Hardy: pops and clicks in sound

[svaens]

Hi guys,

I wondered if I could ask if anyone else has had this problem, and if there is a solution?

My symptoms are:

playing sound via any program, be it Rhythmbox playing mp3, or vlc playing .avi, gives me problems. The problem being that any activity in the operating system; minimizing windows, browsing internet, and worse, viewing the System Monitor causes pops and clicks in the sound. Very annoying and not something you want to listen to. Which means that if you want to listen to music or watch a video, you have to make sure you don't do anything else with your computer at the time. And even then, you get the occasional small pop or click.

anyone know what could be causing this? I have only noticed this since installing Hardy yesterday. I installed it clean after having before had Gutsy on my machine (without the said problem).
I must say, my only let down with hardy. Besides the sound problem, it has been an improvement over gutsy for me. But this sound problem is not so very nice.

Thanks in advance for any replies and/or info!

[svaens]

Actually, I wonder if it couldn't be a case of something taking all my CPU.
Although I don't quite understand what I'm seeing when I look at the CPU history in the System Monitor, I find this strange:

Note: I can see what I see through the panel little panel System Monitor Applet.

1. Opening the application System->Administration->System Monitor
increases my cpu usage from a normal 18% to 100%
What is the use of looking at system resources through this application if by doing so you distort the cpu usage out to the max! And it MUST use so much, because this app is the one which causes so much damage to my sound!

2. when I look at the Processes list, I don't find any process taking up 100%. Does the System Monitor exclude itself from this list?

3. I notice Pulseaudio has had a very large amount of CPU Time. Which is strange, because as it sounds so bad, I've only had it on for 2 minutes or so whilst testing, then turn it off. And it is up there with firefox usage.
firefox 35 minutes
pulseaudio 20 minutes

4. I have metacity running (not compiz, as I turned it off via the appearance Preferences->Visual Effects dialog) and I can't see compiz running somehow... so that is not taking needed cpu cycles.

5. I tested this using the Ubuntu Hardy Live CD, and having the System Monitor open and viewing the CPU History only showed it running at a smooth 30%. Playing an MP3 using RhythmBox was mostly fine, except if i really moved things around on the desktop vigourously did I get some sound disturbance.

I guess I am kind of grasping at straws... I would like something to blame, as then I could just remove it.

[mcwizard]

I'm having a similar problem. It seemed to be related to compiz at first so I disabled it. it doesn't pop/click as much now but I suppose that's related to using less cpu cycles. Is the sound buffer to small maybe? This didn't happen in hardy beta, but I was using alsa then, now I have to use the pulseaudio sound system.

[svaens]

Another update,

I have noticed that there is no problem with Totem Movie Player.
Usually I use VLC. And there is still a problem with this, in that there are pops and pauses when I am doing something. Minimizing etc.

However, I have modified my xconfig a bit, and there is maybe less of a problem now. But, like i said, there is still a bit of a problem which seems to show itself more if i use vlc. I wouldn't however say this is strictly a vlc problem, as this problem has been showing itself also with RhythmBox.

[BattlePanic]

I have noticed a significant amount of popping and clicking when playing sound under Hardy.

The event-triggered sounds in Pidgin seem to pop and click every time they're played. I've also noticed it under the Totem media player. Rhythmbox seems to suffer no problems, however.

I don't listen to much music while using Ubuntu so my experience is limited and I only really notice this problem when system sounds are played, such as in the case of Pidgin. Although I would notice the occasional popping and clicking under Gutsy, the issue is much worse under Hardy and seems to happen every single time Pidgin plays a sound.

If I go to System -> Preferences -> Sound all the sound output settings are set to 'Autodetect' and if I test each there is a noticeable pop as soon as the test tone is played. While there are other options aside from 'Autodetect' for sound playback, the only ones that are currently selectable are "ESD - Enlightened Sound Daemon" and "PulseAudio Sound Server" If "ESD - Enligtened Sound Daemon" is selected, the test tone doesn't produce any pops or clicking but if using the "PulseAudio Sound Server" there again is a click as the test tone begins to play. This leads me to believe there is a issue with PulseAudio.

****** UPDATE ******
I just realized that I might not have been able to select the other sound playback options because I had Rhythmbox open with playback paused. I just tried it again and now I'm able to select the other playback options including ALSA. I also came across this post which suggested reverting to the ALSA setting. I tried switching to ALSA and now I don't seem to get any pops or clicking. I'd still like to see if there's another solution to this problem by reconfiguring PulseAudio.

[spodesabode]

Hello All. I'm having the same problem. However, to my (partly) trained ear, the clicks and pops are associated with minor pitch distortion too. This suggests a timing issue too.

Could there be an underlying issue with the timing mechanism in use for the sounds cards?

I'm using an Intel 81801G (ICH7) HD Audio, on a Realtek ALC882 PHY. This is onboard my Shuttle. It was working fine under 7.10 and I did an upgrade rather than a clean install.

I vaguely recall having a simular problem with Fedora 8, which had PulseAudio, and the problem was solved when I killed PulseAudio. I *think* I've killed it on this Ubuntu install, but still have problems

I hope this helps, I use this machine for a lot of media, so I'll be annoyed if I have to revert.

[teseglet]

Never had a problem before Hardy and have the same crackling and popping and jerky screen transitions as other are having now. I had to disable all ALSA and PulseAudio access via System/Preferences/Sound and strictly use OSS and all problems have disappeared. A side benefit I noticed is that even with Gutsy and Amarok the first song I would play after opening the program would always have a slight stutter at startup. With OSS (have to change it in Amarok/Settings/Configure Amarok/Engine/Output plugin) even that problem has disappeared.

[Teloid]

I have same problem after upgrade from 6.06 to 8.04. First I seen, that default Xserver is Xgl, not Xorg, In my case Xgl take to much CPU for drawing widnows, and sound goes realy baaad. Then I remove package xserver-xgl, and Xorg back, but sound problems still alive, at any graphical work, such window drowing, animation at browser and etc. I'm using ALSA(I beleave that ) and don't use compiz(I beleave that ).

[mivo]

This fixes it:

In System -> Preferences -> Sound, change everything to ALSA. Then start VLC and go to Settings -> Preferences -> Audio and check "Advanced Options" (right lower corner). Then choose "ALSA audio output".

That fixes the stuttering. If you have a problem with sound only working for one application at a time, download the alsa-oss package and add aoss before the command in the appropriate application launcher.

[spodesabode]

That doesn't fix it for me. Doing the test sound (that high pitched noise) on OSS/ALSA etc. gives me the same results, lots of pops and crackles. No difference with Compiz off.

I am using 64-Bit here. I've got the 32-Bit Hardy Live CD - I'm tempted to boot up and see if I get the same problems.