[ubuntu-studio-users] Audio pop/glitch/crackle issues

Mario Buoninfante mario.buoninfante at gmail.com
Mon Feb 27 08:36:37 UTC 2023


Hi,

Yesterday I decided to give this another go, and it seems like I might 
have found a solution.

I re-installed Xubuntu and then added Jack to check if the issue was 
there, and it was there indeed (using the generic kernel).
So, I used UbuntuStudio-installer and gave it another try (at this point 
using the low-latency kernel), and the issue was still there.
It seems as if Jack was the issue (or at least everything was pointing 
there), hence why I decided to install Pipewire and configure it so that 
it "replaces" both PulseAudio and Jack, and that gave me the best results.
I definitely don't get that annoying crackle every few minutes or so, 
and (after a bit of time to set it properly) the workflow doesn't seem 
bad at all.

Of course, I still have to properly check the performance, but for now I 
got rid of the main issue, that made my machine totally unusable.

Cheers,

Mario



On 20/12/2022 12:26, mario buoninfante wrote:
>
> Here I am again with another update :)
>
> The crackling audio with Jack is still a thing, the only news is that 
> I tried killing/stopping both pulseaudio and pipewire while using 
> jack, but that doesn't help, the issue persists.
>
> I feel I might be getting closer to the source, but I don't really 
> know at this point.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Mario
>
> On 15/12/2022 18:24, mario buoninfante wrote:
>>
>> New update.
>>
>> Got back to Xubuntu 22.04 and installed Ubuntu Studio (via the 
>> installer).
>> I'm on kernel 5.15.0-56-lowlatency.
>> I'm getting the crackle issue when using Jack (setup and started via 
>> Studio Controls).
>> When using Alsa it's all fine. I tried streaming audio/video 
>> (YouTube) and using Ardour 7.2.
>> I did change daemon.conf in /etc/pulse like suggested in the kernel 
>> bug ticket.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mario
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13/12/2022 12:30, mario buoninfante wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Roy,
>>>
>>> Unfortunately that didn't work for me.
>>> I managed to get rid of the audio crackle thing downgrading the 
>>> kernel (there's a known bug introduced with 5.13.xxxx - see my 
>>> previous post here).
>>> I still get too many x-runs though, but I started thinking that it 
>>> might have to do with my AMD FirePro W2100 GPU.
>>>
>>> Just a guess atm.
>>>
>>> While trying to get to the bottom of my initial issue, I also 
>>> installed the AMD drivers for my GPU and that improved the audio 
>>> performance massively. No glitches/distortions even with low buffer 
>>> sizes, but my video was really sluggish.
>>> On the internet I didn't manage to find any report with mine exact 
>>> conditions, but I found few posts here and there of people having 
>>> "audio issues" introduced by (the lack of?) AMD drivers.
>>>
>>> I'll keep the list updated in case I get anywhere with this.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Mario
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11/12/2022 14:52, Roy Damen wrote:
>>>> Hello Mario, i wonder if you could just do the 
>>>> UbuntuStudio-controls config again. This fixed issues on my machine,
>>>>
>>>> Good luck,
>>>>
>>>> Roy Damen
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Op za 10 dec. 2022 om 00:33 schreef mario buoninfante 
>>>> <mario.buoninfante at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>     I think I might have found the issue
>>>>
>>>>     https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-signed-hwe-5.13/+bug/1966066
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     On 04/12/2022 12:11, mario buoninfante wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>     Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>>     Here's a bit more info and some updates.
>>>>>     I'm running Xubuntu 22.04.1 with Ubuntu Studio (everything
>>>>>     installed).
>>>>>     I'm using a Focusrite Clarett 8pre USB as audio device running
>>>>>     at 96kHz sample rate, 256 sample buffer size and 3 JACK period.
>>>>>     I'm fully up-to-date and the kernel is Linux
>>>>>     5.15.0-56-lowlatency x86_64 (I think the kernel got updated in
>>>>>     the last round of updates).
>>>>>
>>>>>     In the last 2 days I unsuccessfully tried to do the following
>>>>>     (in non-particular order):
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         uninstall pipewire - too many dependencies, so I gave up
>>>>>         on that
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         the combo
>>>>>
>>>>>          o
>>>>>
>>>>>             systemctl --user stop pipewire.socket && systemctl
>>>>>             --user stop pipewire.service
>>>>>
>>>>>          o
>>>>>
>>>>>             systemctl --user mask pipewire.service
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         re-install pulse audio
>>>>>
>>>>>       * in /etc/pulse/default.pa <http://default.pa> I added
>>>>>         "tsched=0" to the line containing "load-module
>>>>>         module-udev-detect"
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         edit the files in /etc/pipewire/media-session.d adding:
>>>>>
>>>>>          o
>>>>>
>>>>>             session.suspend-timeout-seconds = 0
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         install pipewire-pulse
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         replace pipewire-session-manager with wireplumber
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         re-install pipewire-session-manager and remove wireplumber
>>>>>         (this is actually the last thing I tried, so now I don't
>>>>>         have wireplumber anymore)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     Nothing helped.
>>>>>     Then, after using:
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         systemctl --user status pipewire pipewire-session-manager
>>>>>
>>>>>     I realised I was getting 2 errors:
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         mod.rt: could not set nice-level to -11: Permission denied
>>>>>
>>>>>      *
>>>>>
>>>>>         spa.v4l2: '/dev/video0' VIDIOC_QUERYCTRL: Input/output error
>>>>>
>>>>>     I fixed the former adding
>>>>>
>>>>>         |@audio - nice -20|
>>>>>
>>>>>     to /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf
>>>>>
>>>>>     I didn't manage to address the latter though.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     The situation seems to have improved, not so much with
>>>>>     streamed audio/video, but with audio only (eg audacious) - it
>>>>>     might be too early to assess this though, since it was a late
>>>>>     night move.
>>>>>
>>>>>     I went from "totally unusable - glitches, pops and crackles
>>>>>     80% of the played audio", to "getting pops and crackles
>>>>>     sporadically".
>>>>>     Still makes my system unusable, since I mainly
>>>>>     record/mix/produce music on my computer, but all improvements
>>>>>     are welcome!
>>>>>
>>>>>     With audio/video from the internet though (mainly YouTube via
>>>>>     Firefox), I'm still getting terrible performance out of this.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     Cheers,
>>>>>     Mario
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     On 02/12/2022 21:09, mario buoninfante wrote:
>>>>>>     Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     Recently I started having issues with the audio performance
>>>>>>     of my system (Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS).
>>>>>>     It seemed to have started after my last update.
>>>>>>     Simply running "top" I noticed I have "pipewire" running and
>>>>>>     I was wondering if that could be the problem.
>>>>>>     I don't know if that has always been installed as I never
>>>>>>     checked before today, but I found online that several people
>>>>>>     are having similar issues both on Ubuntu and Fedora.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     Any feedback/recommendation is welcome :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     Cheers,
>>>>>>     Mario
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>     -- 
>>>>>     ---
>>>>>     musician, QA engineer, mental health first aider MHFA England
>>>>>
>>>>>     https://isoneph.bandcamp.com/
>>>>>     https://vdof.bandcamp.com/
>>>>>     http://mbuoninfante.tumblr.com
>>>>>     https://vimeo.com/creativecodingsalerno
>>>>>     https://github.com/mariobuoninfante
>>>>     -- 
>>>>     ubuntu-studio-users mailing list
>>>>     ubuntu-studio-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>     Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>>>>     https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-users
>>>>
>>>>
> -- 
> musician, QA engineer, mental health first aider MHFA England
>
> https://isoneph.bandcamp.com/
> https://vdof.bandcamp.com/
> http://mbuoninfante.tumblr.com
> https://vimeo.com/creativecodingsalerno
> https://github.com/mariobuoninfante
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