When sound at remote sink, sound doesn't work

[Thomas Novin]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

I'm not sure if this bug is in flashplugin-installer or pulseaudio.

Problem:

When I use Firefox or Chrome for watching a flash video from Youtube for example, all works good. I then transfer the sound to a remote sink using Sound Preferences > Output > Internal Audio Analog Stereo on myuser@otherhost.

After this is done, the flash video halts. This is also true if I restart firefox and start a new video, already having transferred the sound. Sometimes you can see the video taking huge skips forward. For example, on a 3 minute music video, I see 3-4 different frames from different places in the video.

The sound is OK though!

100% reproducible and if I transfer the sound back to local speakers the video resumes and plays perfectly.

Edit:

This doesn't affect just flash, it affects pretty much all applications I can think of.

I have narrowed it down to a buffer underrun problem and I can reproduce it by starting a mp3 with rhythmbox, a Xvid video with VLC, a wav-file with aplay etc.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: thnov 10738 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf9100000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC889A'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0885,1458a002,00100101'
   Controls : 43
   Simple ctrls : 24
Date: Sat Jan 23 14:17:18 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_DK.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

What does the cpu consumption look like when you play at the remote host compared to when you play locally?

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Can't see any real difference. However this is also true for just playing something with Totem so not just limited to flash. I removed my user account and re-created it to make sure I didn't have a lot of strange settings.

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Feb 3 11:16:41 mistik pulseaudio[2792]: ratelimit.c: 127 events suppressed
Feb 3 11:27:12 mistik pulseaudio[2792]: ratelimit.c: 128 events suppressed

(this is the server)

Feb 3 11:29:48 thomas-desktop pulseaudio[30554]: ratelimit.c: 210 events suppressed
Feb 3 11:32:45 thomas-desktop pulseaudio[30554]: ratelimit.c: 153 events suppressed
Feb 3 11:32:53 thomas-desktop pulseaudio[30554]: ratelimit.c: 294 events suppressed
Feb 3 11:33:09 thomas-desktop pulseaudio[30554]: ratelimit.c: 206 events suppressed

(this is the client)

To further explain what I have done:

1. Started paprefs on both machines. Ticked "Make discoverable Pulse.." + "Enable network acc.." + "Allow other mach..." + "Don't require auth...".
2. Started something with sound, for example Firefox+Youtube or Totem with a video.
3. Transferred sound by right-clicking the volume icon, sound preferences, output and then chose the server for output.

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

If I start pulseaudio with 'pulseaudio -v' at the server I get the attached output. I had a mp3 playing at the client with Totem. The sounds works intermittently, works a little while when I start it then stops. Then works a little while when I stop pulseaudio with ctrl-c at the terminal at the server.

thomas-desktop = client
mistik = server

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

So my monologue continues. I started pulseaudio with 'pulseaudio -v' also at the client. If I play something with totem it doesn't even play locally, just playing a mp3 song with Totem.

If I transfer the sound it doesn't work.

First time I tried with VLC it played locally but when I transferred it stopped. When I tried to switch back to local the sound stopped again.

I think pulseaudio just sucks... :(

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Logfile mentioned above..

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Upgraded pulseaudio to latest version

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Now it always works perfectly locally but as usually never remote, just for a couple of seconds.

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Ok now I have found something.. When I have pulseaudio started with -vvv on both ends I can see this on the client. This is from double clicking a mp3 from Nautilus (starting Totem).

Note how it underruns and then nothing. In Totem it gets into a paused state.

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Sigh :) It was a one-time-thing that it worked. I can get the underruns again using all thinkable players. I even get it by using aplay on a small .wav-file.

Looks like this with aplay:

I: client.c: Created 30 "Native client (UNIX socket client)"
I: client.c: Freed 30 "Native client (UNIX socket client)"
I: protocol-native.c: Connection died.
I: client.c: Created 31 "Native client (UNIX socket client)"
D: protocol-native.c: Protocol version: remote 16, local 16
I: protocol-native.c: Got credentials: uid=1000 gid=1000 success=1
D: protocol-native.c: SHM possible: yes
D: protocol-native.c: Negotiated SHM: yes
D: module-augment-properties.c: Looking for .desktop file for aplay
D: module-intended-roles.c: Not setting device for stream ALSA Playback, because it lacks role.
D: sink.c: Suspend cause of sink tunnel.mistik.local.alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo is 0x0000, resuming
D: module-suspend-on-idle.c: Sink tunnel.mistik.local.alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo becomes idle, timeout in 5 seconds.
D: module-suspend-on-idle.c: Sink tunnel.mistik.local.alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo becomes busy.
D: resampler.c: Channel matrix:
D: resampler.c: I00
D: resampler.c: +------
D: resampler.c: O00 | 1,000
D: resampler.c: O01 | 1,000
I: remap_sse.c: Using SSE mono to stereo remapping
I: resampler.c: Using resampler 'speex-float-1'
I: resampler.c: Using float32le as working format.
I: resampler.c: Choosing speex quality setting 1.
D: memblockq.c: memblockq requested: maxlength=33554432, tlength=0, base=4, prebuf=0, minreq=1 maxrewind=0
D: memblockq.c: memblockq sanitized: maxlength=33554432, tlength=33554432, base=4, prebuf=0, minreq=4 maxrewind=0
I: sink-input.c: Created input 16 "ALSA Playback" on tunnel.mistik.local.alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo with sample spec s16le 1ch 16000Hz and channel map mono
I: sink-input.c: media.name = "ALSA Playback"
I: sink-input.c: application.name = "ALSA plug-in [aplay]"
I: sink-input.c: native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
I: sink-input.c: native-protocol.version = "16"
I: sink-input.c: application.process.id = "21622"
I: sink-input.c: application.process.user = "thnov"
I: sink-input.c: application.process.host = "thomas-desktop"
I: sink-input.c: application.process.binary = "aplay"
I: sink-input.c: application.language = "en_DK.UTF-8"
I: sink-input.c: window.x11.display = ":0.0"
I: sink-input.c: application.process.machine_id = "fef87db97e3c20436851fa064a33dd60"
I: sink-input.c: application.process.session_id = "fef87db97e3c20436851fa064a33dd60-1265206771.189405-2079407246"
I: sink-input.c: module-stream-restore.id = "sink-input-by-application-name:ALSA plug-in [aplay]"
I: protocol-native.c: Requested tlength=500,00 ms, minreq=125,00 ms
D: protocol-native.c: Early requests mode enabled, configuring sink latency to minreq.
D: memblockq.c: memblockq requested: maxlength=4194304, tlength=24000, base=2, prebuf=12000, minreq=8000 maxrewind=0
D: memblockq.c: memblockq sanitized: maxlength=4194304, tlength=24000, base=2, prebuf=12000, minreq=8000 maxrewind=0
I: protocol-native.c: Final latency 1000,00 ms = 250,0...

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Thanks for the followup. I haven't had the time to try to reproduce the issue here, but I guess the bug is an upstream one and that you did the right thing reporting it there.

[Pieter Leclerc (pieterleclerc-deactivatedaccount)]

Here's a workaround that I'm using. On the server, do:

socat TCP-LISTEN:4000,fork UNIX-CONNECT:/home/tom/.pulse/f4bd336578327b5cd658a18b4afff4a1-runtime/native &

Important: You'll have to replace "f4bd336578327b5cd658a18b4afff4a1-runtime" with the correct directory that's present on your system. I also configured pulseaudio to listen for remote connections (using papref), but don't know if that's necessary.

On the client, do:
PULSE_SERVER=<server-ip>:4000 <program to run> &

For example:
PULSE_SERVER=<server-ip>:4000 firefox &

[Maxim Litvinov (maxim-litvinow)]

I'm have same issue.
I'm adding remote server with next command:
pacmd 'load-module module-tunnel-sink server=IP'

When I'm choosing it in "Sound settings" video in all players stop playing.

[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.]