E-MU 0202 USB sound card doesn't work properly

[bofphile]

I'm using Ubuntu Hardy with the default setup and I've only installed the package padevchooser to configure pulseaudio.

When I turn up my external sound card (E-MU 0202 USB), ubuntu recognize it (see my attached file). If I choose Pulse audio server as my output, I can get my music to play (and hear it) but then it stops after 20-30 secs and there's no sound at all until I turn off and on again my device. I've also tried to choose alsa as my output, but with this setup there's no sound at all. Only with PulseAudio server I can get my external device to work (temporarily).
The weird thing is my sound card works perfectly fine with the live cd of Fedora 9 (which also uses alsa-driver 1.0.16 and pulse audio). I have no idea what's wrong with my setup, maybe the configuration of Pulse Audio is not the same between the two distributions.

Also the module snd-usb-audio loads fine.

Here is more information that may help you:

xx@xx:~$ cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.16.
Compiled on Jun 5 2008 for kernel 2.6.24-19-generic (SMP).

xx@xx:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xfc100000 irq 21
 1 [USB ]: USB-Audio - E-MU 0202 | USB
                      E-MU Systems, Inc. E-MU 0202 | USB at usb-0000:00:1a.7-2, high speed

dmesg: (revelant part):
[ 194.701084] usb 7-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[ 194.835467] usb 7-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 194.957993] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this symptom still reproducible in 8.10 alpha?

[bofphile (bofphile)]

With Intrepid Alpha 6, the problem is a little different. The device doesn't stop working after a certain amount of time but every 30 secs or so, I can hear glitches/scratches.

[bofphile (bofphile)]

Also I'm not sure but I think this problem is the same that has been described (and solved by a patch) here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/51724/focus=51861
The E-Mu 0404 USB and 0202 USB have basically the same hardware.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[bofphile (bofphile)]

After some research, it seems like the problem doesn't come from Ubuntu. There's just no working ALSA driver for this soundcard at this moment.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

bofphile, according to bug #327780, the sound card should work on Intrepid...
could you take a look?

[bofphile (bofphile)]

I've tried with Intrepid and also Jaunty Alpha with a different problem: every 30-40 secs there's a glitch.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

Sounds very strange. Bophile, is there any chance your hardware is broken?
Otherwise, could you please run the script as described here [0] and attach the output?
Thank you

[0]: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems#Automatic%20Sound%20Information%20Collection

[bofphile (bofphile)]

My hardware works fine on Windows.

I've run the script and the attached output is located here: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=ecb257f8422a70aee4772ca8362c5a09a86cdad4

Also I think the problem has something to do with my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R rev. 2.1) because I've just bought a laptop (Thinkpad T500) and my 0202 USB device works flawlessly with it. I've tested it all day on Intrepid without problem.

Maybe a setting in the bios or a problem with the USB port. Although I already tried other USB port on the motherboard or change the HPET (High Precision Event Timer) setting without a difference.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

try playing with the "usb legacy" settings in your bios...
is it ok if I mark this bug report as invalid?

[bofphile (bofphile)]

Here are the options I have in the bios:
"
USB Controller
Enables or disables the integrated USB controller. (Default: Enabled)
Disabled will turn off all of the USB functionalities below.
USB 2.0 Controller
Enables or disables the integrated USB 2.0 controller. (Default: Enabled)
USB Keyboard Support
Allows USB keyboard to be used in MS-DOS. (Default: Disabled)
USB Mouse Support
Allows USB mouse to be used in MS-DOS. (Default: Disabled)
Legacy USB storage detect
Determines whether to detect USB storage devices, including USB flash drives and USB hard
drives during the POST. (Default: Enabled)"

I've already tried a few things without result.
Anything more I can do ?
If no then you can mark this bug as invalid.

Thank you.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

i cannot think of any more tests...
marking as invalid, if we come up with anything else we can switch it back
good luck