot video device is 0000:01:00.0
[4294669.537000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
[4294669.538000] burst-mode-ec-10-Aug
[4294669.538000] ACPI: Embedded Controller [EC0] (gpe 9)
[4294669.602000] ACPI: Power Resource [PFAN] (off)
[4294669.602000] Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
[4294669.602000] pnp: PnP ACPI init
[4294669.709000] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 12 devices
[4294669.709000] PnPBIOS: Disabled by ACPI PNP
[4294669.709000] PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
[4294669.709000] PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq". If it
helps, post a report
[4294669.712000] pnp: 00:01: ioport range 0x4d0-0x4d1 has been reserved
[4294669.713000] Simple Boot Flag at 0x37 set to 0x1
[4294669.714000] audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
[4294669.714000] audit: initialized
[4294669.714000] VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
[4294669.714000] Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
[4294669.714000] devfs: 2004-01-31 Richard Gooch (<email address hidden>)
[4294669.714000] devfs: boot_options: 0x0
[4294669.715000] Initializing Cryptographic API
[4294669.715000] Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.
[4294669.715000] isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
[4294670.069000] isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
[4294670.127000] PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:KBC,PNP0f13:MOUE] at 0x60,0x64
irq 1,12
[4294670.131000] serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
[4294670.131000] serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
[4294670.131000] Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 54 ports, IRQ
sharing enabled
[4294670.131000] ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[4294670.132000] ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a NS16550A
[4294670.138000] ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[4294670.139000] io scheduler noop registered
[4294670.139000] io scheduler anticipatory registered
[4294670.139000] io scheduler deadline registered
[4294670.139000] io scheduler cfq registered
[4294670.140000] RAMDISK driver initialized: 16...

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

I must add that, on Djief laptop, unplugging the USB adaptator sometimes produce
a kernel Ooops with a lot of hexadecimal garbage in the console.

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

I have recently found that this problem also occurs with other usb devices. I
have two usb key drives, a disgo 32MB and a samsung ltd 512MB.Both of them work
fine. They just cause sound plackback to garble and go out of step, even when
unmounted but still plugged in.
If removed the playback doesn't correct itself. It needs to be restarted and
then it works fine again.

Here's the dmesg output for the disgo

[38092.564445] hub 1-0:1.0: over-current change on port 1
[38092.733380] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[38093.181462] scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[38093.182834] usb-storage: device found at 5
[38093.182846] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[38098.186260] Vendor: M-Sys Model: DiskOnKey Rev: 3.04
[38098.186292] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[38098.200295] SCSI device sda: 63616 512-byte hdwr sectors (33 MB)
[38098.203294] sda: Write Protect is off
[38098.203315] sda: Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
[38098.203324] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[38098.223135] SCSI device sda: 63616 512-byte hdwr sectors (33 MB)
[38098.226116] sda: Write Protect is off
[38098.226128] sda: Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
[38098.226136] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[38098.226149] /dev/scsi/host2/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
[38098.238046] Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun
0[38098.243383] usb-storage: device scan complete
[38101.582937] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems,
filesystem will be case sensitive!
[39463.750184] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 5

and lsusb -v
Bus 001 Device 009: ID 08ec:0011 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers
Device Descriptor:
  bLength 18
  bDescriptorType 1
  bcdUSB 2.00
  bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass 0
  bDeviceProtocol 0
  bMaxPacketSize0 64
  idVendor 0x08ec M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers
  idProduct 0x0011
  bcdDevice 2.00
  iManufacturer 1
  iProduct 2
  iSerial 3
  bNumConfigurations 1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength 9
    bDescriptorType 2
    wTotalLength 32
    bNumInterfaces 1
    bConfigurationValue 1
    iConfiguration 0
    bmAttributes 0x80
    MaxPower 94mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength 9
      bDescriptorType 4
      bInterfaceNumber 0
      bAlternateSetting 0
      bNumEndpoints 2
      bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage
      bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI
      bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk (Zip)
      iInterface 0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength 7
        bDescriptorType 5
        bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN
        bmAttributes 2
          Transfer Type Bulk
          Synch Type None
          Usage Type Data
        wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
        bInterval 0
      Endpoint ...

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

I think the issue has to do with resource sharing. Probably IRQ sharing between
USB and IDE.

Not sure what we can do about this, but please test with latest breezy, and also
with latest dapper 2.6.15 kernels.

[Djief (jean-francois-burguet)]

Still have the bug with the latest dapper kernel :(

linux-image-2.6.15-7-386:
  Installé : 2.6.15-7.9
  Candidat : 2.6.15-7.9

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

The bug is still present in latest Dapper. Unfortunatly...

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

By "latest Dapper," do you mean you're running the latest 20.30 kernel?

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.15-20-686 (buildd@vernadsky) (gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu3)) #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Apr 4 18:37:00 UTC 2006

[Stephen Drake (spd106)]

It is still present in standard install of dapper flight 6. Though the effects are reduced, it still occurs.

cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.15-19-386 (buildd@rothera) (gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1u buntu3)) #1 PREEMPT Mon Mar 20 16:46:02 UTC 2006

I'll update and check again with the latest kernel.

[Carthik Sharma (carthik)]

This bug has been confirmed by many folks. Changing to Confirmed.

Thank you.

[Djief (jean-francois-burguet)]

The bug is still present in the latest kernel :(

cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.15-20-686 (buildd@vernadsky) (gcc version 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu3)) #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Apr 4 18:37:00 UTC 2006

[Andrea Bravetti (andreabravetti)]

I have exactly the same problem, but on a Fujitsu-Siemens AMILO Pro v2010:
Garbled sound when an usb device is attached.
But my audio card is a VIA VT823... AC97 (vendor 0x1106, device 0x3059) and the USB controller a VIA VT82... (vendor 0x1106, device 0x3104).
If it help...

As soon as possible I will test it with kernel 2.6.17.9 or newest.

bye
Andrea

[Andrea Bravetti (andreabravetti)]

In my case it seems to be a DMA related kernel BUG.

Both usb and sound are on DMA 11, and my laptop has 3 different usb controller: only 1 (the one on DMA 11) is affected.

[age6racer (das-hills)]

I have the same issue spec below:

DISTRO: Xubuntu 6.10 Linux 2.6.17-11-generic on i686
PC/CPU: Compaq Armada M300 PIII 600mhz
RAM: 320mb RAM (100mhz)
Soundcard: ESS ES1978 (MAESTRO 2E)

I haven't noticed any patterns emerging with certain hardware plugged in although the issue is present most of the time and I regularly use a usb mouse and almost always have my Linksys WPC54G PCMCIA wifi card plugged in.

Hope this helps!

[age6racer (das-hills)]

Ok, just did a quick test with different hardware setups.
It is definitely USB related. I only seem to have the problem when my USB port is occupied.
The PCMCIA interface does not affect it. Right now i am listening to XMMS in perfect clarity and using this site with my wireless card. However if i plug in the USB mouse the sound will begin to deteriorate. (but only after the track playing has finished)

[andy8co (tinfoiltop)]

same problem here on compaq armada m300. Any fixes? Changing DMA?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this linux-source-2.6.15 kernel bug to the new "linux" package. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Also, if you would be interested in testing the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release, it is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Please let us know your results. Thanks!

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor)]

This bug report was marked as Confirmed a while ago but has not had any updated comments for quite some time. Please let us know if this issue remains in the current Ubuntu release, http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . If the issue remains, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Unassigned from Ben Collins. Marked Invalid. If anyone can reproduce on Karmic or Lucid, please open a new bug and post the apport data.

-JFo