pulseaudio strange log messages and flickering sounds in pidgin

Bug #480802 reported by lpuser
52
This bug affects 11 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
linux (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

After I installed Ubuntu 9.10 I noticed a many log messages from pulseaudio in "user.log" section from System Log Viewer:

Nov 7 12:20:07 ubuntu pulseaudio[1440]: ratelimit.c: 16 events suppressed
Nov 7 12:20:12 ubuntu pulseaudio[1440]: ratelimit.c: 13 events suppressed
Nov 7 12:20:21 ubuntu pulseaudio[1440]: ratelimit.c: 8 events suppressed
Nov 7 13:26:53 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 109 events suppressed
Nov 7 13:27:15 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 90 events suppressed
Nov 7 13:27:44 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 94 events suppressed
Nov 7 13:36:00 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
Nov 7 13:36:00 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_via82xx'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
Nov 7 13:36:00 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.
Nov 7 13:54:14 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 88 events suppressed
Nov 7 13:56:21 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 89 events suppressed
Nov 7 14:14:44 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 72 events suppressed
Nov 7 14:16:20 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 91 events suppressed
Nov 7 14:17:41 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 82 events suppressed
Nov 7 14:20:51 ubuntu pulseaudio[1441]: ratelimit.c: 91 events suppressed

This is just part of the log. There are a lot of similar messages.
Besides that I also noticed that pidgin sounds flicker. If I remove pulseaudio package the sounds stop flickering as well as those log messages.
And what means "ratelimit.c: xx messages suppressed" ? Is this bad?

pulseaudio:
  Installed: 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
  Candidate: 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://ro.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: florin 1526 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'V8237'/'VIA 8237 with ALC655 at 0xe000, irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC655 rev 0'
   Components : 'AC97a:414c4760'
   Controls : 48
   Simple ctrls : 29
Date: Wed Nov 11 19:24:50 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
modified.conffile..etc.X11.Xsession.d.70pulseaudio: [deleted]

Revision history for this message
lpuser (lpuser) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Enrique Alonso-Martín (enrique-alonso-martin-gmail) wrote :

Same here. My problem is that front mic stops working.

Jan 19 10:40:16 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: ratelimit.c: 93 events suppressed
Jan 19 10:41:05 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: ratelimit.c: 113 events suppressed
Jan 19 13:15:04 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: ratelimit.c: 92 events suppressed
Jan 19 14:05:45 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: ratelimit.c: 91 events suppressed
Jan 19 14:53:16 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
Jan 19 14:53:16 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_hda_intel'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
Jan 19 14:53:16 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.
Jan 19 14:53:18 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: ratelimit.c: 5 events suppressed
Jan 19 19:04:49 nexus02 pulseaudio[1719]: ratelimit.c: 121 events suppressed
Jan 20 11:19:23 nexus02 pulseaudio[1756]: ratelimit.c: 90 events suppressed

Revision history for this message
Enrique Alonso-Martín (enrique-alonso-martin-gmail) wrote :

BTW, I'm using:

$ uname -a
Linux nexus02 2.6.31-17-generic-pae #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 17:23:29 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Revision history for this message
bionicdude (m-launchpad-bionicdude-com) wrote :

I have the same log messages.

Not sure if this is relevant or will help but i also have the following issue:

Whilst i'm watching video in vlc I don't get sound alerts from pidgin. once the video stops and i close vlc it's as if i then get lots of queued up sounds all at once. it manifests itself in a very loud and very distorted alert message from pidgin.

Revision history for this message
bionicdude (m-launchpad-bionicdude-com) wrote :

and config, sorry:
Linux BIOLINUX 2.6.31-17-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 17:01:44 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Daniel T Chen (crimsun)
affects: pulseaudio (Ubuntu) → linux (Ubuntu)
Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Hew (hew) wrote :

Same issue with up-to-date Lucid, occurs with Banshee (and probably other apps).

Revision history for this message
asasoft (asasoft) wrote :

Same.. lucid fresh + updates, all the same Bug #434436 & Bug #545065

Revision history for this message
Brad Figg (brad-figg) wrote : Unsupported series, setting status to "Won't Fix".

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Won't Fix
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