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#1 2020-05-14 09:29:08

Wild Penguin
Member
Registered: 2015-03-19
Posts: 319

USB sound card (Sound BlasterX G6) stuck in reboot loop (sporadic)

Hi!

Recently I got a Sound BlasterX G6 to work as an amp for my headphones.

It works fine in Linux (however, no software support - no adjusting LEDs or adjusting the effects which one can do in the Windows software).

Recently, it tends to get stuck in a reboot loop (*) if I insert it after booting up (if it is inserted before I boot, it will not be stuck in a reboot loop).

Moreover, I've noticed I can work around the reboot loop by stopping pulseaudio:

systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket

after letting the card initialize, I can restart pulseaudio and it will work just fine:

systemctl --user start pulseaudio.socket


Also, I noticed if my user is not logged in, the card will initialize just fine. I.e. if I plug it in before logging in and let it initialize, it will fork. Howeveer, even logging in via a VC before blugging in the device will cause this reboot loop!

Of course, that is a bit cumbersome and definitely not optimal. Any ideas what might be the cause?

The workaround / user-logging in causing the cycle, makes me suspect maybe the alsa/pulseaudio mixer settings are somehow corrupted, and the card shuts off because getting some non-compliant settings from the computer? I can not find where alsa settings are stored, so I could forcibly reset / delete them. In ~/.config? in ~/.local/... ?

Any other ideas?

Some things I should mention:

  1. I've upgraded the firmware on the device via a windows 10 VM, as the stock firmware (13. series) may have some sound quality issues, and some of the problems the new ones have improved on are something I felt I will encounter.

  2. Upgrading the firmware could definitely have left some settings in alsa/pulseaudio mixer, which are in conflict to what the device firmware is expecting!

  3. The sound setup on the computer is quite standard pulseaudio / alsa setup (AFAIK I've not made any special changes to it)

  4. I'm using Plasma as my DE (however, this is irrelevant, since I can reproduce without starting X.org in a plain VC log in)

Cheers!

TL;DR question for the impatient: where are ALSA mixer settings stored, so that a user can forcibly reset them?

EDIT: Forgot to include this syslog snippet. This kind of things will repeat in syslog along with the reboot cycle:

touko 14 12:06:13 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: new full-speed USB device number 27 using xhci_hcd
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: new high-speed USB device number 28 using xhci_hcd
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: New USB device found, idVendor=041e, idProduct=3256, bcdDevice=11.80
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=11
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: Product: Sound BlasterX G6
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: Manufacturer: Creative Technology Ltd
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: SerialNumber: 8400614753X
touko 14 12:06:19 ArkkiVille kernel: input: Creative Technology Ltd Sound BlasterX G6 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-10/2-10:1.3/0003:041E:3256.007D/input/input90
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille kernel: hid-generic 0003:041E:3256.007D: input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.00 Device [Creative Technology Ltd Sound BlasterX G6] on usb-0000:00:14.0-10/input3
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille kernel: hid-generic 0003:041E:3256.007E: hiddev2,hidraw4: USB HID v1.00 Device [Creative Technology Ltd Sound BlasterX G6] on usb-0000:00:14.0-10/input4
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille mtp-probe[128060]: checking bus 2, device 28: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-10"
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille mtp-probe[128060]: bus: 2, device: 28 was not an MTP device
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille systemd-udevd[128079]: controlC2: Process '/usr/bin/alsactl restore 2' failed with exit code 99.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille mtp-probe[128087]: checking bus 2, device 28: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-10"
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille mtp-probe[128087]: bus: 2, device: 28 was not an MTP device
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: W: [pulseaudio] alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0 to 0 which makes no sense.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: W: [pulseaudio] alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0 to 0 which makes no sense.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: W: [pulseaudio] alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0 to 0 which makes no sense.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: W: [pulseaudio] alsa-mixer.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0 to 0 which makes no sense.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille rtkit-daemon[1317]: Supervising 6 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille rtkit-daemon[1317]: Successfully made thread 128092 of process 82870 owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille rtkit-daemon[1317]: Supervising 7 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille rtkit-daemon[1317]: Supervising 7 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille rtkit-daemon[1317]: Successfully made thread 128094 of process 82870 owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille rtkit-daemon[1317]: Supervising 8 threads of 3 processes of 1 users.
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille plasmashell[1194]: org.kde.plasma.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.iec958-stereo.monitor"
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille plasmashell[1194]: org.kde.plasma.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_input.usb-Creative_Technology_Ltd_Sound_BlasterX_G6_8400614753X-00.analog-stereo"
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille kdeconnectd[1217]: org.kde.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.iec958-stereo.monitor"
touko 14 12:06:20 ArkkiVille kdeconnectd[1217]: org.kde.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_input.usb-Creative_Technology_Ltd_Sound_BlasterX_G6_8400614753X-00.analog-stereo"
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: W: [alsa-sink-USB Audio] alsa-util.c: Got POLLNVAL from ALSA
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille kernel: usb 2-10: USB disconnect, device number 28
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: W: [alsa-source-USB Audio] alsa-util.c: Got POLLNVAL from ALSA
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille pulseaudio[82870]: E: [alsa-sink-USB Audio] alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:2: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille kdeconnectd[1217]: org.kde.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_input.usb-Creative_Technology_Ltd_Sound_BlasterX_G6_8400614753X-00.analog-stereo"
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille plasmashell[1194]: org.kde.plasma.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_input.usb-Creative_Technology_Ltd_Sound_BlasterX_G6_8400614753X-00.analog-stereo"
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille kdeconnectd[1217]: org.kde.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.iec958-stereo.monitor"
touko 14 12:06:23 ArkkiVille plasmashell[1194]: org.kde.plasma.pulseaudio: No object for name "alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.iec958-stereo.monitor"

EDIT: (*) Also realized, maybe I should describe what I mean by reboot loop. Normally, it takes a few seconds for the USB DAC to initialize; it will click after ~2 seconds, as it turns on it's amplifier (I presume there's relay to control power inside), and it will just work (appear in alsa amixer, and in pulseaudio devices etc.) . In a reboot loop, the device will appear only for a few seconds (1-2s) and disapper, click again (shut off power to it's amp), turn off all LEDs (as a minor detail: I believe the connected output LEDs will stay on accordingly), disconnect (as in the log snippet above). After another two seconds, it will reconnect and try to reinitialize, and repeats this for ~10 times (haven't actually counted how many times). If I wait for a few minutes, it will stop retrying (after ~10 times), i.e. it seems it will "give up".

EDIT: The problem solved itself and I do not get the reboot loop anymore even if I plug the device after a reboot. I've downgraded the firmware to 1.16 from 1.18 beta (possibly this was a beta issue). Even since then 2.0 firmware has been released, but I haven't upgraded yet (the device works fine, and upgrading means booting Windows in a VM). Possibly this firmware-juggle fixed the issue, and hopefully I was the only one having this issue - if someone else has this, feel free to reply here!

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2020-06-14 11:55:35)

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#2 2020-06-10 20:32:41

bardocku
Member
Registered: 2020-06-10
Posts: 1

Re: USB sound card (Sound BlasterX G6) stuck in reboot loop (sporadic)

I have had the same problems in the past with v1.16, and v1.18. Today(10.06) it occurred again with v2.0. Now I'm using Debian, so I guess it is faulty firmware or alsa drivers.

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#3 2020-06-14 11:54:51

Wild Penguin
Member
Registered: 2015-03-19
Posts: 319

Re: USB sound card (Sound BlasterX G6) stuck in reboot loop (sporadic)

Hi bardocku,

I'm not experiencing this bug (currently). I'm thinking of only one idea to test: maybe it is indeed corruption of the alsamixer data? Have you find out where it is stored? It could be worth to troubleshoot by just resetting the settings.

Will re-edit the title (since I'm not the only one having this).

I'm upgrading to 2.0 right now, will see if the problem re-surfaces.

HTH!

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#4 2020-06-14 14:44:27

Wild Penguin
Member
Registered: 2015-03-19
Posts: 319

Re: USB sound card (Sound BlasterX G6) stuck in reboot loop (sporadic)

Hi,

After upgrading the firmware to 2.0, I get this problem again.

Finally I found alsamixer settings in ~/.pulse (no search over the net suggested this location, but only other locations - despite searching with pulseaudio in the search keywords; maybe I wtill used wrong search words). Deleting that file(EDIT: folder contents) will not fix the issue, however will reset mixer settings (in case someone finds that useful for other reasons).

So far, the only workaround (besides plugging the device in before reboot) is:

systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket
# plug in the device here, obviously this is not a command =)
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.socket

Sometimes also:

systemctl --user restart pulseaudio.service

is needed.

I've noticed the carcd will initialize without pulseaudio this way (even the mixer can be controlled via alsamixer), and none of the errors (e.g. "Your kernel driver is broken: "... in the log snippet in my previous post are present.

After restarting pulseaudio, after it has initialized in alsa, the card will work in pulseaudio, too.

So, any suggestions are welcome. Is this a bug in pulseaudio?

Cheers!

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2020-06-15 12:45:33)

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