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#1 2006-02-01 21:05:16

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Ok... got my guitar, its actually playing some output from line-in and its not too quiet.

Tried gnuitar from CVS, it doesn't seem to work. I can't even get the preferences menu item to become available.

installed jack-rack and the caps plugins as suggested above.

I run jackd as a user (since it doesn't seem to like it if its run as root???). Then I run jack-rack. Usually about this time, jackd collapses with this error: "jackd watchdog: timeout - killing jackd"  Then jack-rack also dies.

If this doesn't happen, I go to the add dialog and note the caps plugins are available. I try to add something at random and... nothing happens. jack-rack actually appears to hang, because closing it doesn't happen and I have to ctrl-C it on the command-line.

Am I doing something stupid, or is my hardware just not good enough or...?

I read something about a realtime module.... but nothing very understandable. ;-) thoughts?

Dusty

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#2 2006-02-01 21:22:35

jochen
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2004-06-01
Posts: 102

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

You don't need to start jackd as root and there's no need for realtime-lsm module if you are using stock arch kernel
( http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Realtime_for_Users )

Use qjackctl to configure and start jackd.  If you want to get low latency sound,
make sure the realtime-box is checked and adjust the latency by modifying the
frames/period value (64 - 128 would be good). If you get many xruns you might
have to choose a higher value.

Start jack-rack.

Click on the connect-button in qjackctl and connect the input your guitar is
plugged in with the input of jack-rack and jack-rack's output to your soundcard's
output.

Btw. you can find some presets here:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.audio.users/24708

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#3 2006-02-01 21:50:32

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Thanks for the info!!

jochen wrote:

frames/period value (64 - 128 would be good). If you get many xruns you might
have to choose a higher value.

How many is 'many' xruns? It seems to be spitting them out every few seconds even when Frames/Period is 4096. Also, when I have the 'realtime' box checked, I get the 'watchdog' error. It only seems to work with realtime turned off.

I'm guessing this is a hardware issue -- I only have onboard sound using via82xx. Is it likely that this card just won't support what I need?


Click on the connect-button in qjackctl and connect the input your guitar is
plugged in with the input of jack-rack and jack-rack's output to your soundcard's
output.


I've got capture_1, capture_2, playback_1, playback_2 on alsa_pcm, and in_1, in_2, out_1, out_2, caps:_p_1-1_o1, caps:_p_1-2_o1... which is which, what's one and two?

It seems no matter how I connect them in qjackctl, I can't get jack rack to add something to the lower half of the user interface.

Thanks again!

Dusty

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#4 2006-02-02 09:21:19

jochen
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2004-06-01
Posts: 102

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Dusty wrote:

How many is 'many' xruns? It seems to be spitting them out every few seconds even when Frames/Period is 4096. Also, when I have the 'realtime' box checked, I get the 'watchdog' error. It only seems to work with realtime turned off.

If you just want to play guitar, xruns are ok as long as you get a reasonable sound. If you were doing music production you would say 1 xrun per hour is way too much wink

If you are running stock arch kernel you should be able to get realtime privileges if you are member of group audio (see the wiki link I posted above).  On my laptop I had to set Periods/Buffer to 4, you can try that too. If it still doesn't work please post what parameters you use and the output you get.

Dusty wrote:

I'm guessing this is a hardware issue -- I only have onboard sound using via82xx. Is it likely that this card just won't support what I need?

I was able to run my via82xx onboard sound with latency < 3ms with only few xruns (in a few minutes), so this shouldn't be the problem.

Dusty wrote:

I've got capture_1, capture_2, playback_1, playback_2 on alsa_pcm, and in_1, in_2, out_1, out_2, caps:_p_1-1_o1, caps:_p_1-2_o1... which is which, what's one and two?

Just try wink I can provide you better information when I'm back home .

Dusty wrote:

It seems no matter how I connect them in qjackctl, I can't get jack rack to add something to the lower half of the user interface.

You should be able to add effects to your rack by pressing the Add-button. Did you install ladspa? (just noticed that it's no dependency to jack-rack and caps but you need it.) swh-plugins are also worth installing.

I could make a screenshot that shows the necessary setup when I'm back home this evening.

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#5 2006-02-02 16:02:28

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

I think I've tried most of these suggestions, but I'll give it another go this evening (gotta write an overdue summary NOW, haha). If you can describe your setup further it might help too. thanks for all the ideas!

Dusty

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#6 2006-02-02 18:56:00

jochen
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2004-06-01
Posts: 102

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Ok, here is a screenshot which (I hope) shows quite completely what my setup is like:
[URL=http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jackandco8qg.png]jackandco8qg.th.png[/URL]

Some additional information about my system:

$ uname -a
Linux two 2.6.15-ARCH #1 PREEMPT Tue Jan 24 17:15:10 CET 2006 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1519        394       1125          0         12        146
-/+ buffers/cache:        234       1284
Swap:         3074          0       3074

But it also works on my way slower laptop (mobile Athlon 1400, 512MB).

Let me further sum up some points I found necessary for low-latency audio with arch:

* you are member of group audio
* /etc/security/limits.conf contains lines like these:

@audio          -       rtprio          65
@audio          -       nice           -10
@audio          -       memlock         240000

I fear that this posting doesn't really contain news, most of the things have been said before. However I hope It helps you make your guitar sound great wink

Otherwise you should provide more information about your setup. Maybe we can determine the problem that way.

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#7 2006-02-02 22:24:23

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Well, still not working.  There seem to be two primary issues.

The first is that it no matter what else I have tried, if I have the 'Realtime' button checked in qjackctl options, it doesn't run very long before telling me:

jackd watchdog: timeout - killing jackd
zombified - calling shutdown handler
17:08:34.088 Shutdown notification.
17:08:34.089 Client deactivated.
17:08:34.090 JACK was stopped successfully.
cannot send request type 7 to server
cannot read result for request type 7 from server (Broken pipe)
cannot send request type 7 to server
cannot read result for request type 7 from server (Broken pipe)

The jackd watchdog timeout seems to be the problem I am dealing with. I've tried running it as root and my user IS in the audio group, so I don't think its a permissions problem. sad

The second problem is that for all configurations I've tried (even with realtime disabled, where Jack seems to be quite happy, except for the XRuns), when I try to add any plugin to jack-rack, it doesn't happen. The display below the toolbar is blank at startup (not sure if that is normal) and remains blank after trying to add any plugin. I don't know if its a dependency problem or what. I don't get any relevant output on the console (just some stuff about accessibility being enabled). Maybe this is just because I haven't got the magic configuration in jackd connections?

My alsamixer looks to have quite a few more options than yours. Its a via 8237, according to alsamixer. I'm getting sound from the guitar on the speakers though, so I assume its all right for now.

I'm using the default Arch kernel:

udusty:~ $ uname -a
Linux buchuki 2.6.15-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jan 31 10:43:02 CET 2006 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

I notice the SMP in there.. could that be a problem?  My lsmod is pretty long so I won't post it yet. The problem appears to be realtime related. The question then is if that is a kernel or hardware problem, or just some dumbass config issue. Maybe I should try this thing from a liveCD and see what happens (assuming jack et al are installed, which I suppose is unlikely).

Thanks for your advice so far, its really made things clear how its all *supposed* to work. :-)

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#8 2006-02-03 20:41:48

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Wooh, I got rid of the watchdog timeout thing! I went into alsamixer and there was this channel 'Surround Jack Mode'. When its set to 'Shared', nothing works. Set to Independent, qjackctl seems to be semi-content. :-)

Jack-rack is putting the processors in the lower window like its supposed to!! :-)

I'm very happy.

Only... so far, it doesn't seem to be applying any effects :-( Probably a function of the connection graph though, I'm hoping. Will get back to you with more experimenting. Thanks again!!

Dusty

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#9 2006-02-03 21:08:26

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Hah! It works. Just had to set capture to be on line-in.  :oops:

Thanks once more for all the help, I owe you one.

Dusty

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#10 2006-02-03 21:40:31

jochen
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2004-06-01
Posts: 102

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

I'm happy with you smile

Maybe we could share rack presets, let me start with one, you can get it here. Have fun!

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#11 2006-02-04 22:08:21

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

Hey, that sounds pretty cool. I have no idea how to combine these things so I just started playing around... This thing almost sounds like a piano... see if you can make something out of it.

http://www.buchuki.com/misc/large-room.rack

Dusty

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#12 2006-02-05 04:43:54

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Jack and jackrack -- watchdog timeout??

What order are the filters in jack-rack applied --> top to bottom or bottom to top?

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