When playing an MP3 stream with Noatun, and logging out from KDE, fairly often (about every 3rd time) the system locks up so that keyboard or mouse input is completely ignored. Even the soft power switch has no effect leaving me no other choice than pulling the plug. Sometimes, the system even locks up without logging off or doing anything else special. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Play an MP3 stream with Noatun. 2. Without stopping playback, log out from KDE (problem sometimes also happened without logging out though). 3. Actual Results: The system locks up (screen freezes, mouse, keyboard and soft power switch have no effect). Expected Results: KDE should exit gracefully. I'm actually not quite sure whether the problem is definately caused by the sound subsystem at all, but so far it only happened when playing MP3 streams (I hardly play local files or Audio CDs). A few details of my system: Processor: AMD Athlon 1.333 GHz Main board: MSI K7T266 Pro-R (Via Apollo KT266/A/333) Graphics: ATI XPert 2000 Sound: Terratec EWX 24/96 kdebase-3.3.2-r2 arts-1.3.2-r1 (running with realtime priority) kdemultimedia-3.3.2 alsa-driver-1.0.8 (for ice1712) alsa-lib-1.0.8 Here's the output of emerge --info: Portage 2.0.51.19 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.5-20050130, glibc-2.3.4.20041102-r1, 2.6.11-gentoo-r9 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.11-gentoo-r9 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Python: dev-lang/python-2.3.5 [2.3.5 (#1, May 21 2005, 05:15:09)] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5 sys-apps/sandbox: [Not Present] sys-devel/autoconf: 2.59-r6, 2.13 sys-devel/automake: 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.5, 1.4_p6, 1.6.3, 1.9.5 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r7 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.16 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.8.1-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-tbird -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx -m3dnow" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-tbird -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx -m3dnow" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirrors.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo" LC_ALL="en_GB" LINGUAS="en_GB de" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow X alsa apm arts artswrappersuid avi berkdb bitmap-fonts crypt cups curl dvd emacs emboss encode fam foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gpm gtk2 hardened imlib jack java jpeg junit kde libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts vorbisxine xml2 xmms xv zlib linguas_en_GB linguas_de userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CBUILD, CTARGET, LANG, LDFLAGS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY Please let me know if I can help with any other information (e.g. log files, etc.). I've checked the obvious places but couldn't find a clue why this happens. Thanks for your help, it's very much appreciated. Keep up your great work!
Have you tried not running arts with realtime priority?
When I first installed Gentoo I had artsd running without realtime priority and I can't remember any problems. I've switched it back to normal priority yesterday night and so far I couldn't reproduce the lockup. However, when starting artsd without realtime priority, I have to chose a greater fragment size, increasing latency significantly which I'd like to avoid if possible. Is there some logging or any other debugging option for artsd that could help to pinpoint the cause for this?
Probably you're seeing some artsd crash: with realtime priority artsd crashes become total system lockups. Unfortunately arts crashed are not rare (search this bugzilla or bugs.kde.org to get some examples) and I don't know how much we can help. For debugging, you can find a couple of tips here: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdebase/faq/sound.html
>However, when starting artsd without realtime priority, I have to chose a greater fragment size, increasing latency significantly which I'd like to avoid if possible. Is there some logging or any other debugging option for artsd that could help to pinpoint the cause for this? The answer I once got is "alsa is to blame, not aRts" (I really doubt this) and that you should install akode and it's plugins (part of kdemultimedia, if you don't use the split ebuilds), increase the buffer and disable realtime priority if nothing helps. You might have a look at kde.bugs.org, comment and offer your help. This is nothing we can help you with.
