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Astilex

Member

Registered: 2017-08-30

Posts: 11

speech-dispatcher crackling

Hi,

speech-dispatcher is creating a crackling sound for me whenever I run speech-dispatcher in the terminal and use mumble. It essentially renders mumble unusable.

Has anyone found a reliable solution to this? Or am I out of luck?

Astilex

Member

Registered: 2017-08-30

Posts: 11

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Okay I managed to kill the process which makes mumble usable until I load it again.

I can do a killall on speech-dispatcher, which makes me think that I could write a shell script that i3 loads on login that checks every 5 seconds for speech-dispatcher and then kills it.

Am I overthinking this or does this make the most sense?

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,976

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

You need to provide more details.  Like what audio system are you using?  ALSA?  Pulse?  OSS?  Also provide everything you've tried along with the results of doing so.

Astilex

Member

Registered: 2017-08-30

Posts: 11

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Okay I'll try my best

I am using Pulseaudio I also think I have alsa-utils installed as well as I needed it for i3. (However ALSA OSS & Pulse are options in mumble but I don't recall installing anything but Pulse & Maybe ALSA)

I have tried this https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=215987 In which I changed "AudioOutputMethod" in /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf to "libao" (I rebooted after that which had no results.)

I found that killing speech-dispatcher after opening mumble was a short term fix which lasts until mumble is loaded again. (This is the method I am currently using as it works and is consistent.)

I also found this occurs in Discord but speech-dispatcher is not running when I checked.

This is my lspci output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) I/O Memory Management Unit
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:01.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:01.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:03.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge
00:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 59)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Black NVMe SSD
03:00.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43b9 (rev 02)
03:00.1 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43b5 (rev 02)
03:00.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 43b0 (rev 02)
1d:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
1d:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
1d:05.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
1d:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
1d:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 300 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 02)
26:00.0 PCI bridge: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1083/1085 PCIe to PCI Bridge (rev 04)
28:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
29:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a)
2a:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP106 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] (rev a1)
2a:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GP106 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
2b:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 145a
2b:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor
2b:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) USB 3.0 Host Controller
2c:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1455
2c:00.2 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51)
2c:00.3 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) HD Audio Controller

Is there anything else you might need? I was not sure what other logs/outputs to dig up that might be helpful. (I am also going to test this on my laptop tomorrow to see if this happens on there as well.)

Last edited by Astilex (2018-08-28 01:55:34)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,976

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

The first thing to try is to configure all your programs to use a specific audio system for which one you choose.

ALSA is older but still very good.  PulseAudio builds on top of ALSA.  I use PulseAudio and it generally just works.

If you want to use programs written for ALSA using PulseAudio then install pulseaudio-alsa and then ALSA sounds are routed through Pulse and work fine.

If you are KDE you might want to use Phonon instead of PulseAudio.  PulseAudio is the default for GNOME.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,718

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Phonon does not replace Pulseaudio It's a playback framework so that KDE applications can use a stable library independent backend for audio formats (it can use either gstreamer or vlc as audio backend engines, and switching between them has no effect for the actual KDE applications, the big gstreamer0.10 -> gstreamer1.0 changeover only needed to be implemented in phonon and every KDE application could reuse that).

It will have in either case have no relevance on the issue at hand, other than that yes, you should configure a single backend. I faintly remember that speech-dispatcher opens an unrealistic pulse sink, can you post

pacmd list-sink-inputs
pacmd list-source-outputs

during the crackling situation?

Edit: Typos

Last edited by V1del (2018-08-28 15:59:17)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,976

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Phonon does not replace Pulseaudio It's a playback framework so that KDE applications can use a stable library independent backend for audio formats (it can use eithe gstreamer or vlc as audio backend engines, and switching between them has no effect for the actual KDE applicatoins, the big gstreamer0.10 -> gstreamer1.0 changeover only needed to be implemented in phonon and every KDE application could reuse that).

My mistake.  I've hardly ever used KDE over the years so I only have a passing familiarity with it.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,718

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

No worries, i just wanted to clear that up so that no time is wasted chasing a red herring.

Astilex

Member

Registered: 2017-08-30

Posts: 11

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Here is the output of

pacmd list-sink-inputs

4 sink input(s) available.
    index: 4
        driver: <protocol-native.c>
        flags: START_CORKED 
        state: RUNNING
        sink: 0 <alsa_output.pci-0000_2c_00.3.analog-stereo>
        volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        muted: no
        current latency: 47.37 ms
        requested latency: 23.22 ms
        sample spec: float32le 2ch 44100Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        resample method: copy
        module: 11
        client: 29 <Vivaldi>
        properties:
                application.icon_name = "chromium-browser"
                media.name = "Playback"
                application.name = "Vivaldi"
                native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
                native-protocol.version = "32"
                application.process.id = "9381"
                application.process.user = "astilex"
                application.process.host = "archlinux"
                application.process.binary = "vivaldi-bin"
                application.language = "en_US.UTF-8"
                window.x11.display = ":0"
                application.process.machine_id = "a83a9fe2c62f424aade1a8b265fde6e0"
                application.process.session_id = "8"
                module-stream-restore.id = "sink-input-by-application-name:Vivaldi"
    index: 7
        driver: <protocol-native.c>
        flags: 
        state: DRAINED
        sink: 0 <alsa_output.pci-0000_2c_00.3.analog-stereo>
        volume: mono: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        muted: yes
        current latency: 0.00 ms
        requested latency: 0.50 ms
        sample spec: s16le 1ch 44100Hz
        channel map: mono
                     Mono
        resample method: copy
        module: 11
        client: 33 <speech-dispatcher>
        properties:
                media.name = "playback"
                application.name = "speech-dispatcher"
                native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
                native-protocol.version = "32"
                application.process.id = "10382"
                application.process.user = "astilex"
                application.process.host = "archlinux"
                application.process.binary = "sd_dummy"
                application.language = "C"
                window.x11.display = ":0"
                application.process.machine_id = "a83a9fe2c62f424aade1a8b265fde6e0"
                application.process.session_id = "8"
                module-stream-restore.id = "sink-input-by-application-name:speech-dispatcher"
    index: 8
        driver: <protocol-native.c>
        flags: 
        state: DRAINED
        sink: 0 <alsa_output.pci-0000_2c_00.3.analog-stereo>
        volume: mono: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        muted: yes
        current latency: 0.00 ms
        requested latency: 0.50 ms
        sample spec: s16le 1ch 44100Hz
        channel map: mono
                     Mono
        resample method: copy
        module: 11
        client: 34 <speech-dispatcher>
        properties:
                media.name = "playback"
                application.name = "speech-dispatcher"
                native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
                native-protocol.version = "32"
                application.process.id = "10387"
                application.process.user = "astilex"
                application.process.host = "archlinux"
                application.process.binary = "sd_generic"
                application.language = "C"
                window.x11.display = ":0"
                application.process.machine_id = "a83a9fe2c62f424aade1a8b265fde6e0"
                application.process.session_id = "8"
                module-stream-restore.id = "sink-input-by-application-name:speech-dispatcher"
    index: 9
        driver: <protocol-native.c>
        flags: 
        state: RUNNING
        sink: 0 <alsa_output.pci-0000_2c_00.3.analog-stereo>
        volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        muted: no
        current latency: 33.47 ms
        requested latency: 20.00 ms
        sample spec: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        resample method: (null)
        module: 11
        client: 32 <Mumble>
        properties:
                media.name = "Mumble Speakers"
                application.name = "Mumble"
                native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
                native-protocol.version = "32"
                application.id = "net.sourceforge.mumble.mumble"
                application.icon_name = "mumble"
                media.role = "phone"
                application.process.id = "10379"
                application.process.user = "astilex"
                application.process.host = "archlinux"
                application.process.binary = "mumble"
                application.language = "en_US.UTF-8"
                window.x11.display = ":0"
                application.process.machine_id = "a83a9fe2c62f424aade1a8b265fde6e0"
                application.process.session_id = "8"
                module-stream-restore.id = "sink-input-by-media-role:phone"

and

pacmd list-source-outputs

2 source output(s) available.
    index: 2
        driver: <protocol-native.c>
        flags: 
        state: RUNNING
        source: 0 <alsa_input.usb-046d_0825_C2A9A5A0-02.analog-mono>
        volume: mono: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        muted: no
        current latency: 0.00 ms
        requested latency: 10.00 ms
        sample spec: s16le 1ch 48000Hz
        channel map: mono
                     Mono
        resample method: (null)
        owner module: 11
        client: 32 <Mumble>
        properties:
                media.name = "Microphone"
                application.name = "Mumble"
                native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
                native-protocol.version = "32"
                application.id = "net.sourceforge.mumble.mumble"
                application.icon_name = "mumble"
                media.role = "phone"
                application.process.id = "10379"
                application.process.user = "astilex"
                application.process.host = "archlinux"
                application.process.binary = "mumble"
                application.language = "en_US.UTF-8"
                window.x11.display = ":0"
                application.process.machine_id = "a83a9fe2c62f424aade1a8b265fde6e0"
                application.process.session_id = "8"
                module-stream-restore.id = "source-output-by-media-role:phone"
    index: 3
        driver: <protocol-native.c>
        flags: 
        state: RUNNING
        source: 1 <alsa_output.pci-0000_2c_00.3.analog-stereo.monitor>
        volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        muted: no
        current latency: 0.25 ms
        requested latency: 10.00 ms
        sample spec: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        resample method: (null)
        owner module: 11
        client: 32 <Mumble>
        properties:
                media.name = "Mumble Speakers (Echo)"
                application.name = "Mumble"
                native-protocol.peer = "UNIX socket client"
                native-protocol.version = "32"
                application.id = "net.sourceforge.mumble.mumble"
                application.icon_name = "mumble"
                media.role = "phone"
                application.process.id = "10379"
                application.process.user = "astilex"
                application.process.host = "archlinux"
                application.process.binary = "mumble"
                application.language = "en_US.UTF-8"
                window.x11.display = ":0"
                application.process.machine_id = "a83a9fe2c62f424aade1a8b265fde6e0"
                application.process.session_id = "8"
                module-stream-restore.id = "source-output-by-media-role:phone"

While it might be irrelevant I did just switch from i3 to Plasma for reasons.

I'm really sorry about the delay.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,718

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Yeah that's an unrealistically low latency the speech-dispatcher requests here. If you start mumble/speetch dispatcher with PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 does it work without having to explicitly kill speetch-dispatcher?

FWIW I just stumbled on a bug report made today, whose further development you might want to follow: https://github.com/brailcom/speechd/issues/45

Last edited by V1del (2018-08-29 08:06:53)

Astilex

Member

Registered: 2017-08-30

Posts: 11

Re: speech-dispatcher crackling

Yeah that's an unrealistically low latency the speech-dispatcher requests here. If you start mumble/speetch dispatcher with PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 does it work without having to explicitly kill speetch-dispatcher?

FWIW I just stumbled on a bug report made today, whose further development you might want to follow: https://github.com/brailcom/speechd/issues/45

Yeah I just tried it with both mumble and speech-dispatcher and did not get any new results. I also subscribed to the issue and will keep and eye on it.

Would it be worth trying switching to ALSA? I don't think anything needs pulseaudio if it might be part of the issue.