alsasink produces stuttering output [breezy]

[Holger Bauer]

Running gstreamer using the alsasink produces a stuttering or distorted output.
I had no problems with alsasink before I upgraded from hoary.
There is no soundserver running. Ossink works like a charm. Playing sound using
aplay also works. gstreamer-properties produces stutterin output with alsasink
and autosink.

I was playing aorund with gst-launch too.
works: gst-launch-0.8 filesrc location="Some.ogg" ! oggdemux ! vorbisdec !
audioconvert ! ossink
works: gst-launch-0.8 filesrc location="Some.mp3" ! mad ! osssink
does not work: gst-launch-0.8 filesrc location="Some.ogg" ! oggdemux ! vorbisdec
! audioconvert ! alsasink
does not worK: gst-launch-0.8 filesrc location="Some.mp3" ! mad ! alsasink

I have no old /etc/asound.conf or ~/.asoundrc on my system.

Installed are alsa-base 1.0.9b-3ubuntu1, gstreamer0.8-alsa 0.8.11-0ubuntu3 and
linux-image-2.6.12-8-k7.

[Holger Bauer (umarmung-planet)]

Created an attachment (id=3790)
Output of lspci -v

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Can you try booting the old kernel from Hoary, and see if that changes things?

[Holger Bauer (umarmung-planet)]

I booted my old kernel (2.6.10-5-k7) and still get the same symptoms.

However I noticed some error messages on bootup. I get those lines only on first
boot, after I switched kernels. When I boot a 2nd time the same kernel again, I
don't see that.
This repeated when I switched back from hoary to breezy kernel.

/etc/init.d/alsa-utils:
Warning:'alsactl restore' failed with the error message 'alsactl:
set_control:894:warning: name mismatch (Off_hook Switch/DAC Volume) for control #23
alsactl:896:warning: index mismatch(0/0) for control #23
alsactl:944:bad control.23.value type'

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Does it help if you adjust the mixer levels? Those messages indicate that (due
to the kernel change) your mixer settings couldn't be fully restored

[Holger Bauer (umarmung-planet)]

No. Adjusting mixer levels doesn't help.

[Holger Bauer (umarmung-planet)]

Finally I found a solution after discovering this debian bug:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=323447

I have to run alsasink with period-size=1024 and buffer-size=16384
Setting only period-size like suggested in the debian bugreport is not enough.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 17770.