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Wild Penguin

Member

Registered: 2015-03-19

Posts: 406

[SOLVED] PulseAudio: Clicks when audio is not played

Hi,

Recently I've got this very annoying snag / new behavior which didn't used to exist before, and it is driving me nuts: I get very audible and concentration-disrupting clicks  from the speakers when no audio is supposed to be played back. I tried to search for similar problems, but couldn't find any (could certainly be a case of using the wrong search terms...)

More precisely, these clicks happen after audio playback has recently stopped (a few seconds, say 2-5 seconds ago), is about to be began (.5 - 1s before actual playback), but most importantly just while surfing the net (with Firefox) when there is audio-containing content (such as ads) open in the browser, despite them not actually playing any audio (since I chose not to open / click the ad video and/or having muted audio, say, from reddit videos). The clicking pattern is a bit difficult to explain, but I know for certain:

1. It does not happen if something is actually playing audio (web radio stream, games etc.) - despite browsing or doing something else which usually causes clicks in silence

2. It does not happen if I only use software which I know doesn't use any audio

Actually, come to think of it, I only get this while browsing with Firefox and if I opening the PulseAudio panel widget in KDE Plasma (but only if no audio is actually being played back at the time).

Possibly related: until recently, I usually got many Firefox instances listed as using the audio device if I list applications using Pulseaudio (from command line or KDE Plasmoid), even if nothing in Firefox was actually playing back audio. Maybe there was a bug (Firefox instances kept a PulseAudio source streams open unnecessarily), which was fixed (which is a good thing of course). Unfortunately, keeping the audio device open all the time prevented (worked around) the clicks from happening, which now happen all the time, as the device actually gets closed (as it is supposed to). This is just a theory, though!

About hardware: I'm using onboard audio on an Asus Maximus VII Gene:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 8603
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 53
        Region 0: Memory at f7f30000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

The motherboard is connected via optical to an active pair of stereo speakers (Steljes NS3).

So, I have this theory the clicks happen every time some software is opening PulseAudio (registering as an audio source to the pulseaudio daemon).

Alternative theory: something is probing the audio device, which causes the motherboard audio interface to actually send some data to the speaker via optical causing the clicks.

An example about the latter is the KDE Plasmoid: if I click on it, I get a pair of clicks (~perhaps 250ms of separation between them). If I immediately open the plasmoid again, no additional clicks are heard. If I wait 5 seconds (not use the plasmoid) there will be a third slightly fainter click (perhaps the probing part in the plasmoid <-> pulseaudio daemon <-> actual H/W chain, which does the probing, closes pulseaudio device?). Now the original pair of clicks (and a third one after 5 seconds) can be repeated by clicking the plasmoid icon, but only after the 5 second delay (if I keep the plasmoid open, the clicks do not repeat). (EDIT: I just did another check, and if I start any audio playback in clementine or mpv, I get a similar pair of clicks, and after stopping, the third one after ~5 seconds).

Now, any idea how to go on from here? How to determine what is going on (if my theory / speculation is correct) and any ideas how to mitigate the clicks? I could turn of the power from the speakers, but that is suboptimal in workflow situations where I want to work in silence but do want/need to occasionally (say once every 10-30 minutes) use the audio device. I've even thought about leaving some background process playing an audio file in paused state to prevent the clicks from happening (as it should probably keep the audio device open), which tells something about the severity of the problem.

Perhaps some pulseaudio setting could force to keep the device open / increase timeout of closing the actual H/W?

Thanks!

EDIT: A stray half sentence was removed, more examples.

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2021-03-07 12:28:47)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,343

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio: Clicks when audio is not played

snd_hda_intel has power_saving enabled by default which can lead to effects like you are hearing. Try a

options snd_hda_intel power_save=0

in a /etc/modprobe.d/snd.conf or so.

Alternatively you can force pulse to keep the device open by unloading/removing from /etc/pulse/default.pa the module-suspend-on-idle

Last edited by V1del (2021-03-07 11:46:27)

Wild Penguin

Member

Registered: 2015-03-19

Posts: 406

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio: Clicks when audio is not played

Hi V1del,

And thanks! That was fast and the clicks seem to be gone now .

EDIT: It doesn't completely eliminate the clicks but they are much more fewer and far between, as in previously I could reproduce them at will and they were a constant nuisance. Much better this way (with the kernel module parameter).

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2021-03-07 13:48:36)