Alsa: underrun occured

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BorgAssimilator
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Alsa: underrun occured

Post by BorgAssimilator »

I've seen a couple topics that deal with this error, but they're all really old and they didn't help, so I'll just create this.

I'm trying to get audio to work. I just installed Ubuntu 10.04. Sound works for everything but wine. I open winecfg to test the sound, but get nothing and along with this in the terminal:

Code: Select all

err:alsa:wine_snd_pcm_recover underrun occurred
Now I've noticed looking around the web that sometimes the sound works even when the user receives this error, but this isn't the case with me. I've checked my alsa config and everything looks good, and again, sound works for everything but wine.

Any help would be appreciated.
Frédéric Delanoy

Alsa: underrun occured

Post by Frédéric Delanoy »

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 22:58, BorgAssimilator
<[email protected]> wrote:
I've seen a couple topics that deal with this error, but they're all really old and they didn't help, so I'll just create this.

I'm trying to get audio to work. I just installed Ubuntu 10.04. Sound works for everything but wine. I open winecfg to test the sound, but get nothing and along with this in the terminal:


Code:
err:alsa:wine_snd_pcm_recover underrun occurred



Now I've noticed looking around the web that sometimes the sound works even when the user receives this error, but this isn't the case with me. I've checked my alsa config and everything looks good, and again, sound works for everything but wine.

Any help would be appreciated.
Try installing/upgrading to Ubuntu 10.10.

Wine doesn't support natively Pulse Audio, but uses Alsa-PulseAudio
compatibility packages. There seems to be some bugs regarding
Alsa/PulseAudio integration, negatively impacting Wine. I believe the
version of PA shipped in 10.10 fixes some of those bugs.

Frédéric
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Re: Alsa: underrun occured

Post by BorgAssimilator »

Frédéric Delanoy wrote: Try installing/upgrading to Ubuntu 10.10.

Wine doesn't support natively Pulse Audio, but uses Alsa-PulseAudio
compatibility packages. There seems to be some bugs regarding
Alsa/PulseAudio integration, negatively impacting Wine. I believe the
version of PA shipped in 10.10 fixes some of those bugs.

Frédéric
Is it trying to use pulse audio? I did find some people on the internet saying how bad pulse audio was and that it should be removed, so I did. I also made sure nothing was running at the time I tried the test in winecfg. Is wine still trying to use it somehow / would there be any way to tell it otherwise?

In the past I've gotten wine sound work with the aoss wrapper, but unfortunately it didn't solve the issue in this case.
Frédéric Delanoy

Alsa: underrun occured

Post by Frédéric Delanoy »

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:59, BorgAssimilator
<[email protected]> wrote:
Frédéric Delanoy wrote:
Try installing/upgrading to Ubuntu 10.10.

Wine doesn't support natively Pulse Audio, but uses Alsa-PulseAudio
compatibility packages. There seems to be some bugs regarding
Alsa/PulseAudio integration, negatively impacting Wine. I believe the
version of PA shipped in 10.10 fixes some of those bugs.

Frédéric
Is it trying to use pulse audio? I did find some people on the internet saying how bad pulse audio was and that it should be removed, so I did. I also made sure nothing was running at the time I tried the test in winecfg. Is wine still trying to use it somehow / would there be any way to tell it otherwise?

In the past I've gotten wine sound work with the aoss wrapper, but unfortunately it didn't solve the issue in this case.
The fact is Ubuntu switched to PulseAudio starting with 8.04 and is
providing Alsa/OSS compatibility ever since.
So Alsa is probably not Canonical's main center of interest.

Wine, OTOH, has drivers for OSS and alsa, but won't support PulseAudio
anytime soon (unless someone volunteers to write working PulseAudio
support, which is not a small feat; even then (s)he would still have a
hard time integrating into wine source tree).

IME standard Ubuntu sound works well enough in Wine, unless you have
different sound sources (like maybe normal game sound + some chat).
pulseaudio --kill can help if PA froze/no sound available.

I've not been able to make OSS work in 10.10 (or jack) though so I'm
stuck with alsa/PA compatibility issues.

My first recommandation would be to try upgrading to 10.10 (or testing
from a live cd) and check if the problem is still existing.

Frédéric
jordan

Alsa: underrun occured

Post by jordan »

hi,
The fact is Ubuntu switched to PulseAudio starting with 8.04 and is
providing Alsa/OSS compatibility ever since.
So Alsa is probably not Canonical's main center of interest.
erm.... Alsa is always going to be of main concern of ANY distribution
of Linux. PA doesn't replace ALSA, it just runs on top of it.
ALSA talks directly to hardware(@ thekernel level)... Applications
talk to PA(if using pulseaudio), then PA talks to ALSA. PA is just a
sound server, and resides in user-space. PA, Jack, etc aren't
replacements for ALSA - they work with ALSA.

So what you are saying here, is making little or no sense at all.
I've not been able to make OSS work in 10.10 (or jack) though so I'm
stuck with alsa/PA compatibility issues.
Really?? OSS is a waste of time (and a pretty much dead-project).
Jack is only useful in wine if you are running ASIO applications, for
pro audio type applications. I don't think it works well (if at all)
for any other general use in wine. (someone can correct me if im wrong
here).
My first recommandation would be to try upgrading to 10.10 (or testing
from a live cd) and check if the problem is still existing.
I would recommend that too. But Myself, I dislike PA to the point,
that it is never installed on any system that i use.

If PA is removed properly, All Wine apps should have sound through
ALSA (by selecting the ALSA driver in winecfg). If you are still
getting xruns/underruns being reported from alsa, than you probably
need a bigger buffer for ALSA. underruns indicate that the sound from
your application didn't make it to the soundcard on time. A larger
buffer will help with the problem, as it will allow it more time to
get to it's destination. make sense? The only other issue may be the
application's sound doesn't work well in wine.

as for how to do this, i don't remember off hand, but it shouldn't be
difficult - you will probably need to google. I don't use Ubuntu, and
i can choose whether or not PA is installed. In my case, by default
when i install Gnome - pulseaudio isn't pulled as a dependency, and
therefor is not installed.

There was a message on the Wine list (semi-recently) dealing with
underruns, that showed how to adjust ALSA's buffers, but i deleted it
from my inbox. sorry.

there's my 2 cents.

jordan
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Alsa: underrun occured

Post by jjmckenzie »

On 4/26/11 11:15 AM, jordan wrote:
hi,
The fact is Ubuntu switched to PulseAudio starting with 8.04 and is
providing Alsa/OSS compatibility ever since.
So Alsa is probably not Canonical's main center of interest.
erm.... Alsa is always going to be of main concern of ANY distribution
of Linux. PA doesn't replace ALSA, it just runs on top of it.
ALSA talks directly to hardware(@ thekernel level)... Applications
talk to PA(if using pulseaudio), then PA talks to ALSA. PA is just a
sound server, and resides in user-space. PA, Jack, etc aren't
replacements for ALSA - they work with ALSA.
Wine does not directly support PA nor should it. Adding a compatibility
layer just slows things down (witness DirectX -> OpenGL in Wine.)

Wine should not support PA, but support either ALSA or OSS (and OSS is
NOT dead.)

James McKenzie
jordan

Alsa: underrun occured

Post by jordan »

Wine does not directly support PA nor should it. Adding a compatibility
layer just slows things down (witness DirectX -> OpenGL in Wine.)

I agree with you hear (don't mind the pun), but just watch as the
gnome-developers, as of gnome3 - are probably going to expect you guys to
integrate PA. As Pulseaudio is now the default soundserver, and is
integrated in Gnome-Shell. And there are lots of developers who think it
should be the default for the linux desktop in general (which i disagree -
ALSA integration is more important).
Wine should not support PA, but support either ALSA or OSS (and OSS is NOT
dead.)

Okay, not dead, just not packaged as a default in any Linux distribution
that i can think of, and in particular, not supported in most modern audio
applications written for linux. Obviously there are exceptions, that i
should have considered before i posted that, like Unix systems that are
using OSS. but OSS is going to eventually be a dead/obsolete project in
Linux ~ i think that's pretty hard to argue.

I haven't used OSS in years.

jordan
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Post by Cloudef »

http://art.ified.ca/?page_id=40
Used to use these patches when I had ubuntu.
ryan woodsmall

Alsa: underrun occured

Post by ryan woodsmall »

Okay, not dead, just not packaged as a default in any Linux distribution
that i can think of, and in particular, not supported in most modern audio
applications written for linux. Obviously there are exceptions, that i
should have considered before i posted that, like Unix systems that are
using OSS. but OSS is going to eventually be a dead/obsolete project in
Linux ~ i think that's pretty hard to argue.

I haven't used OSS in years.
http://www.opensound.com/

Then check out OSS4. It combines the a lower-level/low-latency/direct-access portions of ALSA (driver based) with the scheduling/sampling/mixing/per-application high-level interface of sound servers like PulseAudio - all *without* the overhead of a userspace sound server. The OSS 3+ API is also a supported sound system on the BSDs and Solaris which allows for Wine portability. Again, OSS is certainly not dead; OSS4 supports most modern sound hardware and exposes their features without the need for janky, problematic sound servers. Using OSS4 on a modern distribution and killing PulseAudio allows modern hardware to work with Wine on Linux. PulseAudio simply doesn't work sometimes.

Once nicety (and problem) with PulseAudio is that applications support OSS or ALSA don't need to be rewritten or even recompiled. ALSA or older OSS3 applications simply make calls to their respective sound systems, which are caught by PA then sent back to ALSA-backed hardware. That layer of abstraction, particularly for the ALSA-PulseAudio-ALSA calls, adds overhead and latency. This is probably acceptable with most desktop applications like browsers or simple sound and video players, but kills sound performance where it counts, namely in Wine while attempting to run resource-intensive applications like games and professional sound apps.

A low-latency sound server like JACK (including ASIO applications in Wine) sitting directly on top of ALSA/OSS is much more desirable than PulseAudio support. This has all been debated before; until PulseAudio provides a low-latency server and/or allows a *reliable* way (pasuspender not included) to pass calls directly through to hardware, it's just not a viable option for Wine. -r
jordan

Alsa: underrun occured

Post by jordan »

Hey ryan,

http://www.opensound.com/
Then check out OSS4. It combines the a
lower-level/low-latency/direct-access portions of ALSA (driver based) with
the scheduling/sampling/mixing/per-application high-level interface of sound
servers like PulseAudio - all *without* the overhead of a userspace sound
server. The OSS 3+ API is also a supported sound system on the BSDs and
Solaris which allows for Wine portability. Again, OSS is certainly not
dead; OSS4 supports most modern sound hardware and exposes their features
without the need for janky, problematic sound servers. Using OSS4 on a
modern distribution and killing PulseAudio allows modern hardware to work
with Wine on Linux. PulseAudio simply doesn't work sometimes.

Once nicety (and problem) with PulseAudio is that applications support OSS
or ALSA don't need to be rewritten or even recompiled. ALSA or older OSS3
applications simply make calls to their respective sound systems, which are
caught by PA then sent back to ALSA-backed hardware. That layer of
abstraction, particularly for the ALSA-PulseAudio-ALSA calls, adds overhead
and latency. This is probably acceptable with most desktop applications
like browsers or simple sound and video players, but kills sound performance
where it counts, namely in Wine while attempting to run resource-intensive
applications like games and professional sound apps.

A low-latency sound server like JACK (including ASIO applications in Wine)
sitting directly on top of ALSA/OSS is much more desirable than PulseAudio
support. This has all been debated before; until PulseAudio provides a
low-latency server and/or allows a *reliable* way (pasuspender not included)
to pass calls directly through to hardware, it's just not a viable option
for Wine. -r
Oh, i am familiar with OSS and their website.

In my own experience Jack/OSS isn't as desirable as jack/ALSA. I haven't
used OSS lately in Linux, last time i did, it wasn't a glitch free
experience... but i did have FreeBSD8.1 running with Jackd, semi recently.
it didn't perform nearly as well as under linux ( even with the BSD kernel
tuned up) I heavily use jackd in my studio on several machines. OSS is
mainly a Unix thing these days. Not so much Linux. People use it
occasionally when they need to hack something to work(usually a legacy app),
but beyond that, OSS lost out to ALSA along time ago. Not to many apps
written in Gnu/Linux for OSS these days...in particular not for OSS4 - it
won't ever be adopted.

I also did state that i "jumped the gun on saying it is dead" and pointed
out Unix - but it certainly will never become the defacto standard in Linux.
that's not going to change.

Of course, PA isn't a viable option for wine, getting good glitch-free sound
is important - something that PA can't provide. Pa doesn't provide good
sound in VMware either. I actually just removed PA from Gnome3 today (which
just came through as an update in Archlinux). I had to do it for the same
reasons you mention above - I use wineASIO with Jack, and also FST too. i
despise PA and have to remove it on any fresh install of Linux.

happy times.

jordan
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