cs46xx sound buzzes and skips, especially when changing volume

[Rob Speer]

This is a report for alsa-base 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu4 on a just-updated Ubuntu Karmic Beta. (Sorry, I don't know the difference between alsa-base and alsa-driver, but alsa-driver doesn't have an apt package...)

Upgrading to Karmic Beta has seriously degraded the quality of the sound coming from my trusty Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.

When the computer is busy, even from something as simple as me clicking a menu, the sound skips and pops. If I use the volume control applet to change the volume, the result is *terrible*: it makes "buzzing" noises where it just repeats whatever sound it was making over and over, and has about a 50% chance of getting stuck in the buzzing noise or going back to normal. (If it buzzes, I can try my luck at making it normal again by moving the volume control again.)

Sometimes, when I start an application, the sound will keep playing but get incredibly loud and distorted, as if it is being played through a really bad amp on overdrive.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: CS46xx [Sound Fusion CS46xx], device 0: CS46xx [CS46xx]
   Subdevices: 0/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: rob 2672 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c: rob 2672 F...m pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: rob 2672 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'CS46xx'/'Sound Fusion CS46xx at 0xf9200000/0xf9100000, irq 18'
   Mixer name : 'Cirrus Logic CS4297A rev 4,Cirrus Logic CS4294 rev 5'
   Components : 'AC97a:43525914 AC97a:4352592d'
   Controls : 71
   Simple ctrls : 45
Date: Tue Oct 6 22:33:29 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: alsa-base 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu4
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-12.39-generic
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-12-generic i686
UserAsoundrc:
 # ALSA library configuration file

 # Include settings that are under the control of asoundconf(1).
 # (To disable these settings, comment out this line.)
 </home/rob/.asoundrc.asoundconf>
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2694): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2694): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2790): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:2786): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (gnome-panel:2785): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_x11_colormap_foreign_new: assertion `GDK_IS_VISUAL (visual)' failed

[Rob Speer (rspeer)]

A little more Googling found me Bug #428619 in pulseaudio, which is describing the same problem.

This bug claims to be fixed, but I have the version of pulseaudio in which the fix was supposedly released.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

Hi Rob,

Please, if you are still having issues, test with the latest development release of Ubuntu. ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p alsa-base 445097

Also, if you could 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.

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[Rob Speer (rspeer)]

Unfortunately, I've taken out my Santa Cruz card by now. I decided I'd rather have onboard sound than a sound card that didn't work for several months.

There are still others reporting the problem at Bug #428619, so you may be able to get them to test it.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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