LinuxQuestions.org - Tascam us-122l on Ubuntu 9.04 (I believe really an IRQ issue) please read.

My issue is with a Tascam US-122l.
Not the US-122. I had one of those and wish I still did. It was easy.

I need some help. Even though I have been a member here for a long time this is the first time I have had to ask. I have always been able to glean the answers I need from someone else's question.

The "symptom" is there is no sound. Currently none at all (except through a mike). If I remove the .asoundrc file I have sound but it comes from the on board sound card.

First I think I would like to get this away from being a sound card issue.

I believe right now that the question is "how can I assign an IRQ to this card?".

Ubuntu 9.04
2.6.28-12-generic
alsa-1.0.20

To be thorough, a list of hardware:
Gigabyte MB GA-81865GME-775RH
Celeron 2.6 ghz processor
Award BIOS (not updated)
ATI 9800 pro video
1 IDE drive, 1 SATA drive, 1 DVD-RW
1 USB printer
Keyboard and mouse are PS/2.
Tascam US-122L (the item in question)

Let me state categorically that the system recognizes the unit. The modules and drivers are loaded. It shows up in /proc/asound/cards (but not with an IRQ) and if you plug a mike into it sound comes out the speakers. The issue (I believe)is that ALSA only recognizes cards that have an IRQ. Thusly even though my .asoundrc sets it up properly and all the modules (drivers, etc.) get loaded and even hwdinfo lists and all it's functionality correctly but it is not available for use by any of the sound server/applications save jack and it only lists the midi ports.

Still aplay -l will list only the on board sound device and not the Tascam even though it immediately shows up in proc. Asoundconf does list it.
Per ALSA.org website "only real sound cards have IRQ's". So I am assuming that this is the reason it is not available in ALSA/aplay.

I have tried all the HOWTO'S I can find, upgraded from source ALSA and all the rest of the related software.
I looked at compiling the kernel but could find nothing to change that seemed like it would make a difference.
I have moved the plugs and removed and replaced everything possible.
I have tried adding acpi=off irqpoll as kernel options in menu.lst.
I have tried adding noapic pci=irqroute pci=noacpi acpi=off irqpoll as kernel options in menu.lst.
Note that even though I cannot find documentation on these I believe they have been deprecated. At least irqpoll gives an error message as an unknown command.
I have analyzed ad nauseum the results of all of the commands such as lspci, lsmod|grep '^snd',modinfo snd_usb_us122l, modinfo snd_usb_lib, modinfo snd_hwdep, cat /var/log/syslog | grep snd, cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, hwinfo and more. All give the results expected from a working situation.

Following is information that I think points to issue.

Error exert from dmesg during boot. Finally the boot continues and but does not register the hardware.

[ 18.208021] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 33.424020] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 33.640018] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 48.752021] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 63.968022] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 64.184018] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
[ 74.592014] usb 1-5: device not accepting address 5, error -110
[ 74.704023] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
[ 85.112015] usb 1-5: device not accepting address 6, error -110
[ 85.112094] hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 5
[ 85.376016] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 100.488018] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 115.704024] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 115.920016] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 131.032019] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 146.248017] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 146.464017] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 156.872023] usb 4-1: device not accepting address 4, error -110
[ 156.984020] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[ 167.392017] usb 4-1: device not accepting address 5, error -110
[ 167.392090] hub 4-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1

When I plug it in after boot dmesg says:

[ 490.680041] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7
[ 490.812507] usb 1-5: config 1 interface 1 altsetting 1 bulk endpoint 0x83 has invalid maxpacket 9
[ 490.849106] usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 492.384591] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-us122l

Following are the results from procinfo. This may offer a picture worth examination.

procinfo
Memory: Total Used Free Buffers
RAM: 1026552 750436 276116 35800
Swap: 1646620 0 1646620

Bootup: Thu May 7 13:44:11 2009 Load average: 0.06 0.08 0.02 2/201 7947

user : 00:07:53.75 4.6% page in : 320998
nice : 00:01:28.07 0.9% page out: 291916
system: 00:03:26.86 2.0% page act: 72046
IOwait: 00:01:06.73 0.6% page dea: 0
hw irq: 00:00:08.10 0.1% page flt: 2811335
sw irq: 00:00:01.56 0.0% swap in : 0
idle : 02:38:02.65 91.8% swap out: 0
uptime: 02:52:07.21 context : 5557213

irq 0: 194 timer irq 16: 77948 uhci_hcd:usb2, uh
irq 1: 5055 i8042 irq 17: 156749 Intel ICH5
irq 8: 1 rtc0 irq 18: 175 ata_piix, uhci_hc
irq 9: 0 acpi irq 19: 0 uhci_hcd:usb3
irq 12: 257017 i8042 irq 20: 28945 eth0
irq 14: 30855 ata_piix irq 23: 1694355 ehci_hcd:usb1
irq 15: 40253 ata_piix

sda 19695r 11153w sdb1 28r 0w
sda1 19632r 11153w sdb2 27r 0w
sda2 3r 0w sdb3 30r 0w
sda5 39r 0w sdb4 3r 0w
sdb 138r 0w sdb5 28r 0w

lo TX 1.98KiB RX 1.98KiB pan0 TX 0.00B RX 0.00B
eth0 TX 877.89KiB RX 19.59MiB

In case your interested here is the asoundrc.

cat .asoundrc
# The usb_stream plugin configuration

pcm.!usb_stream {
@args [ CARD ]
@args.CARD {
type string
default "1"
}

type usb_stream

card $CARD
}
Source for info on the .asoundrc comes from Fredrico at briata.org. It reflects the card correctly and like mentioned earlier with a mike sound comes out of the speakers.