GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 344697
Drop outs on audio cd playback with gstreamer
Last modified: 2006-10-04 10:32:19 UTC
Distribution: Debian testing/unstable Package: GStreamer Severity: Normal Version: GNOME2.14.2 0.10.6 Gnome-Distributor: Debian Synopsis: Drop outs on audio cd playback with gstreamer Bugzilla-Product: GStreamer Bugzilla-Component: gst-plugins-good Bugzilla-Version: 0.10.6 Description: Description of Problem: All applications using gstreamer/sound-juicer produce sound drop outs. first they appear once per 15-20 sec then they become more and more. i can stop this by halting the app (ctrl-z) and putting it to background (bg), but after a while it starts to drop out again. Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. open a terminal 2. type "gst-launch-0.10 cdiocddasrc ! alsasink" 3. let the audio cd start 4. wait Actual Results: the playback starts and sound mutes every 15-20 sec for a second long. it happens as ordinary user (group audio) and also as root. XMMS for cd playback works fine. Expected Results: Audio cd plays fine. How often does this happen? Always Hardware: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-C2502 (8x) Additional Information: # hwinfo --cdrom 14: IDE 01.0: 10602 CD-ROM (DVD) [Created at block.195] UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Z000008139 Unique ID: iqvy.MVckZWvA7tA Parent ID: ESW+.L6YUholkGT8 SysFS ID: /block/hdb SysFS BusID: 0.1 SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:07.1/ide0/0.1 Hardware Class: cdrom Model: "TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-C2502" Vendor: "TOSHIBA" Device: "DVD-ROM SD-C2502" Revision: "1711" Serial ID: "Z000008139" Driver: "ide-cdrom", "ide-cdrom" Device File: /dev/hdb Device Files: /dev/hdb, /dev/cdrom, /dev/dvd, /dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_DVD-ROM_SD-C2502_Z000008139, /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:07.1-ide-0:1 Device Number: block 3:64 Features: DVD Size: 1045344 sectors a 512 bytes Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown Attached to: #6 (IDE interface) Drive Speed: 6 # hdparm /dev/cdrom /dev/cdrom: IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 256 (on) HDIO_GETGEO failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device ------- Bug created by bug-buddy at 2006-06-12 20:19 -------
> All applications using gstreamer/sound-juicer produce sound drop outs. > first they appear once per 15-20 sec then they become more and more. i > can stop this by halting the app (ctrl-z) and putting it to background > (bg), but after a while it starts to drop out again. > > Steps to reproduce the problem: > 1. open a terminal > 2. type "gst-launch-0.10 cdiocddasrc ! alsasink" > 3. let the audio cd start This is not entirely unexpected with the above pipeline. What about $ gst-launch-0.10 uri=cdda://1 or $ gst-launch-0.10 cdiocddasrc ! queue min-threshold-time=2000000000 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! alsasink Does this also happen with the latest releases (core/base 0.10.8)?
> $ gst-launch-0.10 uri=cdda://1 Apologies, this should be $ gst-launch-0.10 playbin uri=cdda://1 instead.
>> gst-launch-0.10 cdiocddasrc ! alsasink" > > This is not entirely unexpected with the above pipeline. it can only happen if the disc is reading slower than real time, which seems rather strange. A queue would certainly help.
Yesterday the debian unstable packages of gstreamer 0.10.8 were released. so i installed them and did a lot of testing today. Wanting to exclude some things (a corrupt cd for example). What i found out was that it hadn't something to do with gstreamer (not explicit). I can now play audio cds with banshee and use all gstreamer commands (even "gst-launch-0.10 cdiocddasrc ! alsasink"), but when i open gnome-cd (2.14.2) the problems come back again. They last even after closing gnome-cd. I then can reduce them with a queue (as sugested by Tim-Philipp), but on low system load (browsing) they come back. So the problem seems to be gnome-cd. This occurrence also happens with soundjuicer. Let me know if i should test other programs.
Two different programs playing the same CD at at the same is asking for trouble IMHO. Does gnome-cd interfere only when it's playing, or does it interfere even when it just sits there doing nothing? (the latter might be caused by it doing constant ioctl() calls to check for disc/drive changes, dunno). What happens if you play a CD in banshee and in sound-juicer at the same time?
No, i don't use them at the same time. I closed gnome-cd and the problem exists. It seems that even a reboot can't solve the problem. i have to shutdown my laptop completly and switch it on after a while. Is this a hardware/driver? i don't know what to think.
Hmm, so what's the conclusion here? Is this a GStreamer issue? Or a gnome-cd issue? Or something else?
The difference is how gnome-cd and soundjuicer handle cd audio playback (drop outs) and banshee handles cd audio playback (works fine) with gstreamer. As i didn't look into the code it could be both, a gstreamer issue or two simultaneous player bugs. The drop outs can only be fixed with a shutdown, closing the programs doesn't help at all. means: whenever i used gnome-cd/soundjuicer for cd playback they seem to change a setting (hardware or software) that cause an impact to player software based on gstreamer that hadn't this problems before (banshee). XMMS has no problems at all (whether i use it before or after gnome-cd/soundjuicer). if it's a gstreamer issue it can have to do with my hardware (or drivers), but dma is switched on and all and i don't know what to do next.
What do XMMS/banshee use for CD playback? Do they extract the audio data digitally as PCM and then play it back (like GStreamer does), or do they just tell the CD drive to start playing the CD (the audio then goes directly via an internal cable/link to the sound card)? (You might be able to figure this out by playing with the mixer if you don't know). Don't really know what to do with this one ..
Since no one else seems to have any ideas either, there isn't much we can do but close this bug for now (not much point in keeping it open at least IMHO, sorry), especially since it's not clear that this is a GStreamer bug in the first place (after all, we just use the libs like libcdparanoia and libcdio and don't do anything fancy). Sounds more like something deeper down the stack to me. If it's really a problem in GStreamer, it surely will come up again sooner or later. Please do re-open the bug if you have more concrete information that might get us further or information that indicate that this is in fact a bug in GStreamer.