Glitchy sound on Mint 19

[Asteroid]

So I've got a new desktop and I installed Linux Mint 19. I have been using Mint for some years now and I even have it installed at my old laptop without any problems. So for the first time I face a problem with my sound on my desktop.

Everything works fine but at some point maybe after 10 minutes or 1 hour (I really don't know when and why it happens) my sound becomes really bad quality. It sounds like glitchy. It sounds like metallic. I can't explain it better. And if I reboot, then poof, problem is dissappeared. But it's really annoying when that happens in the middle of a movie and I need to reboot pc in order to watch it.

Any help would be really appreciated!!

[MrEen]

Hi Asteroid.

There are a number of possibilities why this is happening to you, that each have different requirements to get fixed. I'm hoping it's not an interference-type noise from a fan starting up or something like that. But try to pay attention when it happens to see if you can notice something in your environment that also changes (did the Significant Other just fire up the hair dryer, or pop something in the microwave?)

Let's start with a real easy edit to see if it works:

In the terminal type xed admin:///etc/pulse/default.pa and find the line that says load-module module-udev-detect and change it to load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0.

Save the file and reboot. Start a movie or something and see if the problem returns.

Good luck.

P.S. If the problem comes back, undo the change and reboot before trying anything else.

[Asteroid]

Ok I 've done what you told me. Now I have to wait until the problem appears again. Or not. Thanks for that!!!!

[MrEen]

Good luck. That fix is for crackly sound that usually isn't intermittent, so I'm unsure that it will help in your case. I am hopeful, though.

[Asteroid]

I really appreciate your help mate!!

I just hope one day we will not need to do hacker tricks for such problems. The sure thing is that linux is safe and becomes better and better day by day.

[vrcasados]

@Asteroid:
I'd like to chime in, if I may.

I believe I am having the issue Asteroid described: scratchy audio that is consistent - though "cyclic".
Scenario:
Load a youtube (or any other website) video.
As sound starts (speech, music, etc.) there is a crackling sound that distorts the audio somewhat.
The audio is briefly clear and then it begins again in an rhythmic fashion, about every 0.5 sec.
One might describe it as pulsating.

I tried the fix you provided MrEen, but it did not help.
Please let me know what other information I can provide - this is my first Mint19 (MATE) install after using 17.2 for years.
I am really loving it, other than this!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[MrEen]

Hi vrcasados, and welcome to the forum.

If you dual boot with Windows, try booting to Windows then back to Mint. Also try a complete shutdown.

Otherwise, post the results of running inxi -Fxz and aplay -l in the terminal.

[Asteroid]

@Asteroid:
I'd like to chime in, if I may.

I believe I am having the issue Asteroid described: scratchy audio that is consistent - though "cyclic".
Scenario:
Load a youtube (or any other website) video.
As sound starts (speech, music, etc.) there is a crackling sound that distorts the audio somewhat.
The audio is briefly clear and then it begins again in an rhythmic fashion, about every 0.5 sec.
One might describe it as pulsating.

I tried the fix you provided MrEen, but it did not help.
Please let me know what other information I can provide - this is my first Mint19 (MATE) install after using 17.2 for years.
I am really loving it, other than this!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hello there!!!

I just wanna thank MrEen for his advice because I've done what he told me and the problem doesn't exist since then. So vrcasados try this and let us know if you notice any results.

[vrcasados]

Asteroid:
Many thanks for the welcome!!

The Mint machine is a VM as a Guest on a Windows box.
I have done a complete shutdown of both the Guest and the Host with no real change in the issue.

Here are the outputs from the two commands you gave me:

inxi -Fxz
System: Host: vcasados-VirtualBox Kernel: 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
Desktop: MATE 1.20.1 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1)
Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine: Device: oracle System: innotek product: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: N/A
Mobo: Oracle model: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: N/A
BIOS: innotek v: VirtualBox date: 12/01/2006
Battery BAT0: charge: 49.5 Wh 99.0% condition: 50.0/50.0 Wh (100%)
model: innotek 1 status: N/A
CPU: Single core Intel Core i5-5300U (-UP-)
arch: Broadwell rev.4 cache: 3072 KB

flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3) bmips: 4589 speed: 2294 MHz (max)
Graphics: Card: InnoTek Systemberatung VirtualBox Graphics Adapter
bus-ID: 00:02.0
Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
drivers: (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) FAILED: modesetting
Resolution: 1680x1050@60.00hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bits)
version: 3.3 Mesa 18.0.0-rc5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio: Card Intel 82801AA AC'97 Audio Controller
driver: snd_intel8x0 ports: d100 d200 bus-ID: 00:05.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-20-generic
Network: Card: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: e1000 v: 7.3.21-k8-NAPI port: d010 bus-ID: 00:03.0
IF: enp0s3 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 32.2GB (25.6% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: VBOX_HARDDISK size: 32.2GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 30G used: 7.7G (28%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info: Processes: 132 Uptime: 1:01 Memory: 1101.9/3001.5MB
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: I82801AAICH [Intel 82801AA-ICH], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel 82801AA-ICH]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Your time and assistance is GREATLY appreciated!

[MrEen]

I have zero experience with VBox. No idea what differences that might introduce.

The reported BIOS date could be part of the issue, if that's accurate. If that computer is really that old, it might be better to downgrade the kernel to the latest in the 4.4 series. Lots of old hardware are losing support in the newer kernels.

Other than that, you should undo the change you made to default.pa as it didn't help. Hopefully others with VBox experience will have other suggestions.

[mbott001]

<snip>
In the terminal type xed admin:///etc/pulse/default.pa and find the line that says load-module module-udev-detect and change it to load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0.

Save the file and reboot. Start a movie or something and see if the problem returns.

Finally! This solved the issue I have been having sporadically since I originally installed Ubuntu 18.04 And it continued with LM 19.1.

Thanks MrEen!

--
Mike

[pwil3058]

I'm having similar but unusual problems with sound on Mint 19.1. When I test sound in "System Settings" I get perfectly clear sound on both left and right channels but when I try to use Rythmbox or view a video a browser (Firefox and/or Chromium) the sound is very scratchy. I've tried all the remedies in this thread without any luck. I don't think that it's a network issue as when I cast the utube to a TV set it's as clear as a bell.

Any clues?

[MrEen]

Hi pwil3058, and welcome to the forum.

You may have a messed up config file. Delete the files in /home/YourUserName/.config/pulse then run pulseaudio -k in the terminal. Now restart Rythmbox and/or your browser and test.

Good luck.

[pwil3058]

The same problem persists. Is there an alternative to alsa and pulseaudio?

[pwil3058]

I did some more experiments and found that if I play videos on both Chromium and Firefox at the SAME time the scratchiness goes away on them but persists on rythmbox. If I close FireFox and leave the video running on Chromium the sound stays good until the end of that video but goes back to being scratchy when that video stops and I start a new one. As I said, all very strange but I now have a partial work around .

[MrEen]

The fixes you've tried so far relate specifically to pulseaudio. As an experiment, install then run SMPlayer. Go into Options > Preferences > Audio tab and change Output driver: to alsa (or even better, to alsa(Card#Device# - CardName) if you know which one applies.) Then use the program to play something and report back if there's any improvement. If there is, then we know pulseaudio is the main culprit and can try other settings with it, such as default sample rate. If we're going to try changing that, let me see the output of cat /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

As for alternatives, a rather sketchy yes. Some users don't use pulseaudio at all and play straight through alsa. Firefox (and other programs) will need a program like apulse (it's in the repos for Mint19+, but not for 18.x anymore for some reason) to still output sound, but most decent music programs can be configured like the instructions for SMPlayer above. Also, there's really no alternative for alsa. It took over from OSS years ago and I would not recommend trying OSS now.

[pwil3058]

SMPPlayer is scratchy when set to alsa. Out of curiosity i tried oss but that just caused SMPPlayer to crash. I guess this points the finger at alsa. This implies that System Settings program is accessing the sound before it goes through alsa. Is that inference correct?

[MrEen]

SMPPlayer is scratchy when set to alsa. Out of curiosity i tried oss but that just caused SMPPlayer to crash. I guess this points the finger at alsa. This implies that System Settings program is accessing the sound before it goes through alsa. Is that inference correct?

Well, it gives pulseaudio an alibi at least. I'm not sure how "System Settings" works, as I don't have it on Xfce.

Look in your home folder for a file named .asoundrc or in /home/YourUserName/.config and delete it if you find one. If no luck, try running the following in the terminal one line at a time:

Code: Select all

apt remove --purge alsa-base
apt install alsa-base
sudo alsa force-reload

Then test the sound.

If your system is a dual boot with Windows, try booting into Windows then doing a full shutdown (not reboot.) Wait a few minutes then power up into Mint and test the sound.

Hopefully one of these will get us closer to solving this.

[pwil3058]

No file named .asoundrc found.

I tried the removal of alsa previously and it didn't work. In fact, it deleted cinnamon from my machine causing me a little strife.

[pwil3058]

I went to the alsa website and they mentioned a program called speaker-test for testing alsa. This program is installed on my machine so I gave it a try and

%speaker-test -t wave

replicated the output (same voice, etc) the System Settings gave and was as clear as a bell. Interestingly the output from

%speaker-test -t pink

gives output (pink noise) very close the scratchiness I'm experiencing.

%speaker-test -t sine

gives a nice clear tone.