Feisty - Sound stops after a few seconds and various apps fail to work properly

[Xebozone]

When playing sounds (any sound), the sound stops playing and any program using it either locks-up or behaves abnormally.

I managed to once play up to 33 seconds of an audio CD...but that's the most.

When pressing the test sound after this happens, I hear nothing. It happens with any sound, whether it's an audio CD or a game or whatever!

I am using 'auto detect' for the sound driver, which I think uses ALSA and have a 'CMI8738' which is a 'C-Media PCI CMI8738'. It is an integrated sound module on my Asus Tusi-M motherboard.

I think several other people may have the same or similar problems?

If so, all these reports should be combined into one big sound bug report...

[Xebozone (markdavidoff)]

A few days ago, I managed to play a (few?) minutes worth of mp4 video encoded on my iPod with Kaffeine. I don't know the exact time of play, but I stopped the video. An MP3 was playing simultaneously with Amarok (also off my iPod) Maybe that will clear something up or open ideas?

[Xebozone (markdavidoff)]

I have done a series of steps to try and track down the cause of this problem and where in the code the problem is:

- After disabling the on-board PCI sound device in BIOS:

First I tried to play *.wmv in kaffeine, but upon hitting play, kaffeine locks up.

I then tried to load up Amarok, which failed

In authentication log:

amarokapp gethostby*.getanswer: asked for "", got "."

I got the same error in same for kaffeine. ie. gethostby*.getanswer: asked for "", got "."

processes (eg. amarokapp and amarok) don't start up, but are sleeping in the system monitor and each time I try to launch it, it adds another instance to the system monitor and another line of gethostby*.getanswer: asked for "", got "." in the authentication log

After reboot, I start kaffeine again. Kaffeine doesn't lock-up...yet, and the authentication log does not show gethostby*.getanswer: asked for "", got "."

After hitting play,
kaffeine gethostby*.getanswer: asked for "", got "."
in the authentication log
and kaffeine locks up.

So, it loads initially, but once I hit play, something changes.

I tested two games (that are programmed to function without sound?) and they do not lock-up. This includes Frozen-Bubble (2?) and TuxTyping.

After re-enabling sound device in bios:

I loaded up a .wmv file in kaffeine, which played without a lock-up...not yet anyways.
This time, it manages to play without locking up yet. I tested a wmv and an MP3.
After playing around with kaffeine, trying to get it to lock-up again, I started up Amarok. I was able to play about about 30secs of audio before it locked up. I was able to start Amarok again (no 'sleeping' and no authorisation log entries (they must be related to having no sound device)) after terminating it...but upon hitting play, it locked-up again. I then started Kaffeine, and hit play and it locked-up too. So, once the sound locks up in one application, it locks up the rest.

I rebooted, and logged in again. I tried Kaffeine. No lock-ups. I then tried Amarok. A few seconds of playback, then the lock-up error! Amarok must be doing something to cause the lock-up! Kaffeine seems to be able to play the files for a decent amount of time before the error occurs.

I have also noticed that after the lock-up issue occurs, when I log out of KDE and try to log in to Gnome, the system locks-up with just the background (before the gnome splash screen loads but after the login screen is gone and the resolution changes - The login screen uses a different resolution to Gnome).
This may not be the same the other way around - I can log out of Gnome after the lock-up error (if it happens in Gnome) and log into KDE. I tested this, but I forgot, thus the use of the words 'may not...'

I use KDE as my primary and default desktop environment

Simply logging out and in will not solve any problems - a reboot is needed to be able to hear sound and to test again.

My sound device is using ALSA drivers.

Hope this helps to clear some things up and solve the problem

[Xebozone (markdavidoff)]

I just found that the problem occurred in Windows too, therefore it is a hardware problem, not a software problem!

Fixed the problem. I slowed down my processor. The default was 1.3Ghz, but I manually slowed it down to about 800Ghz via the BIOS. No longer do I have a problem!

Anyone with a similar problem may want to change the speed of their processors and/or memory and see if this helps.

[Marco Maini (maini10)]

Thanks for your report. However, if this problem happens also in Windows, probably it's an hardware problem as you have said. Therefore I close this report. Feel free to report any other problem.