Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by socratis »

xplicit wrote:Did you try to hear these files inside Linux Guest?
That's not the point of the exercise/debugging; to reproduce the problem where you actually see the problem. The idea behind it is to see if there's a problem in the in/out streams. See the table in the Diagnosis part of the Investigating audio problems page and you'll understand; playback in the VM vs. playback on the host, Distorted vs. OK...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
xplicit
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Dec 2017, 07:23

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by xplicit »

I saw this page and this is why I wrote detailed information about log files (they are not distorted) and what I heard (distortion every 2 mins). My main question was: did you try to reproduce the issue or not? If you able to reproduce it on your end you can generate any logs/files for any dev/test version you get and when you find the cause of the issue you'll be able to fix it and send fixed version to us to validate and confirm the fix on our end.
Last edited by socratis on 23. Dec 2017, 19:37, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Removed unnecessary verbatim quote of the whole previous message.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by socratis »

xplicit,
If you do a quick search about "audio/sound" you'l see that it's a problem they're actively working on. There aren't too many things that can force the developers to fix the problem faster. Your best bet is to keep on trying the latest and greatest Development snapshots (at the bottom of the page) and provide feedback if a specific build has addressed the issue. I believe that the latest r119726 has addressed several of the issues, but I can't test it, since the OSX build is the only one that didn't get updated, due to a building issue... :?

As I said, they're actively working on it. Just take a look at the changes/revisions in the Timeline.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Air Force One »

I think, that we probably have some case of (non existing) miscommunication on both sides. Some users, which have currently those issues with audio, are required to log some information about audio and also send the recorded debug audio files. According to the wiki we have some problems with host driver, that’s why the files are clear, but those users hear some cracking from the speakers. Somebody also made a live record just from the system audio out to show this circumstance. But: there still no respond with acknowledge, that the difference between file and audio output was understood. And because developers requires another set of recorded files after they changed the debugging routines, it looks like they didn’t get the difference from the outside. So it only looks like misunderstanding, because of the missing acknowledge from one side.

On the other side this is hardware dependent problem. So developers simply can’t reproduce this without the same hardware and software installation. It isn’t a case, where you just describe the whole situation and somebody else can reproduce it on its own machine. In this case we have to keep on testing with new versions on our own systems, where all this happens. And we need the recorded files, so the developers would not only hear the records, but also know from the log, what happens at particular moment of time. It would be probably hard to get this synchronization from any other kind of recording. We just need to get the record from the part of code, where distortion is happening, which is right now not the case. Or: in the case, where this happens outside the box, simply on the host, in its driver, we have to find a way to get know which part of the recording from the host audio out (by Audacity for example) belongs to which part of the log.

This was my small try to explain the current situation with sound debugging.
TimeBandit
Posts: 2
Joined: 19. Dec 2017, 20:13

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by TimeBandit »

Hello,

I have the same problem with following setup:
- Host: Windows 10 Pro (Version: 1709, CPU: i5-3570K, Mainboard: MSI ZH77-G43). I did a clean install a few days ago. I tried the Realtek and NVIDIA drivers.
- Guest: Debian 9.3 (also tried Ubuntu 17.10)

I already updated to 5.2.3r119658, but the problem still exists.

The Dumped files are OK, so it is a Host problem. But what can I do?

I could add a link to Dropbox for the Dumped and Log files tomorrow, if needed.

While playback the crackling begins at 02:30 and stays 30 seconds. For the Dumped files there is a delay of maybe 10 seconds, but the problem doesn't appear anyway.

Cheers
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Air Force One »

Just tested with 5.2.4 119785, the behavior is just the same as with the latest test builds and snapshots. Even the new audio dumping works the same. The crackling pattern is slightly different: the small distortion is nearly always here, but the big waves come time after time as it was before.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by socratis »

TimeBandit wrote:I already updated to 5.2.3r119658, but the problem still exists.
TimeBandit, 5.2.4 is out. Can you please try with that one?
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
folj
Posts: 11
Joined: 3. May 2017, 20:47

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by folj »

I have the same audio problem after upgrading from 5.1.30 to 5.2.2, then testing 5.2.3-119552, and still on 5.2.4 (no newer test build available now, just 5.2.3-119658).
This seems to be host-driver-related according to the AudioDebug article on the VB wiki, since (most of the time) I hear a crackling over the chime sound on the running VM, but when I play both the (nonzero) audio files in c:\temp on the host, they both sound fine.
My sound comes from my monitor, connected over HDMI to my Nvidia card; I updated all the card drivers in GeForce Experience to the ones released yesterday (388.71), but it didn't help: I attach the logfile from before and the driver update (not the sound files, since they were fine, and also auto-deleted themselves on stopping the virtual machine).
Attachments
lotsWin10-2017-12-21-18-23-26.zip
VBox log before and after updating to latest Nvidia driver
(117.95 KiB) Downloaded 26 times
TimeBandit
Posts: 2
Joined: 19. Dec 2017, 20:13

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by TimeBandit »

Hi,

new test, same result. In this test the crackling sound appeared a bit later (after 3 minutes). The Dumped files are still ok.

Dropbox
xplicit
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Dec 2017, 07:23

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by xplicit »

Air Force One wrote: On the other side this is hardware dependent problem. So developers simply can’t reproduce this without the same hardware and software installation.
From my point of view developers even didn't try to reproduce the issue. They are working on other things and don't think this issue is important. We hear only "please check the new version" and "send new logs", possible they hope that the bug will mysteriously disappear without fixing it. But to fix the bug you need to reproduce it and work on it. If you work on USB issues sound crackling won't be fixed by itself. I'm ready to help and explain how to reproduce, and how to check distorting sound when developers will try to reproduce this issue. But without working on it on virtual box side I don't see any sense to try new builds and sending logs again and again, because vbox developer just can spend 3 minutes of their time to hear the problem and be sure that the issue still exists .

We tried various hardware configurations and did not find any working configuration which allows to play sound without distortion, if someone knows working configuration it would be great to hear about it.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by socratis »

xplicit wrote:I'm ready to help and explain how to reproduce
No, you're not. You're ready to troll. And you're already over the limit. Please do not continue in that line of discussion...
xplicit wrote:We hear only "please check the new version" and "send new logs", possible they hope that the bug will mysteriously disappear without fixing it.
You should definitely complain to your Oracle support representative. Be sure to mention your customer number. Unless you're a freeloader...

But you're not an ungrateful one that got something for free and the only thing that's capable of is bitching and moaning, are you? Without contributing anything back? Like your experience/logs with "the new version"?
xplicit wrote:If you work on USB issues sound crackling won't be fixed by itself.
If you want to tell Oracle how to invest development resources, don't do it on this (or any other) forum, as that's just a waste of bandwidth. Go through your Oracle support representative instead. You do have their number handy, right? It's on your contract.
xplicit wrote:From my point of view developers even didn't try to reproduce the issue.
xplicit wrote:because vbox developer just can spend 3 minutes of their time to hear the problem and be sure that the issue still exists.
Really? Seriously now? And you base your knowledge on what "facts" exactly? Something that you know, or something you just imagined? Are you pulling those "facts" from somewhere you shouldn't be pulling facts from?

You're one step away from being a serious troll. Get your facts straight. Read the timeline, search for the audio related patches and tell me if it would take you 3, 30, 300, 3000 or 30000 minutes to write that code. And don't forget to go more than 30 days back, maybe a good 365 would do.

Ignorant fools tend to seriously ruin my day...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Reno Drums
Posts: 14
Joined: 23. Nov 2017, 12:18

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Reno Drums »

Hi, I enabled VirtualBox (VirtualBox-5.2.4-119785-Win) audio/debug mode as recommended, but in this mode there is no crackling in reproducing soundfiles.
But in normal mode reproducing a soundfile, crackling occurs after appr. 2 min. for a while, then goes down and after a while the same thing happens again.

So, I think, it makes no sense to transmit the produced .log and .wav files during debug mode ? But I saved it and could transmit it on demand.
xplicit
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Dec 2017, 07:23

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by xplicit »

If you read carefully my previous message I did not write anything about how long this fix can take, I wrote only one thing: to check that issue still exists anyone can spend only 3 minutes.

A lot of people posting the messages about this sound issue, we spend our time to help to you get info about the issue and how to reproduce it. If Oracle think that the issue is not important now just let us know. But instead of answer on the simple question: "did you try to reproduce it?" I get the response: "you are fools". Great and very constructive answer.
Last edited by socratis on 26. Dec 2017, 10:51, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed unnecessary verbatim quote of the whole previous message.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by socratis »

xplicit wrote:we spend our time to help to you get info about the issue and how to reproduce it.
Good. That's exactly your role in this whole community effort; to test things and report back. But please, don't tell me that you do it because you're a good Samaritan; you're doing it because you get to benefit from the fix and you get irritated when said fix is not good/fast enough for you...

They can't always reproduce every scenario out there. Some people claim to "hear" the cracks, some people re-direct them to other programs, some people record them. The setup possibilities can be endless. A "I hear things" with "you're not even try to hear them" is as far away from reality as possible.
xplicit wrote:But instead of answer on the simple question: "did you try to reproduce it?" I get the response: "you are fools".
I'm not Oracle. If I were, it would say so in the right, under my nick name. I'm a simple user that's entitled to their opinion for fellow users that don't adequately do their homework.
xplicit wrote:If you read carefully my previous message I did not write anything about how long this fix can take, I wrote only one thing: to check that issue still exists anyone can spend only 3 minutes.
I did read your message carefully. Twice. And you imply in your message that the developers won't even spend time reproducing the issue, let alone work on it, because they're working on other things (like USB, right?). Well, I told you to check the facts and not your imagination. And the facts don't lie; they've been working on it for so long and so hard that it can make your head explode, just by looking at all the ways they're trying to solve this problem. Sound reproduction depends on time. Real-time that is, with the proper definition or "real-time"; guaranteed response within a specific time window. Real-time and Virtual Machines don't play nice. Far from it...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Air Force One »

As I thought, it is a communication issue. I think, that we all should calm down a little bit. This bad blood wouldn‘t help anybody. It would be really stupid situation, if developers could simply reproduce this issue, but would ask us to reproduce and log it over and over again. Once again: I have this issue on both of my testing systems, and this is different because of different OS on both of them. And I saw some tickets already a year ago even on Linux. So I think that this should be simply reproducible. But once again, I don’t know which hardware is used for testing on developers side, and sometimes is even impossible could happen.

For correcting this bug developers need to hear what happens on correspondent system and see in the log, what sound emulation has done and send to the host at this very moment. From hearing the sound itself they wouldn’t get the full diagnosis. It wouldn’t give them enough information. Right now the dumped files have no distortion in it, that’s why the developers need to find another place to get them. Or as I already wrote, to abandon this idea and try to use the direct recording from the sound card. Audacity records the sound constantly, so it should not be a big problem to find the time of distortion in the log file.

So there is no other way but to change the code itself, change the debugging part of it and test it once again on your own hardware. For the people, who really depending on the sound, the easy solution is to downgrade to the 5.1.x version. It isn’t mandatory to use the newest one. That’s what I do on my common system. But there I have another issue once or twice a month: the sound disappears after hibernation or sometimes even during the session. Not a big problem, I just have to save the state and start VM again. But with new version it should be even easier in this case, one can simply turn sound “off and on again”.

Probably people are confused, because sound worked in previous version and works in the concurrent products. So people think, that it should be easy to make sound work. Maybe it wasn’t a good decision to make the sound thread asynchronous, because sound is a real time feature. But let us hope that developers would work it out in the end.

Anyway, it looks like a small acknowledgment from developers about the fact, that the dumped files are OK, but the sound from the host isn’t, would be nice for someone. And we really shouldn’t be nasty to each other, because in this case I think we are on the same side, helping to make this product work. Of course developers have their priorities, and those who pays more also needs bigger and quicker response. Not everyone understands this, that’s such a pity, but not the reason to blame them. At the end: happy holidays everybody.
Post Reply