Sounds turns distorted; restarting pulse fixes

[Kieran Hogg]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

After a random amount of time, the sound turns distorted, as heard in the attachment I'll add. Closing all applications using pulseaudio and restarting it always fixes the problem.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.22+stable-queue-24-g67d18-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC2: kieran 1880 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: kieran 1880 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: kieran 1880 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'SB'/'HDA ATI SB at 0xfe8f4000 irq 16'
   Mixer name : 'VIA VT1708S'
   Components : 'HDA:11060397,1043836c,00100000'
   Controls : 35
   Simple ctrls : 20
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'HDMI'/'HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfe9ec000 irq 44'
   Mixer name : 'ATI R6xx HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:1002aa01,00aa0100,00100100'
   Controls : 4
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card1.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Card2.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:2 'U0x46d0x819'/'USB Device 0x46d:0x819 at usb-0000:00:12.2-2, high speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB046d:0819'
   Controls : 2
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card2.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
   Capabilities: cvolume cvolume-joined cswitch cswitch-joined penum
   Capture channels: Mono
   Limits: Capture 0 - 6144
   Mono: Capture 3965 [65%] [18.48dB] [on]
Date: Sun May 1 13:35:08 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100318)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-03-25 (36 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/14/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0501
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: M4A785TD-V EVO
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev X.0x
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0501:bd10/14/2009:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rnM4A785TD-VEVO:rvrRevX.0x:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: System Product Name
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer

[Kieran Hogg (xerosis)]

A slightly clearer clip.

[Twisted Lucidity (lucidlytwisted)]

I'm also seeing random distortion that affects all programs (games, VirtualBox, MPlayer etc). Restarting pulseaudio fixes it, I can't see any pattern to what causes it. Today I booted, played a bit of Sauerbraten, checked Mumble worked, exited, started VBox and the distortion occurred. This has only been a probelm for the past couple of weeks.

Today I noticed that "speech-dispatcher" was still running, when I killed that the distortion went away. But I have also heard the exact same distrotion when playing some games, for example Trine, and simply listening to pdocasts via SMPlayer.

I managed to grab a verbose Pulseaudio log of when it happened, hopefully it can help.

System: Dell Dimenaion 9200 with SoundBlast xTreme Music card, sound being played through headphone jack on front of case.

[Twisted Lucidity (lucidlytwisted)]

Strange behaviour I just noticed that might be realted to this. I was playing the Linux version of "World of Goo" and the sound became distorted.
Alt+Enter made the games windows, sound still distorted.
I clicked on the speaker in in the top right and then "Sound Preferences..." so I could switch off sound for the game.
As soon as the dialog displayed, the sound was no longer distorted and remained stable for the next 30 mins or so (I go bored and exited the game).
I have no idea why bringing that dialog up would clear the distortion, but it did.

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

This bug may be same as mine (I'm not sure, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/796262). If it is the same, you could use my brute-force solution to deal with it until better solution is found.

[Kieran Hogg (xerosis)]

Marking confirmed based on comments. Becoming a massive issue for me now where I have to keep a terminal open just so I can execute the "fix" every half hour. Will have to remove pulseaudio if there's no prospect of a fix.

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

You should try the pulseausio ppa, latest version solved similar problem I had.

[Twisted Lucidity (lucidlytwisted)]

Not 100% sure if this is related; but whilst using Skype I started VirtualBox and the sound distorted (rendering Skype useless). I had to kill Pulseaudio and Skype to recover.
Starting VirtualBox with just SMPlayer running did not result in the distortion.
Pulseaudio may not even be at fault, but it's certainly where I observe the issue and giving Pulseaudio a slap fixes the issue for a while.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 11.04 (natty) reached end-of-life on October 28, 2012.

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

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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