From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 10 00:09:00 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 85B3016A4CE for ; Tue, 10 Aug 2004 00:09:00 +0000 (GMT) Received: from lakermmtao03.cox.net (lakermmtao03.cox.net [68.230.240.36]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 168B843D1F for ; Tue, 10 Aug 2004 00:09:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from conrads@cox.net) Received: from dolphin.local.net ([68.11.71.51]) by lakermmtao03.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.03.02.01 201-2131-111-104-103-20040709) with ESMTP <20040810000852.FXSN16641.lakermmtao03.cox.net@dolphin.local.net>; Mon, 9 Aug 2004 20:08:52 -0400 Received: from dolphin.local.net (localhost.local.net [127.0.0.1]) by dolphin.local.net (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id i7A08rAf023541; Mon, 9 Aug 2004 19:08:53 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from conrads@dolphin.local.net) Received: (from conrads@localhost) by dolphin.local.net (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id i7A08mZB023540; Mon, 9 Aug 2004 19:08:48 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from conrads) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.5.5 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <44129.12.148.147.242.1092077172.squirrel@[12.148.147.242]> Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:08:48 -0500 (CDT) Organization: A Rag-Tag Band of Drug-Crazed Hippies From: "Conrad J. Sabatier" To: Rusty Nejdl cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: Dan Nelson Subject: Re: Is anything being done re: the pcm timeout issue? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: conrads@cox.net List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 00:09:00 -0000 On 09-Aug-2004 Rusty Nejdl wrote: > Conrad J. Sabatier said: >> >> My problems are occurring on an amd64 box (Athlon 64) with the >> nVidia nForce3 chipset (snd_ich driver). >> >> Sounds works fine for a while, then suddenly I get a pcm play >> timeout, and game over. Have to reboot to get sound to work again. >> >> Others have reported similar problems, but I've seen no followups >> indicating anything is being done about it. >> > > I've been seeing a sound issue on 5.2.1-release and I wonder if it's > related at all to what you are seeing. I have : > > hw.snd.maxautovchans: 4 > hw.snd.pcm0.vchans: 4 > > And I have seen that these will eventually stop working one by one > until I have none left. lsof and fstat don't show any programs using > them, but nonetheless, programms like xmms and gaim can't use them > anymore. > > Do you have any more details on the pcm play timeout? Are you using > vchans? What program are you using? No, no vchans in use here. My main audio app is madplay, which I run from a little "jukebox" script I wrote to play my MP3s. I've been unable to determine what's triggering the breakage myself. The script runs fine for a while, selecting random MP3 files and running madplay to play them one by one. Suddenly, madplay will output the message "output: write failed" (or something like that) and my system log will show "pcm0:play:0: play interrupt timeout, channel dead". After that, any further attempts to play a sound file of any sort result in only a split-second of sound followed by the same messages as above. The only cure is a reboot. I posted some truss output from madplay a while back, but it's probably not very useful, since a timeout had already occurred in a previous run, so the listing only showed what was happening once the device had already become broken. Catching it "in the act", so to speak, is tricky, as it may work fine for an hour or two before the first breakage occurs. This would require a HUGE amount of truss or ktrace logging. We had a discussion recently here about certain peculiarities in the sound code, but never reached any useful conclusions, and none of our sound experts ever joined in, either. I would hate to see 5.3 released with this problem still unsolved, but it's beginning to look like that may, in fact, be the case, unfortunately. I had hoped, too, that by this time we would have seen the new MIDI code incorporated into the tree as well, but it seems that sound (other than the abrupt yanking of the previous MIDI code and the recent renaming of devices/drivers) is being sadly neglected lately. Perhaps I'm wrong on that and there's a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on. We're just not hearing anything lately, though, as to the state of sound on FreeBSD, and it's really beginning to concern me a lot. I realize I'm running amd64, and that problems are to be expected still at this point, but the total lack of activity on the sound front lately is leaving me increasingly pessimistic about FreeBSD's potential for ever becoming a viable audio/music production environment. I hate to say it, but AGNULA, a highly customized version of Debian or Redhat (comes in both flavors) aimed at providing a rich environment for audio/music production, is looking more and more tempting all the time. I would hate to have to go that route, but I'm having serious doubts that FreeBSD will ever be competitive with Linux/ALSA in the sound arena, which is really a shame, as it is otherwise such a superb system. -- Conrad J. Sabatier -- "In Unix veritas"