skype ALSA sound crash

[Uri Shabtay]

Hi all,

I use Jaunty, with Skype installed from the repos.

In general, skype works. it's not perfect, but i can have video chats for hours..

The mic is extremely low (but that's an ALSA issue, so i reported it here already: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/381885) but the main issue is the sound.
Every once in a while, talking with someone, the sound crashes, and i can't here the other person, but he can hear me. this happens in the MIDDLE of the call!

In addition, I can't close it. only killing it in the System monitor works. I tried restarting it alone, but nothing helps. only a full restart of the system..

i don't know if this is ALSA, or skype alone, but the software DOESN'T work well, at all. it sucks memory (this is the only program my computer passes the 65% in the processor usage..), camera crashes frequently, and the 'myself view' never shows up, unless i 'full-screen' it and resize again, then i must press 'show myself view' to remove it, and press it again to see it and make it finally work..

hope this helps.. and after all, thanks for all the great effort, keep up the great work..

Uri

[mikef (mfarewell)]

I am having the same problem since I upgraded to Jaunty. I can hold a conversation for a little while, then the sound goes quiet, the CPU on one core hits 100% and skype has to be killed before it can be restarted. I have tried lots of changes and recommendations. http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=306381&st=0 has numerous reports of this bug and suggestions none of which work. I assume that this bug is a Pulse Audio problem, but I have tried switching the output to use hardware instead and it still seems to happen. I am happy to perform any debugging process if you tell me how. Skype is pretty much unusable at the moment and I depend on it, so it would be great to get this sorted.

Many thanks,

Mike

[SunnyDrake (beebop)]

i suffer from this too. Skype doesn't work well with pulseaudio. I checked various config approach with pulse but i failed... best result is conversation will work for some time(~10-20min), skype will print "RtApiAlsa: underrun detected" in console several times and then just stop play audio. But kde4 sound mixer seems to work.
I read skype forums and there seems no hope to get pulseaudio fixed skype from dev's... But i found that there is something like "py4*" phyton skype api so maybe there is hope to write skype plugin for some other opensource product with same functionality.

[cytmtn (pkerpedjiev)]

In Jaunty Skype worked fine for me.

After upgrading to the karmic koala beta I started experiencing this very problem. If I do a sound only conversation, I can make it last indefinitely. Whenever I do anything that touches the processor (open a browser, move the mouse over the panel to make it display, turn on the video), I get "RtApiAlsa: underrun detected." error, the sound starts sputtering and eventually it dies.

To try again I kill pulseaudio and make the call again.

[komputes (komputes)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug seems to be completely resolved wit the latest version of skype 2.1.0.47-1 on Ubuntu 9.10. If you are able to reproduce this issue under those conditions, please re-open this bug.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Skype has been dropped from Medibuntu (Bug #494564), closing all related tasks.