I got this problem with mplayer, vlc, audacious, skype, and adobe flash player plugin (basically any application that use alsa as audio output). I also have pulseaudio in my system(because skype requires that). But the problem already existed before I stalled pulseaudio. Besides, I am using 2.6.26. Does the current alsa package require a high kernel version?
I also checked the /var/log/syslog, and found pulseaudio reporting problems from alsa: Sep 5 09:06:01 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy Sep 5 09:06:01 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy Sep 5 11:03:31 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 30.00 ms Sep 5 11:04:27 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write! Sep 5 11:04:27 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver '(null)'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers. Sep 5 11:04:27 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail. Sep 5 11:05:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 40.00 ms Sep 5 11:07:15 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 50.00 ms Sep 5 11:08:11 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 60.00 ms Sep 5 11:09:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 18 events suppressed Sep 5 11:09:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 70.00 ms Sep 5 11:10:01 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 80.00 ms Sep 5 11:10:31 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 1.00 ms Sep 5 11:10:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 3 events suppressed Sep 5 11:10:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 2.00 ms Sep 5 11:11:31 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 4.00 ms Sep 5 11:11:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 2 events suppressed Sep 5 11:11:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 8.00 ms Sep 5 11:13:01 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 16.00 ms Sep 5 11:13:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 26.00 ms Sep 5 11:14:28 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 6 events suppressed Sep 5 11:14:34 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 4 events suppressed Sep 5 11:15:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 36.00 ms Sep 5 11:16:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 46.00 ms Sep 5 11:16:31 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 56.00 ms Sep 5 11:16:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 66.00 ms Sep 5 11:18:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 76.00 ms Sep 5 11:19:11 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 86.00 ms Sep 5 11:19:11 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 96.00 ms Sep 5 11:19:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 85.99 ms Sep 5 11:19:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 106.00 ms Sep 5 11:20:01 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 95.99 ms Sep 5 11:20:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 116.00 ms Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 4294948916 bytes (24347782 ms). Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver '(null)'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers. Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_dump(): Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: Hardware PCM card 0 'HDA Intel' device 0 subdevice 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: Its setup is: Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: stream : PLAYBACK Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: access : MMAP_INTERLEAVED Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: format : S16_LE Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: subformat : STD Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: channels : 2 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: rate : 44100 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: exact rate : 44100 (44100/1) Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: msbits : 16 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: buffer_size : 16384 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_size : 8192 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_time : 185759 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: tstamp_mode : ENABLE Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_step : 1 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: avail_min : 12152 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_event : 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: start_threshold : -1 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: stop_threshold : 1073741824 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: silence_threshold: 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: silence_size : 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: boundary : 1073741824 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: appl_ptr : 48714227 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: hw_ptr : 48693248 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_delay() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 483548 bytes (2741 ms). Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver '(null)'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers. Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_dump(): Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: Hardware PCM card 0 'HDA Intel' device 0 subdevice 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: Its setup is: Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: stream : PLAYBACK Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: access : MMAP_INTERLEAVED Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: format : S16_LE Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: subformat : STD Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: channels : 2 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: rate : 44100 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: exact rate : 44100 (44100/1) Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: msbits : 16 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: buffer_size : 16384 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_size : 8192 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_time : 185759 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: tstamp_mode : ENABLE Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_step : 1 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: avail_min : 12152 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: period_event : 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: start_threshold : -1 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: stop_threshold : 1073741824 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: silence_threshold: 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: silence_size : 0 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: boundary : 1073741824 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: appl_ptr : 48816527 Sep 5 11:21:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-util.c: hw_ptr : 48695640 Sep 5 11:21:25 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 105.99 ms Sep 5 11:21:25 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 126.00 ms Sep 5 11:22:23 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 20986 events suppressed Sep 5 11:25:31 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 115.99 ms Sep 5 11:27:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 136.00 ms Sep 5 11:28:18 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: ratelimit.c: 2 events suppressed Sep 5 11:28:21 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 125.99 ms Sep 5 11:29:41 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 146.00 ms Sep 5 11:29:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 135.99 ms Sep 5 11:30:03 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 156.00 ms Sep 5 11:31:01 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 145.99 ms Sep 5 11:31:51 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3689]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing minimal latency to 166.00 ms Sep 5 11:33:16 dbl-pc kernel: [ 8.947558] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio Sep 5 11:33:55 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3681]: alsa-util.c: Unable to load mixer: Invalid argument Sep 5 11:33:57 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3757]: pid.c: Daemon already running. Sep 5 15:17:14 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3681]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy Sep 5 15:17:14 dbl-pc pulseaudio[3681]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy 2009/9/5 Elimar Riesebieter <riese...@lxtec.de>: > * Bailin Deng [090905 08:19 +0200] >> I am using squeeze on a Thinkpad R61 with AD1984 audio chipset. After >> a recent upgrade, the audio output freezes for a short time (about 0.1 >> sec) every a few seconds. The time intervals between each "freeze" >> event varies from 10 secs to about 40 secs. When playing a video or >> audio file, the playback hangs for a short time whenever such audio >> freeze event happens, and becomes laggy and annoying. > > Which applications did you run recognizing this behaviour? > > I am running sid on a t61p with exactly the same chipset and no > probs at all. There seems to be a problem either with your kernel or > with your whatever soundserver you use. Not enough diskspace could > be a reason as well. Could you please check your /var/log/syslog for > reasonable errors? You can grep the file i.e. for audio or alsa. > > Elimar > > -- > It's a good thing we don't get all > the government we pay for. > > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
