gnome-sound-recorder does not capture sound properly (static click sounds)

[komputes]

Binary package hint: gnome-media

Ubuntu 8.04.1 Hardy & Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid
Package: gnome-media 2.22.0-0ubuntu & gnome-media 2.24.0.1-0ubuntu1
2.6.24-19-generic & 2.6.27-7-generic
gnome-sound-recorder 2.22.0 & 2.24.0.1
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)

The only sound fix I have used is to make the eeePC microphone work. This is outlined here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC/Fixes#Microphone
Related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/232173

In gnome-sound-recorder I can record then playback silence with little clicks. This worked in Gutsy but stopped working in Hardy. I can confirm that the microphone works since I can make calls in skype and record in audacity regularly.

[Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab)]

Same here on a HP laptop. Microphone works well in other apps.

Anyone "testing" their microphone using this application may think it doesn't work when in fact it does.

[Iain Holmes (iain-gnome)]

please do not subscribe me to random bugs
if you think this is a bug with gnome sound recorder then report it in the correct place (bugzilla.gnome.org) and the maintainer (hint: its not me) will actually have a chance to see it.

[komputes (komputes)]

Sorry for the confusion Iain. The bug has been reported upstream:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=560389

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi komputes and Fabián,

Can you each run the alsa-info script - http://alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh - and attach the resulting info file:

./alsa-info.sh --no-upload

I am unable to reproduce the issue here myself so I'm not certain this is a gnome-media issue. I've attached a screenshot of the audio settings I have. Additionally, I'll attach the .mp3 test recording I made as well as my alsa-info.txt file.

[komputes (komputes)]

I have tested this on a Dell m1330 and gnome-sound-recorder seem to work properly after selecting the right device in the mixer an unmuting the microphone. Magicfab sent me his alsa-info.txt output, which I have included here, as well as mine and the one from the m1330.

[komputes (komputes)]

Leann, I can see that the bug for gnome-media has been marked as invalid and this has been reassigned to the alsa-lib package. I'm not sure how that conclusion was reached. If you don't mind me asking, what is the technical reasoning behind this reassignment?

As far as I can see, if the alsa does not work well with the microphone, I would not be able to record in audacity or make skype calls, yet I am able to do these things. As well, I am hesitant to say that this issue is related to specific hardware as I have seen the same issue on multiple machines with different sound cards. The only think that remains true to all of the computers with this issue is that gnome-sound-recorder is the only application affected.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

did you try to do audio recording in other softwares using gstreamer or in softwares using oss or alsa directly? sound issues often turn to be due to pulseaudio or alsa nowadays, does it make a difference if you use alsa directly?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Daniel, do you have an idea if that's rather an alsa or gnome-sound-recorder issue?

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

alsa-lib doesn't seem to be the culprit here but instead mixer control settings. To diagnose komputes's case, we need to know which capture device is intended - the onboard one(s) or the webcam one - which can be deduced from the audio settings of another audio (capture) application, e.g., Skype, Audacity. In Fabián's case, 'Capture' is zeroed and muted (and the level of 'Front Mic' likely needs to be increased, too) - its level needs to be increased and set to capture ('cap' if using amixer) instead of not capturing.

[komputes (komputes)]

Seb, Please let me know what other specific recording software (which uses gstreamer) you would like me to test. Audacity is able to record when I set the capture from "OSS: /dev/dsp". If I set System > Preferences Sound to use OSS for capture (or any other ones really) the sound is still very disconnected and choppy although no longer just static (uploaded).

Daniel, My capture device which is intended is the "Front Mic". I do not have a webcam microphone or a webcam (Maybe I had a USB Logitech one connected to my USB hub when I ran alsa-info.sh). Please let me know what you would like me to test; If you have a few minutes to troubleshoot you may find me on freenode.

[komputes (komputes)]

I was able to test this a little further with the help of Daniel. It seems that gnome-sound recorder will only create this static sound when recording as an .oga

flac, wav and spix all worked well. I tried to run audacity and save the file as an ogg, the file sounds correct. What can be the issue with gnome-sound-recorder's implementation of ogg? Could it be that my 800mhz processor is not fast enough to compress the sound in real time.

[Luke Yelavich (themuso)]

Gnome-sound-recorder uses gstreamer for everyting, according to what it depends on at least. If you can, I'd try and use another gstreamer based application, such as a CD ripper for example, and see what happens when you create og files when ripping CDs, or using jokosher to record, anything that uses gstreamer and ogg.

Audacity is not affected since it uses libogg directly.

[komputes (komputes)]

I have tried to use gstreamer apps to record in oga. I have tested jokosher from the microphone, then mixed down to oga and it sounds good. Keep in mind that this is probably not saving the recording as oga before it is mixed down, while I think sound recorder writes it directly to disk in oga format which may be the root of the issue. sound-juicer extracting CD audio to .oga on intrepid works without this issue of static click sounds.

gnome-sounda recorder is the only one with this issue.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi komputes,

Per our discussion yesterday, I've also tested making a .oga recording. gnome-sound-recorder was able to capture just fine. I've attached the sample recording. Thanks.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

David, can you reproduce this symptom on other hardware?

[komputes (komputes)]

I'm not able to find other hardware using the same sound hardware. All other hardware that has been tested and seems to work well.

[Baggers (chris-bagley)]

I have this issue if i choose to record to cd lossy oga.
If I record to mp3 it's fine

[komputes (komputes)]

I'm having issues with ogg/oga and spx on both Intrepid and Jaunty (20090330). oga recording is nothing but clicks/static. spx is the recording but the quality is bad (has some static on it). Recording in flac or wav works fine.

Is there something wrong with this particular hardware?

Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) [104382a1]

Driver:
snd-hda-intel

Codec
Realtek ACL662

My processor runs at 571MHz. Is this below requirements for oga/spx?
Baggers, what hardware are you running this on? Can you post the output of the following commands:

sudo lspci -vvnn | grep -A20 -i audio
cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec

[Daniel Ellis (danellisuk)]

Same issue here on Dell mini9 running Ubuntu 904 release candidate with netbook remix.

Recording to ogg results in just a few clicks. Running the system monitor, I can see both cores are running at maximum.

I can get get it to work if I don't have anything else running and system monitor at nice 5. The cores are both right at the top but not quite max. Recording again then causes the cpu to max and the sound is just a few crackles.

There is no problem recording to wav, as the CPUs are only about 50%.

[komputes (komputes)]

Leann, I am marking this bug as confirmed as Daniel Ellis seems to be having the same issue and I was never able to fix the issue (only work around it by recording in a different format). Please let me know what you would like me to do to troubleshoot to cause of this issue.

I just tested this on an eeePC 701SD and eeePC 900 (897 and 900 Mhz respectively) and both also produced only static when recording to oga format. All other formats record properly. This seems to be an issue mostly for netbooks.

[Daniel Ellis (danellisuk)]

I found bug 354620 which I think this is a duplicate of. Even though this is older, the other description seems more relevant.

Recording to ogg works on the mini9 after removing the pulseaudio package and rebooting. Whilst recording, the CPU usage is then about 50-60% of both cores.