Arch Linux

SomeRandomGuy

Member

Registered: 2011-11-17

Posts: 2

FFADO Device Connection Errors [Solved]

Greetings!

My appologies in advance for the verbose post, but at this point I feel that more information will be helpful.

I have been an Ubuntu Studio and Gentoo user for a while now, and I am very excited to be moving to Arch. : )
I use an Alesis Multimix Firewire audio interface for some audio work, and on my most recent Ubuntu Studio install (11.10) I had the Multimix successfully up and running on the new firewire stack and using Jack2.

Since installing arch, I have installed JACK2 (1.9.7) and libffado 2.0.1-3 from the Extras repository. I have also added a udev rule to give the audio group access to firewire audio devices as described here. https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/26342

This seems to be working well, because

ls -l /dev/fw1 | awk '{print $4}' 

outputs "audio"

I have also added my username to the audio group and have set the realtime priorities in following Arch Pro Audio

Now, when I run

jackd -dfirewire -r48000 -p1024 -n3

I get this output:

jackdmp 1.9.7
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2011 Grame.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
no message buffer overruns
could not open driver .so '/usr/lib/jack/jack_netone.so': libcelt0.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
jack_get_descriptor returns null for 'jack_netone.so'
no message buffer overruns
could not open component .so '/usr/lib/jack/jack_netone.so': libcelt0.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
libffado 2.0.1 built Jan 19 2011 12:23:04
04235616944: Error (bebob_avdevice.cpp)[  96] probe: Number of channels command failed
04236502218: Error (avc_avdevice.cpp)[  88] probe: Subunit info command failed                                           
firewire ERR: FFADO: Error creating virtual device                                                                       
Cannot attach audio driver
JackServer::Open() failed with -1
no message buffer overruns
Failed to open server

Because this seemed to be a problem in ffado, I ran

ffado-dbus-server

and recieved a similar output:

-----------------------------------------------
FFADO Control DBUS service
Part of the FFADO project -- www.ffado.org
Version: 2.0.1
(C) 2008, Pieter Palmers
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
-----------------------------------------------

 Discovering devices...
04489753019: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 328] initialize: Could not set SPLIT_TIMEOUT to min requested (1000000)
04489753040: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 332] initialize: Set SPLIT_TIMEOUT to min requested (1000000) did not succeed
04514406643: Error (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 702] doFcpTransaction: FCP transaction didn't succeed in 20 tries              
04514406668: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 677] transactionBlock: FCP transaction failed                                
04514406675: Error (bebob_avdevice.cpp)[  96] probe: Number of channels command failed                                   
04514849822: Error (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 702] doFcpTransaction: FCP transaction didn't succeed in 20 tries              
04514849839: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 677] transactionBlock: FCP transaction failed                                
04515284351: Error (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 702] doFcpTransaction: FCP transaction didn't succeed in 20 tries              
04515284367: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 677] transactionBlock: FCP transaction failed                                
04515284377: Error (avc_avdevice.cpp)[  88] probe: Subunit info command failed                                           
 Starting DBUS service...                                                                                                
 Running... (press ctrl-c to stop & exit)

I noticed that there is a libffado 2.0.1-5 in the Testing repo. Is this likely to be something that is addressed there? I would rather not pull from testing unless this is likely the best direction to pursue.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by SomeRandomGuy (2011-12-08 20:27:08)

SomeRandomGuy

Member

Registered: 2011-11-17

Posts: 2

Re: FFADO Device Connection Errors [Solved]

After a lots of crawling the web and numerous ubuntu svn repositories, I finally descovered the issue and have come up with a satisfactory solution in Arch!

I realized that the ubuntu libffado package that had been working on my hardware is not based on the stable 2.0.1 release code as the Arch package is. The Ubuntu package is actually a particular SVN revision that is significantly newer than the current stable branch (2.0.1). When version 2.0.1 was released, there was still ongoing work on support for devices that use the DICE protocol. While most DICE devices were finished by 2.0.1, there were apparently a few on the fringes of supported status (like the Alesis Multimix Firewire Mixers) that were not ready yet. This is the reason why the standard Arch libffado package was unable to connect to my device. It is also noteworthy that both libffado 2.0.1-3, which was the package mentioned in my post, and libffado 2.0.1-5, which is the current Arch package, are both based on the same FFADO stable release so this issue is still present in both.

The Ubuntu package, however, was a significantly newer SVN revision that had added support for a lot more DICE devices (including mine), but was not based on a standard, stable code branch.

If you are experiencing issues in Arch with a Firewire audio interface, be careful to check all your other settings and permissions before you assume that this is the problem. Nearly all firewire interfaces should work with the standard Arch packages. Therefore, unless you have tried absolutely everything else or are positive that your device is not supported by FFADO 2.0.1, you should stick with the stock packages as they are better supported and more stable. If you are still running into the errors I have previously described, you can try using the new libffado package mentioned below.

After much searching through ArchAudio's repositories and sorceforge package lists, I was unable to find any prebuild package that was new enough to fix my problem. I eventually did find a pkgbuild script on their sourceforge site that uses makepkg to pull the latest ffado source from SVN and build a custom libffado package that you can then install with pacman. That method worked, and I was able to use my mixer in Linux for the first time in over a month!

However, one of the super helpful devs at ArchAudio notified me yesterday that there is a new libffado package available in the AUR that essentially encorporates a lot of the stuff I had to do by hand and automates it nicely. The package name is libffado-svn 2011-1. I have just finished installing it and I am happily listening to crisp audio out of my Multimix!

If you are having the same issues I was, I recommend you try this new package. Be sure to say thanks to the super helpful guys with ArchAudio who have been working hard to make pro audio on Linux fesable and fun.

Last edited by SomeRandomGuy (2011-12-08 20:19:04)