[alsa-devel] Fwd: Re: Realtek ALC889: HDA Intel and kernel 3.1 gives choppy sound (again)

[Colomban Wendling]

Le 19/12/2011 16:30, Takashi Iwai a écrit :
> At Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:06:53 +0100,
> David Henningsson wrote:
>>
>> 2011-12-14 18:32, Takashi Iwai skrev:
>>> At Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:12:20 +0100,
>>> Colomban Wendling wrote:
>>>> Le 14/12/2011 15:48, Takashi Iwai a écrit :
>>>>> At Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:32:08 +0100,
>>>>> Colomban Wendling wrote:
>>>>>> Here's my initial mail, but with gzipped outputs.
>>>>> Please don't drop Cc list.
>>>> Sorry, I fwd'ed the message and forgot to update the CClist, sorry.
>>>>
>>>>>> Le 08/11/2011 07:32, Takashi Iwai a écrit :
>>>>>>> At Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:45:40 +0100,
>>>>>>> Colomban Wendling wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Back to 3.0, the sound on my soundcard [1] started to be choppy, I
>>>>>>>> reported it [2] and it got fixed (thanks to Takashi Iwai!).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> However, the story repeated with 3.1 (and probably 3.0.8 or before [3]):
>>>>>>>> I've got similar choppy sound again.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I bisected the few commits that happened on
>>>>>>>> sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c, and finally found the villain:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "8974bd51 ALSA: hda/realtek - Fix auto-mute with HP+LO configuration"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Reverting it from v3.1 fixes the problem.
>>>>>>> Does it?  Very weird.  This patch has nothing to do with the HD-audio
>>>>>>> controller side but purely a codec change.
>>>>>> Yep, I just check once again and it really fixes the problem here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> master (94956ee) also suffers of the problem, but I couldn't test
>>>>>>>> without that commit because reverting it fails, too much changes happened.
>>>>>>> Did you try to pass position_fix=1 (or 2) option?
>>>>>>> Also, passing enable_msi=0 (or 1) may change anything?
>>>>>> I just tried with the 3 kernels:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * vanilla v3.1
>>>>>> * vanilla 3.2-rc1 (master at 1ea6b8f)
>>>>>> * v3.1 with 8974bd51 reverted
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and none of the option changed anything: both vanilla always failed, the
>>>>>> third always succeeded.  Though, I haven't combined the options, just
>>>>>> tried each at once.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In anyway, please give alsa-info.sh output again with the fresh
>>>>>>> kernel.  Run it with --no-upload option and attach the output.
>>>>>> Here it is, for the 3 kernels cited above.
>>>>> I see really no difference between vanilla3.1 and fixed.
>>>>> The only difference is the NID 0x24, which is irrelevant with the
>>>>> output.  It concludes that the commit you found has nothing to do with
>>>>> the bug directly.  It's just a coincidence that it triggers
>>>>> something.
>>>>>
>>>>> Which output are you testing?  Does the problem happen on both HP and
>>>>> all line-outs?  Also, how are you testing?  How about the direct aplay
>>>>> with -Dhw like
>>>>> 	% aplay -Dhw foo.wav
>>>>> ??
>>>> Aha, you refined it!
>>>>
>>>> Even if I think it won't be really relevant any more (see below), what I
>>>> did before was basically `mplayer -ao alsa<file>` and listening.  The
>>>> first time I heard the problem I think I tried various players and
>>>> output methods that all did suffer of the problem, so I don't really
>>>> remember which ones.  Also, I (shame on me) ever only tested the rear
>>>> line out.
>>>>
>>>> So then, the news:
>>>>
>>>> First, playing with aplay -Dhw (after fighting to get pulseaudio
>>>> down...) doesn't change anything.
>>>>
>>>> But then, while all the rear outputs (L, SS, CS, RS) suffer of the
>>>> choppiness, the front one never does!
>>>> Moreover, if I plug something in the front output, sometimes [1] the
>>>> rear ones doesn't mute and stop "choppying"  (I have correct sound in
>>>> all outputs, rear and front).
>>> Hm, then this can be really related with the jack-detection.
>>> If so, the choppy sound is not because of the DMA position reporting
>>> but because of the continuous triggering of jack-detect events.
>>>
>>> If you built your kernel with the tracepoint support, you'll have
>>> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/hda/enable file.  As root, run
>>>
>>>    # echo 1>  /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/hda/enable
>>>
>>> then check /sys/kernel/debu/tracing/trace file after some seconds.
>>> Do you get any events there?  Also, what about plugging/unplugging the
>>> headpohne jack?  After gathering the tracing info, disable again via:
>>>
>>>    # echo 0>  /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/hda/enable
>>>
>>> In anyway, if the jack-detection is really the problem, you can
>>> disable the auto-mute feature by changing "Auto-Mute Mode" enum to
>>> "Disabled".  Run "alsamixer -c0" and change the value.
>>
>> Hmm, thanks for figuring this one out. Actually this is the third time I 
>> hear of jack detection flipping back and forth. I'm wondering if we need 
>> (and whether other OSes have?) a filter / flood protection on this 
>> stuff, and if so, how it works? I mean, nobody would notice half a 
>> second of delay on that switch anyway.
> 
> I don't think there is a perfect filtering for such a problem.
> Theoretically we can see how often it's flipped, and disables the
> jack-detection accordingly.  But not sure how useful it is in
> practice, since it's a rare case, and the manual adjustment is easy.

It's easy to fix, but I, as a simple user, think it's really hard to
find out -- actually I wouldn't have found this out if you weren't there
telling me :)

So maybe it'd be good to have an automatic disable if this isn't a bug
in an ALSA code somewhere -- just remembering I never suffered of the
problem before 3.0.

Just my 2¢.

Cheers,
Colomban


> BTW, maybe we should turn off the jack-detection while the auto-mute
> is disabled?  Otherwise unsol events might still come up although they
> are just ignored.
> 
> 
> Takashi
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