Audio lost, sound device dissapears briefly when using VLC and 5.1 output with SoundBlaster Audigy SE and Ubuntu 12.04.4

[iceman75]

Possible error with driver snd_ca0106 inside ALSA on Ubuntu 12.04.4 (new installation).

When using VLC with a SoundBlaster Audigy SE PCI and 5.1 Speakers Output, often sound stops working and audio device is missing, after 10-30 seconds audio device returns and if I restart VLC, audio returns.

This is what syslog shows when that happens:

Mar 8 11:16:36 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20626 of process 20144 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 8 11:16:36 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 5 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:17:01 8300-CMT CRON[20639]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Mar 8 11:22:06 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20776]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Servidor configurado por usuario en {53979ae799832e7f5deb1bbd00000004}unix:/home/jorejarena/.pulse/53979ae799832e7f5deb1bbd00000004-runtime/native, que parece ser local. Probando más a fondo.
Mar 8 11:22:06 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20779 of process 20779 (n/a) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Mar 8 11:22:06 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:06 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20779]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Mar 8 11:22:06 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20780 of process 20779 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 8 11:22:06 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:11 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20782]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Servidor configurado por usuario en {53979ae799832e7f5deb1bbd00000004}unix:/home/jorejarena/.pulse/53979ae799832e7f5deb1bbd00000004-runtime/native, que parece ser local. Probando más a fondo.
Mar 8 11:22:11 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20783]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Servidor configurado por usuario en {53979ae799832e7f5deb1bbd00000004}unix:/home/jorejarena/.pulse/53979ae799832e7f5deb1bbd00000004-runtime/native, que parece ser local. Probando más a fondo.
Mar 8 11:22:11 8300-CMT kernel: [ 4959.264535] 3:3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x82
Mar 8 11:22:16 8300-CMT kernel: [ 4964.268888] 3:3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x82
Mar 8 11:22:22 8300-CMT kernel: [ 4969.693450] 3:3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x82
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT kernel: [ 4974.697672] 3:3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x82
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20786 of process 20779 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20787 of process 20779 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20788 of process 20779 (n/a) owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 5 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20791 of process 20791 (n/a) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 6 threads of 2 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20791]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Successfully made thread 20793 of process 20793 (n/a) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT rtkit-daemon[1821]: Supervising 6 threads of 2 processes of 1 users.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20793]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20779]: [alsa-sink] alsa-sink.c: ALSA nos despertó para escribir nuevos datos al dispositivo, ¡pero en realidad no hay nada para escribir!
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20779]: [alsa-sink] alsa-sink.c: Probablemente sea un error en el controlador ALSA «snd_ca0106». Informe esto a los desarrolladores de ALSA.
Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20779]: [alsa-sink] alsa-sink.c: Nos despertaron con POLLOUT -- sin embargo, una llamada a snd_pcm_avail() devolvió 0 u otro valor < min_avail.

If I play sound using the same components changing configuration from 5.1 to Stereo output, audio works flawlessly.

[iceman75 (javier-orejarena)]

NOTE: I have installed the package 'indicator-cpufreq'. When using 'performance' governor sound fails more often. When using 'ondemand' governor audio works almost perfectly (audio working well within the last 15 minutes).

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

Mar 8 11:22:27 8300-CMT pulseaudio[20791]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.

[iceman75 (javier-orejarena)]

Raymond, do you need more information to review the bug? Please tell me what more information you are going to need, thanks.

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

how about

speaker-test -d -c6 -t wav -D surround51:CA0106

post the pulseaudio verbose log

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio/Log

post output of alsa-info.sh

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/AlsaInfo

[iceman75 (javier-orejarena)]

Attached info from alsa-info.sh

[iceman75 (javier-orejarena)]

Attached pulseverbose.log

However, today I was not able to reproduce the bug. Only when desktop session started the startup sound played and for a few seconds after that there were not audio device detected, then CA106 returned. Tried to reproduce the bug using speaker-test, using VLC.... I did applied the latest updates to Ubuntu yesterday, I don't know if something has been corrected since then.

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

.00 dB 5: 0.00 dB
( 21.075| 0.000) D: [alsa-sink] alsa-sink.c: Thread starting up
( 21.082| 0.006) D: [alsa-sink] core-util.c: RealtimeKit worked.
( 21.082| 0.000) I: [alsa-sink] core-util.c: Successfully enabled SCHED_RR scheduling for thread, with priority 5.
( 21.082| 0.000) I: [alsa-sink] alsa-sink.c: Starting playback.
( 21.082| 0.000) I: [alsa-sink] (alsa-lib)pcm_hw.c: SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed (-77)
( 21.082| 0.000) D: [pulseaudio] module-device-restore.c: Could not set format on sink alsa_output.pci-0000_04_00.0.analog-surround-51

seem pulseaudio ignore SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed (-77)

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

when pulseaudio probing IEC958 playback and IEC958 capture at 21.062

cannot lock cylinder elem

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for alsa-driver (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]