Hi,

I am facing audio clipping issues when dmix is used for playback. For the test we used a full scale sine wave tone generated using software and encoded as "Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Mono". The audio is getting cut out at a 2-3 second interval during playback. This happens only for a fraction of second but it is consistent. This does not happen when audio is played back on the device directly but only when going through dmix. We have observed that there were differences in audio cutting off when the sampling rate was set to 8000Hz and 32000 Hz in asound.conf.

The contents of asound.conf is pasted below for your reference:

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 2048
ipc_key_add_uid true

slave {
pcm hw:0
rate 8000
channels 2
}
}

pcm.asymed {
type asym
playback.pcm "dmixer"
capture.pcm "hw:0,0"
}

pcm.rateConvert {
type plug
slave.pcm "asymed"
}

The configuration given above works fine with dmix in 2.6.29 kernel, I am using kernel 2.6.22.18.

I have compared the configuration differences (buffers and periods) with and without using dmix. I tried applying some parameters (like buffer_size, period_time and period_size) which was in use when audio was played directly to the hardware device by aplay using the following command:

aplay -D rateConvert --period-time=92879 --buffer-size=65536 --period-size=4096 /mnt/test.wav -vvv -d 5

There was come improvement in the audio cutting off issue but it was not eliminated completely.

Given below are the logs for aplay (-vvv) with and without using dmix (with audio cutoff issue on kernel 2.6.22):
Without using dmix:

[root@OMAP3 tests]# aplay /mnt/test.wav -vvv -d 5 5
Playing WAVE '/mnt/test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Mono
Plug PCM: Hardware PCM card 0 'TWL4030' device 0 subdevice 0
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : RW_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 1
rate : 44100
exact rate : 44100 (44100/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 65536
period_size : 4096
period_time : 92879
tick_time : 7812
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
sleep_min : 0
avail_min : 4096
xfer_align : 4096
start_threshold : 65536
stop_threshold : 65536
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 1073741824
Max peak (4096 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
Max peak (4096 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
...Same text repeats 50 times...
Max peak (4096 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
Max peak (4096 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%

Using dmix:

[root@OMAP3 tests]# aplay -D rateConvert /mnt/test.wav -vvv -d 5
Playing WAVE '/mnt/test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Mono
Plug PCM: Rate conversion PCM (8000, sformat=S16_LE)
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : RW_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 1
rate : 44100
exact rate : 44100 (44100/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 22050
period_size : 5512
period_time : 125000
tick_time : 0
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
sleep_min : 0
avail_min : 5512
xfer_align : 5512
start_threshold : 22048
stop_threshold : 22050
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 1445068800
Slave: Route conversion PCM (sformat=S16_LE)
Transformation table:
0 <- 0
1 <- 0
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : MMAP_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 1
rate : 8000
exact rate : 8000 (8000/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 4000
period_size : 1000
period_time : 125000
tick_time : 0
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
sleep_min : 0
avail_min : 1000
xfer_align : 1000
start_threshold : 4000
stop_threshold : 4000
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 2097152000
Slave: Direct Stream Mixing PCM
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : MMAP_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 2
rate : 8000
exact rate : 8000 (8000/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 4000
period_size : 1000
period_time : 125000
tick_time : 0
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
sleep_min : 0
avail_min : 1000
xfer_align : 1000
start_threshold : 4000
stop_threshold : 4000
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 2097152000
Hardware PCM card 0 'TWL4030' device 0 subdevice 0
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : MMAP_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 2
rate : 8000
exact rate : 8000 (8000/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 16000
period_size : 1000
period_time : 125000
tick_time : 7812
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
sleep_min : 0
avail_min : 1000
xfer_align : 1000
start_threshold : 1
stop_threshold : 2097152000
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 2097152000
boundary : 2097152000
Max peak (5512 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
Max peak (5512 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
...Same text repeats 36 times...
Max peak (5512 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
Max peak (5512 samples): 0x00006665 ################ 79%
Max peak (5512 samples): 0x00005f1a ############### 74%

Please help me fix this issue. Does this occur due to non-optimal settings of the parameters (buffers, periods) in the configuration or is it some other issue with the ALSA library or the kernel? Please ask if any more setup/configuration settings are required for reference.

Thanks and Regards,

Ruchi Sirauthiya

"Last Activity: 09-27-09" so this may well not reach you. If it doesn't, perhaps it will help someone else. ...

Did you mark this thread "[SOLVED]" on purpose?

• If so, kindly post the solution -- even though this is an old post, it still might help someone else w/ the same, or a similar, problem.
• If not, I suggest you unmark it so that you can get the help you're asking for.
• If you need help unmarking it, ask.

Another suggestion: put your code & configs in "Code:" blocks. Better yet, yours are so long they obscure your question, so put them in pastebins.