[SOLVED] Arch linux sound crackling/skipping.

VladDorn1234

New Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
Messages
12
Reaction score
9
Credits
0
Hello everyone. I am having trouble with small skips
and crackling inside arch linux. I have just recently
installed this arch install onto my pc last week and have
been working on it and have been satistied with everything
besides the volume problems i am stating here.
(please excuse my spelling mistakes as english is not my native language)

in both firefox and vlc media player I have been having
audio skipping and crackling and I am certian it is
not my hardware as it works in windows and linux mint.

the first thing I did was change:
/etc/pulse/default.pa

load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0

I then restarted pulseaudio and then tried again to
listen to a sound file in vlc. the sound stayed the
same.

after this failed I then tried to set the buffer
and fragment size by using the command :

$ pactl list sinks


after i had looked at the information about my sound card I
could see what I needed to do. here is the part from the
arch wiki that talks about calculating fragment sizes i have
edited to show my exact calculations I got for my sound card.

device.buffering.buffer_size = "17664" => 17664/1411200 = 0.0125 s = 12.5 ms
device.buffering.fragment_size = "2994" => 2994/1411200 = 0.002086 s = 2.086 ms



In the previous step, we calculated the fragment size parameter. The number of fragments is simply buffer_size/fragment_size, which in this case (12.5/2.086) is 5.599:


I then changed /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to use these parameters ( i also tried both just 5 and 2 as well same result) :

; default-fragments = 5.599
; default-fragment-size-msec = 2.086

then restarted pulse again.

I then tested the same audio file in vlc and though the skipping slightly
went down, the problem is still there.

after all of that i decided to take out tsched=0 again from
/etc/pulse/default.pa

when i had done that the crackling and skipping had gone away again even more,
but every 30 seconds or so the crackling and skipping still did happen.


my hardware: 16 gb ram ddr3
amd radeon r9 380 4gb
amd fx 6300 6 core
72000 rpm hdd
gigabyte 970a ud3p
KDE plasma
onboard sound

Here is an example of the issue i tried to recreate in audacity: https://soundcloud.com/user-83962389...xample/s-L79lX
 


G'day Vlad :)

Out of interest, did you try the two commands (pulseaudio) listed in @rado84 's Thread stickied to the top of the Audio-Video page?

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Yes, as a matter of fact, that was the first thing I tried period. let me give a little more info i forgot to mention,:

I had also gotten audio skipping problems in debian 9.5 stable (I also got many other problems and my hardware was not well supported in 9.5 so I moved on to other distros ) and also Manjaro had similar noise problems. But both windows 7, 8, and 10 had no problems and linux mint 17-19 had no issues, also a live usb of kali linux and a live cd of tails had no audio problems as well. so From this it looks to be arch distro specific other than debian stable.


and for anyone who is interested my lspci output is:

Code:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD9x0/RX980 Host Bridge (rev 02)
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890S/RD990 I/O Memory Management Unit (IOMMU)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890/RD9x0/RX980 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI Express GFX port 0)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890/RD9x0/RX980 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI Express GPP Port 0)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890/RD9x0/RX980 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI Express GPP Port 4)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 40)
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE Controller (rev 40)
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller
00:16.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:16.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 5
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga PRO [Radeon R9 285/380] (rev f1)
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga HDMI Audio [Radeon R9 285/380]
02:00.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VL805 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)
I am guessing that 'Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 0-5' Is my built in audio device that I am using because it is a typical motherboard sound that has the 6 line inputs/outputs on the back.
 
Thanks for the extra material, that may help someone who is more of a Sound Guru than I (which would not be hard).

Code:
lspci -v | grep -i audio

gives output less confusing.

I am not a Sound Guru but I will keep my eyes peeled and if I learn anything I will get back here.

Wizard
 
Well this is quite weird. I have been busy for a few days and had to use my windows install for that time being and I came back with the free time i had tonight to look at my arch sound issues and they are now non existent. this is quite strange. I am not sure how. in case something comes back i will not mark as solved for a few more days. also in case it comes back here is my output for
lspci -v | grep -i audio:

00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga HDMI Audio [Radeon R9 285/380]
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Tonga HDMI Audio [Radeon R9 285/380]
 
Nice outcome? :)

Vlad, thanks for that output, and now might be a good time to acquaint yourself with Timeshift.

Take a full snapshot of your Arch, and then if things head south for the winter, you can roll back.

In Arch, you can likely do this from the AUR, using the command

Code:
sudo pacman -S timeshift

Cheers

Wiz
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rob
Well this is quite weird. I have been busy for a few days and had to use my windows install for that time being and I came back with the free time i had tonight to look at my arch sound issues and they are now non existent. this is quite strange. I am not sure how. in case something comes back i will not mark as solved for a few more days. also in case it comes back here is my output for
lspci -v | grep -i audio:

00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga HDMI Audio [Radeon R9 285/380]
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Tonga HDMI Audio [Radeon R9 285/380]
Yeah, strange - wondering .. do you have automatic updates configured? Perhaps a driver or something updated and fixed your issue.
 
hmmm this is interesting.
sudo pacman -S timeshift

does not work for me as it says the package does not exist and when I tried installing from aur with yay It said errors and package could not be installed. so I am guessing that it is broken on arch currently?


EDIT: I found this article saying I should downgrade vala for timeshift
. I am not sure what that Is is this a bad idea ?

https://www.virtualconfusion.net/timeshift-19-01-1-vala/
 
OK Vlad, hold off on that idea for now :)

My only Arch is in a VM under Arch-based Swagarch. It installs easily enough under all my Arch-based Distros (about 12 of them).

Are you still able to use yaourt under Arch? If so, try substituting yaourt for yay. I know yaourt was being deprecated in favour of yay. Yaourt might require base-devel to be installed.

Otherwise, as I say, hold off on it, and if I find anything I'll come back here.

Cheers

Wizard
 

Members online


Top