media-sound/alsa-driver-0.9.0_rc6 media-sound/xmms-1.2.7-r15 media-plugins/alsa-xmms-0.9.9b media-libs/flac-1.1.0 When playing FLAC format files with XMMS, with the ALSA output, some types of CPU usage will cause long sound dropouts. Important details: * Only happens with FLAC plugin (not MP3) * Only happens with ALSA plugin (not ESD) * Only some types of CPU usage create problem (mozilla page loads and window dragging, but not emerging) * Visualization/oscilliscope unaffected, keeps displaying valid output even as sound is lost. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Load xmms, with described settings. 2. Play FLAC file. 3. Load pages with mozilla, or drag windows around. Doesn't happen at first, happens on the ~10th time onwards. Actual Results: Long periods of silence, with intermittant clicking. The visualization/oscilliscope continues as if music were playing. Eventually, after 1...20 seconds, the music resumes, at current time (not back where it cut off). Expected Results: Music plays normally. fishbed:karp$ emerge info Portage 2.0.47-r8 (, gcc-3.2.2, glibc-2.2.5-r2,2.3.1-r2) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.20-xfs_pre6 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) processor GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/ http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Lin ux/distributions/gentoo" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/X11R6/lib/X 11/xkb /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/tmp/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" USE="x86 oss 3dnow apm avi crypt cups encode gif gpm jpeg libg++ mikmod mmx mpeg ncurses nls pdflib png quicktime spell truetype xml2 xmms xv zlib gdbm berkdb s lang readline tcltk java guile X sdl pam libwww ssl python imlib oggvorbis gtk m otif opengl cdr acl alsa -arts esd -gnome -kde kerberos mozilla mysql perl pic - qt ruby -svga -tcpd usb tetex tiff" COMPILER="gcc3" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-tbird -O2 -pipe" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-tbird -O2 -pipe" ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" MAKEOPTS="-j2" AUTOCLEAN="yes" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" FEATURES="ccache sandbox buildpkg userpriv usersandbox"
i can't reproduce this. the only guess i can come up with is maybe you don't have DMA enabled for your disks? FLAC is a very disk/io intensive codec relative to mp3. what sort of sound card are you using?
My sound card is the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. The files are on a WD800JB running in UDMA4, and on a separate IDE channel from all my other files. My processor is a 900MHz Athlon. I know it isn't my hardware, since it worked fine until I upgraded xmms and flac a couple weeks ago. I upgraded the kernel to 2.4.20 w/preemption, and xmms to 1.2.7-r19. The problem still exists, but it is slightly harder to reproduce with mozilla. Dragging windows around works 100% of the time.
does the sound skip if you don't use xmms ? for instance : flac -c -d eason.flac | aplay
Using flac | aplay, I'm finding it impossible to make skip from any non-root activity. I don't know if 'skip' is the accurate term... its starts out as one, but the skip somehow puts xmms into an invalid state which eventually gets fixed. A brief burst of cpu use can disable xmms+alsa+flac for up to a minute.
ok, it looks like more of an upstream bug than a gentoo bug. would you mind filing a bug report at bugs.xmms.org? i think they would know more about it the alsa plugin and such.
we really can't fix this problem. it seems to me that it is an alsa output plugin problem more than anything. please file a bug in bugs.xmms.org and reopen this if there is any news or fixes.
need info
