I want my reliable laptop based Amarok jukebox back

[Anne Wilson]

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On 11/08/13 13:51, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Am Samstag, 10. August 2013, 08:51:49 schrieb Alan Ezust:
>> On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 5:29 AM, Myriam Schweingruber
>> <myriam at kde.org>wrote:
>>> Hi Martin,
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Martin Steigerwald
>>> <Martin at lichtvoll.de>
>>> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> I do not use Pulseaudio 4 right now cause it still does not
>>>> detect the
>>> 
>>> USB
>>> 
>>>> sound card at all times, spamming logs with
>>>> "usb_set_interface_failed" messages. I reported this once,
>>>> Lennart even answered me back to my bug
>>> 
>>> report
>>> 
>>>> and I admit I did not follow up then, cause what he asked me
>>>> to do would
>>> 
>>> have
>>> 
>>>> take some time to do and it was not the only bug with
>>>> PulseAudio back
>>> 
>>> then. I
>>> 
>>>> was just so annoyed by PulseAudio back then that I apt-get
>>>> purge´d it. I
>>> 
>>> would
>>> 
>>>> be willing to follow-up with this, as it seems that
>>>> Pulseaudio 4 is the
>>> 
>>> first
>>> 
>>>> Pulseaudio *ever* that is able to play *fluent* sound on the
>>>> ThinkPad
>>> 
>>> T42. With
>>> 
>>>> Pulseaudio 3 still I had sound drops longer than 20 seconds
>>>> (this is *no* joke).
>>> 
>>> Kubuntu uses Pulseaudio by default, and Phonon is compiled with
>>> PA support, which should be pretty standard currently. If you
>>> did remove Pulseaudio deliberately this might explain some of
>>> the sound problems you experience.
>> 
>> In my experience, some of the cheaper external USB sound cards
>> are not constantly reliable. They sometimes just disconnect and
>> reconnect after running fine for a long time. If you want
>> something reliable, use an internal or PCI or PCI-e sound card.
>> I've been using an Audiophile 24/96 for over 10 years now for its
>> digital sound capabilities.
> 
> Okay. I have removed the USB sound card, even tough I have the
> impression the onboard Intel audio of that ThinkPad T42 just does
> not provide the same audio quality and playback is more dull,
> muffled.
> 
>> Furthermore, in my experience, PulseAudio is also not very
>> reliable. When I apt-get remove pulseaudio and just use ALSA
>> directly, I have a more stable system in general. I wish Pulse
>> was more reliable, because without it, I can't share my digital
>> soundcard between amarok and other apps such as VLC or my
>> browser. Using Alsa, Amarok takes over that device and other apps
>> must use my analog output.
> 
> I hear you.
> 
> I may just remove Pulseaudio again to see whether it helps with the
> dropouts I am experiencing with the standard setup I described in
> my last posting.
> 
I  have followed this thread with interest, as I too use a USB
external sound card with Intel on-board sound chip.  Phonon and
PulseAudio worked perfectly with this setup under Mageia 2 but I have
terrible trouble with static and bad sounds under Mageia 3.  On
different hardware Mageia 3 is giving me good sound, so it's not an
overall distro problem.

As I have wrestled with my problems I've noted two things that may
give someone a clue to where the problem lies.

First, on Friday I found myself unable to get any sound on a youtube
video, after which I discovered that system sounds were not playing,
and Clementine was also silent.  There probably was a way to fix this,
but I rebooted, and sound came to life again.

The second thing is that I discovered that it actually matters which
USB port I connect the sound card to.  Silly as it sounds, if it goes
through one port or the powered hub that is usually connected there I
get horrible static.  By experimentation I found that one of the other
ports gives me good sound.  At least, it did yesterday.  A test a
minute ago tells me that the static is back.

Is it possible that there is some sort of build-up somewhere?  Some
fault that is minor at first but becomes progressively worse?  The
laptop has been up for 2 days now, so it has had time to "ripen" if
that's the case.

I hope something here rings a bell for someone :-)

Anne
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