USB-Audio CM106 USB Sound card causes weird errors in the logs

[Jeff Fortin Tam]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

I have a CMI106 usb sound card (the cheap chinese ones like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-7-1-Ch-Optical-Audio-Sound-Card-SPDIF-Adapter_W0QQitemZ320447866154QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4a9c2e652a#ht_2096wt_954 )

It behaves... strangely. I thought I'd at least report what the syslog tells me:

Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.376044] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.605415] usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.702501] input: USB Sound Device as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.3/input/input11
Mar 9 20:39:26 kiki kernel: [ 502.702841] generic-usb 0003:0D8C:0102.0003: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device ] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-2/input3
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki pulseaudio[1143]: alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0.00 dB to 0.00 dB which makes no sense.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki pulseaudio[1143]: last message repeated 2 times
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Sucessfully made thread 1572 of process 1143 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki pulseaudio[1143]: ratelimit.c: 25 events suppressed
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Sucessfully made thread 1573 of process 1143 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 9 20:39:27 kiki rtkit-daemon[1145]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.

This is on ubuntu lucid lynx. The "pulseaudio complains that the volume range is impossible" part was also present in ubuntu 9.10, except that it said "from -16 dB to -16 dB".

Some symptoms I'm seeing:
- unreliable volume vumeters in pavucontrol
- plugging a headset mic into the sound card's mic input works, but plugging normal boom mics doesn't work at all. I tried two different mics: a cheap dynamic mic with an on/off switch, and an electret condenser mic with a battery in it. Both boom mics work if I plug them in the onboard soundcard of the computer instead of the USB sound card. I don't know what to do.

Also, I left this bug be filed on pulseaudio, but according to pulseaudio it's an alsa bug. I don't know the correct alsa package name to file this upon.

ProblemType: Bug
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: jeff 1143 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jeff 1143 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'ICH6'/'Intel ICH6 with AD1981B at irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981B'
   Components : 'AC97a:41445374'
   Controls : 26
   Simple ctrls : 18
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'default'/'USB Sound Device at usb-0000:00:1d.1-2, full speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB0d8c:0102'
   Controls : 14
   Simple ctrls : 6
Date: Tue Mar 9 20:32:13 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100113)
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu11
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SelectedCard: 1 default USB-Audio - USB Sound Device
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Symptom: audio
Title: [USB-Audio - USB Sound Device ] pactl stat failed to find default card
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic i686

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

Hi Jean-François,

If you could also please test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

There was no 'needs-upstream-testing' tag, only a "needs-test-current-image" tag (which I removed).
Tested with mainline 2.6.34. This one doesn't seem to be affected by the bug in the sense that nothing special is printed to syslog:

Mar 29 11:40:53 kiki kernel: [ 175.192052] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Mar 29 11:40:53 kiki kernel: [ 175.487980] usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
Mar 29 11:40:53 kiki kernel: [ 175.494281] input: USB Sound Device as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.3/input/input8
Mar 29 11:40:53 kiki kernel: [ 175.494594] generic-usb 0003:0D8C:0102.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device ] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-2/input3
Mar 29 11:40:53 kiki kernel: [ 175.495849] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
Mar 29 11:40:53 kiki kernel: [ 175.495855] usbhid: USB HID core driver
Mar 29 11:40:54 kiki kernel: [ 175.629823] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
Mar 29 11:40:54 kiki rtkit-daemon[3478]: Sucessfully made thread 3801 of process 3476 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 29 11:40:54 kiki rtkit-daemon[3478]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 29 11:40:54 kiki rtkit-daemon[3478]: Sucessfully made thread 3802 of process 3476 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 29 11:40:54 kiki rtkit-daemon[3478]: Supervising 5 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 29 11:41:30 kiki pulseaudio[3476]: ratelimit.c: 24 events suppressed

[Guy Taylor (thebiggerguy)]

This still happens on:

Linux version 2.6.33-02063303-generic (root@zinc) (gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)) #02063303 SMP Tue Apr 27 12:14:21 UTC 2010

[Reinaldo C Filho (reinaldocfilho)]

This still happens on the latest version, updated today in 09 of april of 2011.

The card works properly until I simply try to change the "Analog Output" to something else, then if I try to switch back, I can't get sound anymore with my USB headphone, it's the same model, CM106 USB Sound Card that came embeeded from an Clone Audio Headset.

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

Cross-post from another bug report about the same buggy hardware: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/535453

I'm having similar issues with my Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM (based on CM106).
Here's a cheap one on Newegg: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/513634

Notably, the device itself is buggy. With Windows 7 default drivers, it claims only 7.1 channel support. No 5.1, nor even stereo. On top of that, it's totally silent. It takes their proprietary driver to get it working reasonably.

With Linux, the same 7.1-only limitation applies... but when hotplugged, PulseAudio sees it as only stereo INPUT.
If I kill pulseaudio, it defaults to muted, but works when I unmute it... until I change output type away from "analog speakers".
Then it drops the slider to zero and won't bring it back.

Now I only see one Speaker slider, instead of the two I saw before... but it has likely totally bogus dB values (between +0.0 and +0.14).

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

er, that link was this report. Here's the other report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/535476

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Benjamim Gois (benjamim-gois)]

As i see this a old driver problem. Here i am 2016 running steam os with kernel 4.1 and when i plug the USB sound device the screen goes black and here is the log message at dmesg?

[ 327.850174] usb 1-3: new full-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[ 327.979753] usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0d8c, idProduct=0102
[ 327.979756] usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 327.979757] usb 1-3: Product: USB Sound Device
[ 327.980641] input: USB Sound Device as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.3/0003:0D8C:0102.0003/input/input19
[ 328.034572] hid-generic 0003:0D8C:0102.0003: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device ] on usb-0000:00:14.0-3/input3
[ 328.083459] usb 1-3: current rate 30464 is different from the runtime rate 96000
[ 328.084709] usb 1-3: Warning! Unlikely big volume range (=8065), cval->res is probably wrong.
[ 328.084711] usb 1-3: [9] FU [Mic Playback Volume] ch = 2, val = -6144/1921/1
[ 328.085053] usb 1-3: Warning! Unlikely big volume range (=8065), cval->res is probably wrong.
[ 328.085055] usb 1-3: [11] FU [Line Playback Volume] ch = 2, val = -6144/1921/1
[ 328.086554] usb 1-3: Warning! Unlikely big volume range (=6928), cval->res is probably wrong.
[ 328.086557] usb 1-3: [8] FU [Mic Capture Volume] ch = 2, val = -4096/2832/1
[ 328.086902] usb 1-3: Warning! Unlikely big volume range (=6928), cval->res is probably wrong.
[ 328.086904] usb 1-3: [15] FU [Line Capture Volume] ch = 2, val = -4096/2832/1
[ 328.087291] usb 1-3: Warning! Unlikely big volume range (=6928), cval->res is probably wrong.
[ 328.087293] usb 1-3: [2] FU [PCM Capture Volume] ch = 2, val = -4096/2832/1
[ 328.087443] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
[ 335.967553] usb 1-3: USB disconnect, device number 6

root@steamos:/home/desktop# uname -a
Linux steamos 4.1.0-0.steamos.24-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.1.13-0+steamos4 (2016-01-12) x86_64 GNU/Linux