FC4 Odd noises from speakers: ALSA (was:I think I need some sound gurus)

[bwkaz]

alsa alone doesn't allow for multiple connections to the soundcard

Not true. It seems to depend on your sound card.

My el-cheapo Yamaha YMF-724F definitely does allow more than one "connection" to /dev/dsp using Alsa's snd-pcm-oss (OSS compatibility layer), but I'm pretty sure that depends on the card's capabilities. I believe that even OSS allows me to do this with this card, but I haven't used it in a long time so I don't know for sure.

[banzaikai]

This is really gettin' confusin', huh?

I'm about outta ideas, but some things to note:

With PCM on and 'line-in ' muted:
Output ALSA pipeline alsasink = good clear sound.
With PCM muted and 'line-in ' on:
Output ALSA pipeline alsasink = sound + hissing background.

Logic would then dictate that your Line-In is the culprit (or the handling thereof). Without seeing exactly how you've got things hooked up, it's hard to zero in on what it could be. Another site I was at (looking for another problem) noted the same thing I did a post or two back: try your mixer settings with nothing above 60%, except the Master Volume.

My tvtimes configuration file /etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml is set to <option
name="MixerDevice" value="/dev/mixer: pcm"/>

The pcm is the "Pulse-Code Modulation" (digital), and is how the audio can get to the sound card without a cable, or with the Line-In muted. Why TVtime keeps bouncing this back to Line-In (analog) is beyond me.

See if you can try all this using OSS and see what happens. I don't use ALSA, and Audacity, Xine, XMMS, et. al. all work fine. I'd have to find a BTTV card and install it to help out any further, and that may take a while.

Not having the Ensoniq in udev could just be how the module handles the nVidia nForce mobos. My VIA doesn't show up there, either.

banzai "PVRless" kai

[Bill Case]

Hi banzaikai;
I appreciate you sticking with me so far.

This is really gettin' confusin', huh?
I'm about outta ideas, but some things to note:Logic would then dictate that your Line-In is the culprit (or the handling thereof). Without seeing exactly how you've got things hooked up, it's hard to zero in on what it could be. Another site I was at (looking for another problem) noted the same thing I did a post or two back: try your mixer settings with nothing above 60%, except the Master Volume.

Changing the mixer settings didn't help, eh?

I thought I would take up a last few moments of your time, and for anyone else that can help. I ran the following tests for oss and others:

Multimedia Systems Selector (Audio)
As user bill: Test
Output ALSA alsasink clear sound
Artsd artsdsink no sound
ESD esdsink sound (tremble)
OSS ossink failed to construct test pipeline

Input ALSA alsasrc crashed
ESD esdmon no sound
OSS osssrc failed to construct test pipeline

Soundcard Detection: Sound but scratchy background

Volume Control (mixer)
Master on
PCM on
Line-in off

Audacity "error initializing the audio i/o layer"

Multimedia Systems Selector (Audio)
As user root: Test
Output ALSA alsasink failed to construct test pipeline
Artsd artsdsink no sound
ESD esdsink failed to construct test pipeline
OSS ossink scratchy sound

Input ALSA alsasrc failed to construct test pipeline
ESD esdmon failed to construct test pipeline
OSS osssrc failed to construct test pipeline

Soundcard Detection: Sound but scratchy background

Volume Control (mixer)
Master on
PCM on
Line-in off

Audacity : clear sound

I ran these tests after adding a kernel update from Fedora (2.6.12-1.1390_FC4). There are three new twists to notice. 1) I got different results depending on whether I was in my user account and in root's account (directly not by su). 2) OSS failed completely (in fact it crashed the Multimedia Systems Selector). 3) Magically, Audacity is now working -- but in root only. I still get an error dialogue in user.

Physical setup Becasue I have moved and reset my cards in new slots; because WindowsXP sound works fine using PCM; becasue I get good clear sound for user alsasink and now root audacity; I believe the physical setup has to be correct.

tvtime I now believe it is possible that the tvtime 'line-in' problem is a result of tvtime correcting for the non-detection of PCM, and, that tvtime issues can't be resolved until PCM problems are resolved.

Permissions The problem 'feels' to me??? like a basic permission problem. But after looking at each set of device's, module's, etc. mode and ownership, it seems to me that each one should be available to root and user. I tentively changed one or two but the original setting was restored at boot or login by something???.

Fedora Bugzilla I reported the problem to Fedora Bugzilla but got no helpful response other than a suggestion to install FC1 or FC2 ALSA. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=161279

Regards Bill

[XiaoKJ]

I remember you posted that the permissions is crw------- for all your sound devices.

of course you will face problems. with that on, your sound devices are all owned by root and usable by root only.

but I don't think a simple change will do you good more than 1 day. get more advice from the others, esp banzaikai

[Bill Case]

Thanks XiaoKJ;

My permissions are all like the following example:
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 0 Jul 9 05:48 /dev/mixer
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 3 Jul 9 05:48 /dev/dsp
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 4 Jul 9 05:48 /dev/audio

'bill' of course is me as owner/user . When I change them experimentally something changes them back after reboot and login. However, it shouldn't make a difference if 'bill' is owner; root would still have access too.

Later, I will want to be able to change ownership for additonal users but it shouldn't be a problem now -- I think.

The physical setup is so simple there can't be a mistake. Just set the sound card, then plug in an exterior line that came with the ATI TV Wonder card from a single female plug in the back of the TV card to an obvious female plug in the sound card. If I unplug them I get no TV sound no matter what else I do.

Regards Bill

[banzaikai]

Hi banzaikai;
I appreciate you sticking with me so far.

I have not yet begun to fight. Or something to that effect

A little tip on setting ownership: set both owner and group with the same command, like so:
chown bill:bill filename
This changes the owner and group in one shot, and works with wildcards so you can run an entire directory with "chown bill:bill *". This'll get rid of all that "bill:root" stuff. Also, set your user's groups to allow sound (if available) and root (it won't let you be root, just allows you to su and do root group stuff). It's under Applications -> System Settings -> Users and Groups.

Now, permissions will give you a permission (what else?) error - but we're not getting that, so I'm with XiaoKJ on this one: there's something we're not seeing or doing that's causing all this. Since you got something going with the kernel update, this may very well be where we'll look next. Did you, perchance, follow the install guide from Stanton Finley? I did, and I'm having some... "strange"... things happening. One of which I solved by undoing one of the things Stanton did: modify/unmodify the yum, apt, and synaptic repositories. After putting things back the way FC had them, my up2date worked fine. I'm going back over the guide to see what else may have been borked.

I'd see if updating your alsa with yum, or uninstalling and reinstalling alsa would do anything. If you have synaptic (yum install synaptic), then you can check things out before or after you install/upgrade. This is where my problem stemmed from, as I "tweaked" my repository files to add a site that wasn't quite kosher with the FC up2date, and got an RPM version or two that didn't play well with others. I just undid all that, uninstalled the given RPMs, and re-installed using the default repos, and presto!

In short (why didn't I just start with that?), if everything else has been eliminated, then the only answer is ALSA itself, or a dependency that it needs.

banzai "Bon Homme Richard" kai

[Bill Case]

Thanks again banzaikai;

I followed your advice. Here is what happened.

This changes the owner and group in one shot, and works with wildcards so you can run an entire directory with "chown bill:bill *". This'll get rid of all that "bill:root" stuff.

Something is changing my chown and chmod back every time I change them and then subsequently login. But... I had been checking my ownership in root through 'su' on gnome terminal and got:

crw------- 1 bill root 14, 4 Jul 12 12:56 /dev/audio
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 3 Jul 12 12:56 /dev/dsp
crw------- 1 bill root 14, 0 Jul 12 12:56 /dev/mixer

But ... when I checked in the root account I got:

crw------- 1 root root 14, 4 Jul 12 12:56 /dev/audio
crw------- 1 root root 14, 3 Jul 12 12:56 /dev/dsp
crw------- 1 root root 14, 0 Jul 12 12:56 /dev/mixer

which is, I suspect, as it should be.

I checked my users and groups for a sound 'user' to add to the 'bill' group and root group but there was nothing I recognized as sound specific and every other 'user' I did recognize as used for something else. What now?

I tried to up date ALSA through yum and got 'nothing to do'. I took your advice and removed ALSA using synaptic. But there was so many dependencies it wiped out half my system -- that's ok, I was well backed up . So I have re-installed and I then updated to all the latest ALSA programs.

Installed Packages
alsa-lib.i386 1.0.9rf-2.FC4 installed
alsa-lib-debuginfo.i386 1.0.9rf-2.FC4 installed
alsa-lib-devel.i386 1.0.9rf-2.FC4 installed
alsa-tools.i386 1.0.9-1.fc4 installed
alsa-utils.i386 1.0.9rf-2.FC4 installed
alsa-utils-debuginfo.i386 1.0.9rf-2.FC4 installed

So everything now should be installed, yet I still have the same problems wirh audacity, Multimedia Systems Selector, PCM, line-in and tvtime.

I just don't know?

Remember I do have sound -- kinda. I am willing to plow ahead and try to solve this until I get proper sound. I'll keep going as long as someone is willing to help. I think a lot of people are having problems with ALSA from FC3 forward, but since it is possible to do a workaround and get something from their speakers, they just drop it.

Regards Bill

[banzaikai]

Something is changing my chown and chmod back every time I change them

My bad. You'll need to change the folder permissions, too. Just cd to "/" and "chown bill:bill /dev" and that should fix it (I thinks).

Well, by process of elimination, it looks like we have one of those "doesn't work right" problems with your hardware. What's strange is that the intel 8x0 drivers have been out for quite a while.

As a last resort, you could always disable the intel 8x0 and pop in another type of soundcard in there and see what happens (I've had good luck with my Mad Dog C-Media based Prowler 4.1 that I picked up at Office Max for ~$10 after rebate).

banzai "can't win 'em all" kai