Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

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LinWinux
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Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by LinWinux »

Hi everyone,

I'm posting this for my wife who's running Mint 19 with XFCE. I'm not posting this in hardware because both of us have identical Fujitsu Mini Computers with core i5-4570T processors, 16 GB RAM, and 1TB SSD drives. We even have the same 27" curved displays. The main difference between the two systems is the fact that she has Mint 19 with XFCE and I have MX Linux 19 with XFCE. Both of us use VLC and Audacious for multimedia files.

Anyway, when I play back music files from an archive, the audio plays immediately.

When my wife tries to play back files from a music archive, she has to start the playback about 20 - 30 minutes in advance. That's because even though she can see the audio play back in the Pulse Audio Manager as well as Audacious while the playback is going on ... there's just nothing coming out of the speakers. Then, inexplicably while she's off somewhere else like the kitchen, suddenly the sound begins to come out audibly from the speakers. No kidding, out of the blue anywhere from 20 - 30 minutes later the audio can be heard. This is about as weird as I've encountered as of late ...
Oh, and yeah, her weird audio playback issues also happen with VLC. I've checked Pulse Audio but can't find anything off there.

I'm relatively certain that her speakers are fine. To my knowledge speakers either work correctly ... or they work badly (yet still audible) ... or they don't work at all. I've never heard of speakers with a timelapse before. :shock:
Any ideas, thoughts, solutions on this? Thanks.
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by MrEen »

Hi LinWinux,

Let's see this output from the offending computer:

Code: Select all

dmesg | grep -C1 -E 'ALSA|HDA|sof|HDMI|snd[_-]|sound|hda.codec|hda.intel'
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by LinWinux »

Thanks.
Added that entire line verbatim into the terminal, pressed enter, and ..... nothing
It just went right to the next line with the user name. No output at all.
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by MrEen »

LinWinux wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 4:44 pm Thanks.
Added that entire line verbatim into the terminal, pressed enter, and ..... nothing
It just went right to the next line with the user name. No output at all.
Is the 5.8 kernel being used? For some reason that kernel series requires the use of sudo:

Code: Select all

sudo dmesg | grep -C1 -E 'ALSA|HDA|sof|HDMI|snd[_-]|sound|hda.codec|hda.intel'
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by LinWinux »

Sorry, 6 to 9 hour time difference ... US / Germany.
I've tried the command with both, sudo and without sudo.
Absolutely nothing happens, no error or anything, just right back to a new line with the user.
Tried it a second and a third time, no difference except for the fact that I didn't need the PWD for the second and third try anymore.
Hmmm ... ???
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by MrEen »

LinWinux wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 6:22 am Tried it a second and a third time, no difference except for the fact that I didn't need the PWD for the second and third try anymore.
Hmmm ... ???
There's a timer started when you enter a sudo command, I believe it's 10 or 15 minutes, that prevents the need for the follow up commands requiring the password, so that's normal.

I wonder if ALSA isn't even starting for a lengthy period. See if running sudo alsactl init, then playing sound works properly.

And this command will generate an overview of the sound setup:

Code: Select all

curl https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/raw/master/src/utils/pa-info?inline=false | bash | nc termbin.com 9999
The last line of output will have a URL pointing to the info. Maybe something there will provide more clues.
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by LinWinux »

Sorry for the lack of responsiveness ... swamped right now and it's cumbersome to check my Wife's computer while responding from another one. I'll report back by Wednesday at the very latest.
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by MrEen »

No worries!

If it's a month from now, the forum will still be here. :D
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by LinWinux »

SOLVED .... No, actually not really as desired ... :wink:

My wife got tired of the fiddling and prompted me to change the speaker/subwoofer system.
Well, I had another subwoofer setup on a spare system which I removed and set up for her on the setup with the weird audio issues. First I told her that I can't imagine a 30 - 60 minute audio output delay having anything to do with the actual hardware, just didn't seem possible to me.
But I stand corrected. Switching to the other subwoofer system did the trick.

========================================

Strange, I really don't get it. Her original subwoofer system worked just fine for over a year until some update or another (methinks). The only actual difference between the two subwoofer systems, aside from brand, is the fact that her original setup had left & right speakers which attached with an RCA jack to the subwoofer, while the setup that I just installed for her had standard 3.5mm audio jacks on the left & right speakers.
Be that as it may ... PROBLEM SOLVED ... just not as desired with an actual Linux software related audio fix. :roll:
Thanks for the suggestions, have a great upcoming weekend.
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Re: Massive (15 - 30 minutes) delay of Audio playback from disk

Post by MrEen »

Way to go LinWinux! :D

I suspect there might be a damaged wire in the finicky set. Just a guess though.
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