[kpanic]

hi!

my setup is: debian gnu/linux with jack, low latency kernel, an external firewire audio card (Edirol FA66)
If I'm using renoise at 96khz when I execute another jack application renoise asks me to switch back to ALSA even if jack is still up.

at 44khz things seems more stable, but randomly renoise 'crashes' and asks me to switch back to ALSA.

any hints or any more info I could provide?

thanks!

[vV]

What does the Jack message server says? How many Xruns do you get?
If you get loads of Xruns in the Jack message console, your system or audiocard might not be fit for the test to work with 96Khz the way you might stress it.
Most likely it may be a buffer / period setting what happens if you raise the latency?

[taktik]

Yes, as vV said: Take a look if any client that is connected to Jack (maybe even Renoise) start to cause lots of underruns. I think Jack will start to disconnect clients when they do not respond for a longer time. The Jack log should dump out errors as soon as something like this happens.

Or do you even get this problem when running at 96Khz with nearly no Audio CPU usage?

[kpanic]

taktik, on Aug 5 2008, 10:22 PM, said:

Yes, as vV said: Take a look if any client that is connected to Jack (maybe even Renoise) start to cause lots of underruns. I think Jack will start to disconnect clients when they do not respond for a longer time. The Jack log should dump out errors as soon as something like this happens.

Or do you even get this problem when running at 96Khz with nearly no Audio CPU usage?

my errors are from the qjackctl log:

22:30:56.308 ALSA connection graph change.
22:30:56.349 Shutdown notification.
22:30:56.354 JACK is stopping...
22:30:56.361 JACK is being forced...
subgraph starting at renoise-01 timed out (subgraph_wait_fd=86, status = 0, state = Running)
cannot complete execution of the processing graph (Resource temporarily unavailable)
zombified - calling shutdown handler
LibFreeBoB ERR: SLAVE XMT : Buffer underrun! 128 (0 / 224) (0 / 0 )
LibFreeBoB ERR: Xrun on connection 1
22:30:56.387 JACK has crashed.
22:30:56.501 ALSA connection change.
22:30:56.562 JACK was stopped successfully.
22:30:56.562 Post-shutdown script...
22:30:56.563 killall jackd
jackd: no process killed
22:30:56.975 Post-shutdown script terminated with exit status=256.

this with:

frames/period 128
periods/buffers 4
sample rate 44100

I tried at 96khz, 512 f/p 4 p/b and it seems more stable with latency 21.3ms

thanks, I'll play with the settings

[taktik]

Do you get the same problem when first starting Jack (via QJackControl for example), then starting Renoise? I remember we heard about such problems in the past where the auto started Jack was behaving strange.

Will Ardor other other apps behave the same when autostarted? Aka, is this really a Renoise problem?

Renoise is the only app that is connected to Jack in your examples?

[vV]

Seems more edirol cards have this problem...
http://ardour.org/node/1862

When digging deeper it seems related to FireWire audiocards...
http://ubuntuforums....t=522738&page=3

Sounds like this buggy chipset related problem... If you have a Texas Instruments chipset, you have the most favored chipset for a firewire audiocard. If you have any other chipset, specially VIA, you have a crappy situation.
This at least counts for Windows environments but might as well apply to Linux environments.

[kpanic]

taktik, on Aug 5 2008, 11:09 PM, said:

Do you get the same problem when first starting Jack (via QJackControl for example), then starting Renoise? I remember we heard about such problems in the past where the auto started Jack was behaving strange.

Will Ardor other other apps behave the same when autostarted? Aka, is this really a Renoise problem?

Renoise is the only app that is connected to Jack in your examples?

taktik, it seems to happen only with renoise

[taktik]

kpanic, on Aug 7 2008, 12:50 AM, said:

taktik, it seems to happen only with renoise

Have you also tried if first launching jack via Jack Control, then launching Renoise makes a difference?

Also, do you only get these connection drops when Renoise is high on CPU load or also when its idling?

[kpanic]

taktik, on Aug 7 2008, 09:40 AM, said:

Have you also tried if first launching jack via Jack Control, then launching Renoise makes a difference?

Also, do you only get these connection drops when Renoise is high on CPU load or also when its idling?

taktik, yes. I autolaunch qjackctl on startup.

if it makes a difference I'm on dual core 32 bit, and when I launch zynaddsubfx at a time it goes well, if I launch phasex or other softsynth renoise 'timeouts'. and I have to reconnect to jack via Reinitialize.

sometimes jack disconnects all the clients

it seems random, but happens often.

let me know taktik if I can provide more infos

[It-Alien]

does your distro use PulseAudio soundserver?

[kpanic]

It-Alien, on Aug 7 2008, 12:56 PM, said:

does your distro use PulseAudio soundserver?

no, I have not setup pulseaudio under this debian, is there a daemon anyway I could check?

thanks

[taktik]

kpanic, on Aug 7 2008, 12:47 PM, said:

taktik, yes. I autolaunch qjackctl on startup.

if it makes a difference I'm on dual core 32 bit, and when I launch zynaddsubfx at a time it goes well, if I launch phasex or other softsynth renoise 'timeouts'. and I have to reconnect to jack via Reinitialize.

sometimes jack disconnects all the clients

it seems random, but happens often.

let me know taktik if I can provide more infos

Would be great if we can get this "sometimes disconnects/timeouts" more clear. I will later try if I can replicate this with phasex.

If you just start Renoise without connecting any other synth, does it then always work or not? So does the timeout only happen on connection changes in Jack?

[kpanic]

taktik, on Aug 7 2008, 02:51 PM, said:

Would be great if we can get this "sometimes disconnects/timeouts" more clear. I will later try if I can replicate this timeout with phasex.

If you just start Renoise without connecting any other synth, does it then always work or not? So does the timeout only happen on connection changes in Jack?

just an example, I have an audio player (audacious) that is playing some music, I open renoise and it crashes jack server like:

ubgraph starting at audacious-jack_14464_000 timed out (subgraph_wait_fd=47, status = 0, state = Running)
LibFreeBoB ERR: SLAVE XMT : Buffer underrun! 512 (0 / 224) (0 / 0 )
LibFreeBoB ERR: Xrun on connection 1
14:42:55.138 ALSA connection graph change.
14:42:55.139 Shutdown notification.
14:42:55.158 JACK is stopping...
14:42:55.163 JACK is being forced...
cannot read server event (Success)
cannot complete execution of the processing graph (Resource temporarily unavailable)
zombified - calling shutdown handler
14:42:55.165 JACK has crashed.
14:42:55.317 ALSA connection change.
14:42:55.364 JACK was stopped successfully.
14:42:55.364 Post-shutdown script...

my jack version is 0.109.2

renoise asks me as usual if I want to fallback to alsa

EDIT: if I launch phasex, zynaddsubfx, ardour and audacious while music is playing no crashes/disconnects, only when I start renoise

This post has been edited by kpanic: 07 August 2008 - 01:01 PM

[taktik]

Wait. Now I am totally confused.

1. When first launching Jack, then Renoise, then a few other Jack apps -> Jack sometimes crashes

2. When first launching Jack, then other apps, then Renoise -> Jack always crashes

3. When first launching Jack, then Renoise and no other Jack apps -> everything is alright

is this correct?

Can anybody else confirm the issue, so we know where we have to start looking for?

[kpanic]

taktik, on Aug 7 2008, 03:16 PM, said:

Wait. Now I am totally confused.

1. When first launching Jack, then Renoise, then a few other Jack apps -> Jack sometimes crashes

2. When first launching Jack, then other apps, then Renoise -> Jack always crashes

3. When first launching Jack, then Renoise and no other Jack apps -> everything is alright

is this correct?

Can anybody else confirm the issue, so we know where we have to start looking for?

1,2 I confirm, jack after a while of action disconnects renoise or crashes

3 *only* renoise seems pretty stable

[kpanic]

kpanic, on Aug 7 2008, 04:14 PM, said:

1,2 I confirm, jack after a while of action disconnects renoise or crashes

3 *only* renoise seems pretty stable

ok guys, I changed the kernel, recompiled 2.6.26-rt1 problems seems solved for now -- all very stable

two zynaddsubfx, one player, ardour2, phasex all running and chugging along nicely

EDIT: at 96khz same problems as before arises. same thing for a low frames/period (256 for example) at 44khz.

it seems to depend on the frames/period thingy

atm, my settings are:

frames/period: 512
sample rate: 44100
Periods/Buffers: 2

Latency: 23.2 msec as jack says

This post has been edited by kpanic: 07 August 2008 - 10:11 PM

[vV]

Could you try to set the Periods/Buffers to 3?
I'm very curious if that brings any better results.
(For the HDA/Intel soundcards this removes a hell of a lot audio related problems as well)

[kpanic]

vV, on Aug 8 2008, 08:14 AM, said:

Could you try to set the Periods/Buffers to 3?
I'm very curious if that brings any better results.
(For the HDA/Intel soundcards this removes a hell of a lot audio related problems as well)

with Periods/Buffers 3 seems stable also in the old kernel (the new kernel 2.6.26-rt1 hardlocked the machine after a while)

latency: 34.8 maybe it's too high, but I try to leave with it

and no, I have an HDA/Intel but I'm using the external firewire card

thanks

[vV]

It always involves Renoise when hardlocked using 3 buffers? Or can you also reproduce the hardlocks with other hosts only?

[kpanic]

vV, on Aug 8 2008, 08:29 PM, said:

It always involves Renoise when hardlocked using 3 buffers? Or can you also reproduce the hardlocks with other hosts only?

no, with 2.6.26-rt1 the machine hardlocks also without launching renoise. it seems a kernel issue I suppose

[taktik]

One more idea: Maybe this is related to the realtime problems on Linux when running more than one Audio CPUs. See http://www.renoise.c...showtopic=16963 please

When disabling the multicore support in Renoise, does it then work better for you?

You could also try to increase the jackd "timeout" value. This timeout defines when Jack starts to autodisconnect clients which no longer react.
Launching new Audio apps/synths does not only add new audio connections to Jack but will also make Renoise (re)scanning for new MIDI ports. Maybe the rescanning takes to long in your case (for whatever reason) and thus results in the jack timeouts.

[kpanic]

taktik, on Aug 19 2008, 04:32 PM, said:

One more idea: Maybe this is related to the realtime problems on Linux when running more than one Audio CPUs. See http://www.renoise.c...showtopic=16963 please

When disabling the multicore support in Renoise, does it then work better for you?

You could also try to increase the jackd "timeout" value. This timeout defines when Jack starts to autodisconnect clients which no longer react.
Launching new Audio apps/synths does not only add new audio connections to Jack but will also make Renoise (re)scanning for new MIDI ports. Maybe the rescanning takes to long in your case (for whatever reason) and thus results in the jack timeouts.

with the timeout increased renoise seem to not disconnect. I have to test it at 96khz yet

thanks!

[ankle]

I was having this same problem and can confirm that increasing JACK's timeout setting seems to have fixed it.

[taktik]

ankle, on Aug 24 2008, 10:56 PM, said:

I was having this same problem and can confirm that increasing JACK's timeout setting seems to have fixed it.

Is the timeout values maybe lower by default in newer jackd versions? This or that way its strange that this seems to happen on some systems only. At least it "just" seems to be a timing/performance problem, not a general one.

[ankle]

I *think* the timeout was 1000msec by default; I've increased it to 5000.

My system is Ubuntu Hardy, linux-kernel-rt, Intel Realtek ALC883 built-in audio.