[alsa-devel] unload Audio drivers while playback stream is active case kernel crash

[Mark Brown]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:50:48AM +0100, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> Lars-Peter Clausen wrote:

> > > OK, so it's not about active stream.  From the reporter's description,
> > > I supposed that the module gets unloaded while playing a stream, which
> > > shouldn't be allowed.

> > Well one of the ways to trigger this is to remove the module while the 
> > stream is active. But it is not exclusively a problem module unload problem. 
> > E.g. the same happens if you hot-unplug the ASoC card.

> Yes, unbinding can trigger a similar problem, ends up the same bad
> code path.

Right, which was my point - we need to be able to cope with the driver
being removed while in use, unbind is just one path where this could
happen and the issue isn't specific to unbind.

> > I don't think that we need to prevent module unload when a stream is active. 
> >  From a framework point of view is not different from hot-unplug. I don't 
> > see a reason why we'd jump through hoops to actively forbid removing the 
> > module once it works just fine.

> Well, the module unload means a more drastic cleanup.  Even if you
> unbind, the code and data are still there while module unload may
> clean them up all.

> Above all, disallowing the module unload while using is the common
> behavior of any other drivers.  Why do we have to be a rebel against
> all civil manner? :)

That's not true for everything and for ASoC I'd tend to assume that the
user knows what they're doing and has a good reason for it; it's
certainly something that can be helpful in development.
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