after upgrade to karmic during audio playback a high-frequency whistling can be heard

[Jan Schürmann]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

with pulseaudio configured for 5.1 sound output there is a high-frequency whistle when playing audio files, independent from the application. when i turn the 5.1 sound output to normal stereo output the whistle is gone.
sound onboard: (Mainboard)ALiveSATA2-GLAN (Soundchip)Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
with a Creative 5.1 speaker system

[ShPioN (islom)]

Same problem with my ALC888+pulseaudio after upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic. Motherboard: Biostar T-Force 7025.

[Stefan (stefan-engelhardt)]

I had the same problem with my creative xfi, but i solved it by changing the "default-sample-format" value in "daemon.conf".
The standard value was "s16le" and when i changed it to "s24le" the whistle dissappeared.

[ShPioN (islom)]

Changed "default-sample-format" to "s24le", it seems that this solves my problem. Whistles dissappeared.

[Blown2bits (blown2bits)]

Confirmed: High-frequency whistle (sounds like exceeding Nyquist frequency) with ALC882+pulseaudio when playing any audio in 5.1 analog output.

Fix works:
; default-sample-format = s16le
default-sample-format = s24le

$ pulseaudio -k

Then, whistles gone.

Sound driver: hda_snd_intel.
On-board sound: Asus P5W DH Deluxe with (ALC882) audio
Kernel: Linux somer 2.6.31-17-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 17:01:44 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ lspci -vnn
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 01)
 Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:81d8]
 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
 Memory at febfc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
 Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
 Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
 Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel <?>
 Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link <?>
 Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
 Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

Two notable things also occured that might be useful in diagnosing:

1. Was getting a bunch of rate limit messages before default-sample-format changed to s24le. Afterward, the rate-limit messages were reduced considerably even after I went back to s16le. You can see that in messages log. Comments in square brackets.

Dec 16 23:07:19 somer pulseaudio[2260]: ratelimit.c: 177 events suppressed
Dec 16 23:18:07 somer pulseaudio[2260]: ratelimit.c: 180 events suppressed
Dec 16 23:20:58 somer pulseaudio[2260]: ratelimit.c: 179 events suppressed
Dec 17 00:02:41 somer pulseaudio[2260]: ratelimit.c: 176 events suppressed
Dec 17 00:20:10 somer pulseaudio[2260]: ratelimit.c: 172 events suppressed
Dec 17 00:20:41 somer pulseaudio[2260]: ratelimit.c: 43 events suppressed [daemon.conf changed and PA killed]
Dec 17 00:22:04 somer pulseaudio[21491]: alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 18.00 dB to 18.00 dB which makes no sense.
Dec 17 00:23:33 somer pulseaudio[21491]: last message repeated 6 times
Dec 17 00:25:09 somer pulseaudio[21491]: ratelimit.c: 5 events suppressed
Dec 17 00:27:49 somer pulseaudio[21491]: ratelimit.c: 2 events suppressed [continues with approx. 1 - 10 events per report]

2. Everytime PA is killed this appears in messages and syslog:
Dec 17 00:34:00 somer pulseaudio[22677]: alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 18.00 dB to 18.00 dB which makes no sense.

3. Twice received this message in syslog:
Dec 17 00:25:03 sophia pulseaudio[21491]: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
Dec 17 00:25:03 sophia pulseaudio[21491]: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_hda_intel'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
Dec 17 00:25:03 sophia pulseaudio[21491]: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.

[Blown2bits (blown2bits)]

Confirmed as per:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToTriage#Confirming

i.e. # Can you reproduce the bug yourself?

[ruslan (ruslan-asfandiyarov)]

I have the same whistle, but the fix mentioned above (default-sample-format = s24le) doesn't work. A temporary solution that I found is just to open "Sound Preferences" window every time I log in. It is funny but the whistle disappears while the window is open and comes back when it is closed. Do you know more cleaver solution?

Here are audio settings:

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10
Codename: karmic

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:284b] (rev 03)
 Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:ff00]
 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 31
 Memory at f4700000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
 Capabilities: <access denied>
 Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
 Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

[Blown2bits (blown2bits)]

@ruslan: Does the whistle change if you move the Sound Preferences window to different locations on the screen?

[Ruslan (rulet3)]

Doesn't work for me on Ubuntu 10.04 -- still the same whistle...

[[e-mail] (htmldeveloper)]

Can u quickly do this: Burned and boot up in a Ubuntu 10.04 CD -
LiveCD approach, without any installation, and test your your/audio to
see if it worked? Any dependencies needed just go ahead and do a
apt-get. This way - starting from clean piece of system, without the
upgrade approach, will ensure all binaries are brand new, and if any
missing binaries it can be install again.

This contrast with the "upgrade" approach - only those packages listed
in your repository are upgraded. But there can be many other
remaining binaries for which the packages have installed, and
uninstalled, but the binaries still remained.....perhaps due to
dependencies locking issues etc etc. Anyway, most likely I am wrong,
but just give it a try?

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:32 AM, Ruslan <email address hidden> wrote:
> Doesn't work for me on Ubuntu 10.04 -- still the same whistle...
>
> --
> after upgrade to karmic during audio playback a high-frequency whistling can be heard
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/475997
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
> Audio Team, which is subscribed to pulseaudio in ubuntu.
>
> Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: pulseaudio
>
> with pulseaudio configured for 5.1 sound output there is a high-frequency whistle when playing audio files, independent from the application. when i turn the 5.1 sound output to normal stereo output the whistle is gone.
> sound onboard: (Mainboard)ALiveSATA2-GLAN (Soundchip)Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
> with a Creative 5.1 speaker system
>
>
>

--
Regards,
Peter Teoh

[Ruslan (rulet3)]

:)) Solved. I just had to remove the semicolon from the beginning of the line, so it looks this:
default-sample-format = s24le

[Jan Schürmann (visionfactory.net)]

i didn't have a daemon.conf. what has to be in the file?

[Ruslan (rulet3)]

 Well, here is my /etc/pulse/daemon.conf file:

# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
# USA.

## Configuration file for the PulseAudio daemon. See pulse-daemon.conf(5) for
## more information. Default values a commented out. Use either ; or # for
## commenting.

; daemonize = no
; fail = yes
; allow-module-loading = yes
; allow-exit = yes
; use-pid-file = yes
; system-instance = no
; enable-shm = yes
; shm-size-bytes = 0 # setting this 0 will use the system-default, usually 64 MiB
; lock-memory = no
; cpu-limit = no

; high-priority = yes
; nice-level = -11

; realtime-scheduling = yes
; realtime-priority = 5

; exit-idle-time = 20
; scache-idle-time = 20

; dl-search-path = (depends on architecture)

; load-default-script-file = yes
; default-script-file =

; log-target = auto
; log-level = notice
; log-meta = no
; log-time = no
; log-backtrace = 0

resample-method = speex-float-1
enable-remixing = yes
enable-lfe-remixing = yes

flat-volumes = no

; rlimit-fsize = -1
; rlimit-data = -1
; rlimit-stack = -1
; rlimit-core = -1
; rlimit-as = -1
; rlimit-rss = -1
; rlimit-nproc = -1
; rlimit-nofile = 256
; rlimit-memlock = -1
; rlimit-locks = -1
; rlimit-sigpending = -1
; rlimit-msgqueue = -1
; rlimit-nice = 31
; rlimit-rtprio = 9
; rlimit-rttime = 1000000

default-sample-format = s24le
default-sample-rate = 48000
; default-sample-channels = 6
; default-channel-map = front-left,front-right

default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 10

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command only once, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 475997

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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