Hello. I am using KDE 4.1 on Kubuntu 8.10, ALC861 sound chipset. I am using gstreamer as my audio backend (xine seems to make no difference,) and at random, sound cuts out. In other words, I begin to play audio (in VLC or any other app) and the first ~.25 seconds loops until the program is killed. After this, this behavior continues until I restart. A forced ALSA reload simply removes sound functionality altogether until I reboot. How can I fix this? Thanks in advance.

Do you use Pulseaudio? If so, try disabling it, since it frequently causes unusual sound issues with KDE.

No, Pulseaudio isn't even installed. In addition, the shutdown sound works, and an alt-ctrl-backspace fails to resolve the problem.

If you try to play a mp3 file using mpg123 ( or a wav with aplay ) does it happen then?

OK, upgraded to 9.04. Now all I get is static clicking, even with MPG123. Same goes for shutdown sounds. I rebooted, and it works again. Any ideas?

Your ALSA configuration appears to be damaged, so you probably need to reconfigure it. ( Ubuntu wiki should be able to help you here ). Could you also check that Pulseaudio wasn't included in the upgrade to Jaunty?

I have similar problems. But i have installed pulseaudio. Should i remove pulseaudio? And so, can i then watch youtube and similar sites.
Can somebody explain to me what is phonon, puleseaudio in general words. And what dose guys do? I'm not a noob but i am completely confused now. Some say you need pulseaudio, some not. Some say you need gstreemer, some say xine... Totally lost...

Pulseaudio inadvertently enabled in Kubuntu when installing from DVD or upgrading with apt-get

When installing Kubuntu 9.04 from the DVD images, or upgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 from a previous release using apt-get dist-upgrade, the pulseaudio package will be installed in error. This package is not intended to be installed as part of the Kubuntu desktop. Users can remove this package with the command:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio

This i found on the release notes of 9.04 Kubuntu.

But i also find some people complaining about listening music and using kopete in the same time...

Some advice.

Pulseaudio is a sound server, which aims to allow you to mute applications, or modify the volume level they have outside the application themselves, as well as control the output they go to.
However this causes issues when not all software uses this, since Pulseaudio wants exclusive control over the sound device. As a result, KDE will end up fighting with Pulseaudio for control over the audio device, in most cases. Pulseaudio has also been known to damage or distort the sounds. I removed it from my system due to that issue. It also increases lag between the application and the hardware, meaning sounds take longer to begin playback.

Phonon is a multimedia abstraction layer, allowing KDE/Qt to use any number of backends including Xine ( Preferred on Linux ), Quicktime ( Mac only ) or DirectSound ( Windows only ). GStreamer is also available, but that is not as of a high quality as Xine and is not recommended for Linux users. Phonon also allows KDE/Qt to switch backends easily in the future ( VLC would be a possible candidate ).

Phonon is NOT a sound server in any form, despite what some sources say, and is part of Qt.

Thank you for your response. This clears lots of stuff. But i have some other issues now. Can phonon handle more then one application in the same time? Some say that you need pulseaudio for this. I will gladly purge pulseaudio from my system, because i also notice lag when using sound applications. Also i use flashplayer 10 beta 64 bit, and i think that this is going to work without pulseaudio, also i think that VLC don't use pulseaudio. Correct me if i wrong.

Phonon will be able to handle more than one application at a time if the backend it is using is able to. If your system has a working DMix configuration, then you should have no problem. You may need to uninstall libflashsupport, since it causes Flash to use Pulseaudio.

Thank you for your help. I have purged pulseaudio and my problems are gone. Now i only have to learn C++ to contribute something to community, because i don't have money to support you. KDE 4 is simply beautiful...

bcooksley wrote:Your ALSA configuration appears to be damaged, so you probably need to reconfigure it. ( Ubuntu wiki should be able to help you here ). Could you also check that Pulseaudio wasn't included in the upgrade to Jaunty?

Wiki doesn't seem to help. By all indications, alsaconf was removed from alsa-utils years ago. Stuttering still exists. Pulse was included, but removed.

You might find that some dpkg-reconfigure magic will perform the reconfiguration of ALSA. No idea what package names to place after that command though.

Did 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure alsa-base', force-reloaded ALSA, still stammers. Both startup and shutdown sounds stammer.

[size=x-large]Output of 'sudo alsa force-reload'[/size]

brian@brianscomp:~/Desktop$ sudo alsa force-reload
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
Terminating processes: 7100lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
7100lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
7100lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
7100lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
(with SIGKILL:) 7100lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
.
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hda-intel snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-seq-dummy snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-rawmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-device.
Loading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hda-intel snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-page-alloc snd-seq-dummy snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-rawmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-deviceWARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
.

[size=x-large]At this point, there is no sound. A non-sudo reload yields stammering. After a sudo reload, alsamixer reports all outputs maxed except master which is at zero, and cannot be increased.

After a plain 'sudo alsa-reload'[/size]

lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/brian/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hda-intel snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-seq-dummy snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-rawmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-page-alloc.
Loading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-hda-intel snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-seq-dummy snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-rawmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-page-allocWARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/libpisock9, it will be ignored in a future release.
.

[size=x-large]Followed by a pop-up with:[/size]

KDE detected that one or more internal sound devices were removed.
Do you want KDE to permanently forget about these devices?
This is the list of devices KDE thinks can be removed:
Capture: HDA ATI SB (ALC861 Analog)
Output: ALC861 Analog

Pressing "no" reveals more stammering, with the same alsamixer levels.