F11: I keep losing audio

[Rick Stevens]

Colin Brace wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Since upgrading from F10 to F11 several weeks ago, I have been having
> recurring problems with audio, and I am having difficulty figuring out what
> is going on.
> 
> To start with, when Gnome starts up, sounds works fine in all apps.
> 
> Then it dies. Not while I am using the system; during inactivity, so I don't
> get any leads. The volume sliderbar, ie, Sound Preferences applet still
> "sees" the audio device (in earlier times, when sound died, the Sound
> Preferences no long recognized the audio device).
> 
> I try to restarting nasd, no luck.
> 
> I logout, login again, Gnome restarts, sounds works now.

Before you log out and back in, fire up a terminal and check to see if
pulseaudio is still running.  If it quits, your audio goes away.

Assuming your login name is part of the "pulse-rt" group (if not, put
it in there), you can try to restart pulse by doing:

	pulseaudio --start

as the desktop user...NOT root.  See if your sound is back.

> Wild guess: something to do with Flash. From dmesg:
> 
> $ dmesg | grep npviewer
> npviewer.bin[12200]: segfault at b6fa7030 ip 007c6ccd sp bf9cb688 error 4 in
> libpthread-2.10.1.so[7bf000+16000]
> npviewer.bin[20778] general protection ip:130a31c sp:bff88450 error:0 in
> libflashplayer.so[f9c000+96d000]
> npviewer.bin[11448] general protection ip:116b31c sp:bfc9bdf0 error:0 in
> libflashplayer.so[dfd000+96d000]
> 
> Is npviewer "taking down" the audio when it segfaults?
> 
> I also see this line in dmesg, but it scarcely seems important:
> 
> hda-intel: IRQ timing workaround is activated for card #0. Suggest a bigger
> bdl_pos_adj.
> 
> Can someone give me some ideas on how to figure out what is happening here?

It could be flash.  It appears that it is still a problematic
application.  You may try to increase Pulse's log level:

	pacmd log-level = 4

Hopefully the next crash will leave some traces in one of the logs.

> specs: 
> 
> $ lspci  | grep Audio
> 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition
> Audio Controller (rev 01)
> 
> uname -a
> Linux ariel 2.6.29.5-191.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Tue Jun 16 23:11:39 EDT 2009 i686
> i686 i386 GNU/Linux
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
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-     If Bill Gates got a dime for every time Windows crashes...     -
-              ...oh, wait.  He does.  THAT explains it!             -
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