New Gnome mixer makes sound tinny/crackly, alsamixer doesn't

[H3g3m0n]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

When I adjust the volume using the new Karmic mixer in Gnome (or the wheel on my keyboard), the sound comes out sounding tinny (A little be crackly but mostly tinny)..

However if I jump into alsamixer and make even a minor change such as turning the volume up then back down to its original setting the tinny sound goes away. Changing using the Gnome mixer causes it to come back.

Sometimes it seems the problem seems gets temporarily fixed and the gnome mixer doesn't cause issues until next boot (probably after laying around with alsamixer for a while, haven't found out exactly what conditions fix it).

I also notice that when adjusting the mixer, when watching in alsamixer, the PCM, Front and Surround channels have small changes (if they are at %100, then they tend to jump around 97-100). Also if I turn down the PCM channel, the gnome mixer will turn it back up to 100 but turn down the Front and Surround channels.

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller

Linux ender 2.6.31-11-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 25 06:37:23 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: hegemon 2143 F.... pulseaudio
                      hegemon 6146 F.... alsamixer
                      hegemon 16038 F.... alsamixer
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: hegemon 2143 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfdff8000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC888'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,1458a002,00100001'
   Controls : 40
   Simple ctrls : 22
Date: Thu Oct 1 09:11:25 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.18-0ubuntu3
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.36-generic
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-11-generic x86_64

[Achim (ach1m)]

If I use alsamixer to reduce the PCM volume the tinny sound goes away.

Maybe it has something to do with the new channel mapping logic of PA. If I change the volume of LFE the master volume also changes, that doesn't seem to be correct for me.

[Achim (ach1m)]

I have done a little demo video.

The video is getting a bit async.
I recorded the problem with gnome-sound-recorder and the monitor device.

You have to ignore the low frequency noise, I don't hear that out of my speakers.
The high frequency noise is hearable.

Most of the time 'Banance' is not affected by that problem.

What also looks a bit weird is that some sliders seem to be connected to each other.
You will notice if I move one slider other sliders also start to move, that is strange.

I hope this information is somehow helpful.

Regards
Achim

[Achim (ach1m)]

The problem is still present with the latest updates. I have also attached also-info.txt maybe it has some useful information.

pulseaudio:
  Installiert: 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu1
  Kandidat: 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu1
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

alsa-base:
  Installiert: 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu5
  Kandidat: 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu5
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 1.0.20+dfsg-1ubuntu5 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[H3g3m0n (h3g3m0n)]

Still have the problem, just updated now. Also sometimes when I boot up, the sound cuts out after a few seconds of playing. Adjusting the volume brings it back up but then it will die in another few seconds. This might be unrelated (It could just be specific releases of pulse audio are broken during testing or something).

In any case I tried the following as a hack to keep the audio from sounding tinny, but I'm get occasional pops with it, it might just be because the sound happens to be cutting out at that time from the 2nd bug so it might be ok for just stopping the tinnyness (you might also want to increase the sleep value if the popping is occurring).

while true; do; sleep 1; amixer set Master 1+; amixer set Master 1-; done

Does any one know if there is some kind of new pulseaudio mixer monitoring daemon? I get the feeling something like that would be causing the problems and that everything would work if it could just be turned off since basic pulseaudio seems to be working fine with the alsa utilities and there must be something that is causing all the channels to alter each other when I adjust the volume using the gnome mixer.

Might be worth looking at replacing the mixer applet with something else and binding the volume up/down on the keyboard to amixer.

Since we are like a week away from Karmic, I get the feeling this isn't going to be fixed and I'm going to be stuck with it for the next 6 months. That and the random Xorg/compiz %100 cpu usage lockup I keep getting might make this version close to unusable for me :(

[H3g3m0n (h3g3m0n)]

Just rebooted and the randomly cutting out sound stopped.

I also notice that when I adjust the mixer in "Sound Preferences" with alsamixer open in the background to monitor the mixer setting of the other channels randomly jiggling around, the tinny sound doesn't happen when the PCM and other channels channel are %100. Also the other channels don't seem to jiggle when a

Also if I lower the volume to 0% in "Sound Preferences" the MUTE setting kicks in and doesn't unmute when raised unless I untick the mute box, although that seems to be a bug for that specific program and probably another separate issue. PulseAudio is really sucking...

I'm now using the following as it seems that stopping the 2ndry channels being randomly effected by the master channel solves the issue and that blocking the PCM chanel specificaly stops the Front, Surround, and so on channels being effected:
while true; do; amixer set PCM 100%; done

[Achim (ach1m)]

As it seems this is an alsa driver bug.
I have disabled power management in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

#options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N

and the audio corruption is to 99% gone.

Regards
Achim

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Can you reproduce this symptom when booted from the most current daily-live desktop Lucid image?

[Achim (ach1m)]

I guess this report here is a duplicate of #445849.

Because of the strange behaviour of g-v-c I can not really tell if the problem is entirely gone.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/445849/comments/115

Changing the volume of the "Master" slider of g-v-c doesn't produce any tinny/crackly sound, as far as I can tell.

Regards
Achim

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) reached end-of-life on April 30, 2011.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Please upgrade to the latest version and re-test.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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