Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
socratis
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by socratis »

@Sessh
I merged your thread with the predominant thread on the subject. No need to have multiple threads on the same subject.
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.
Teleri
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Teleri »

Confirming what "Reno Drums" says, with version 5.2.7 r120865 there is no more crackling, but after a while (about 15 minutes or so), I get no sound at all for about 20-30 seconds and then it starts playing again (for others 15 min).

This behaviour has been tested in different machines running Windows 10 (1709) as hostOS and Windows XP SP3 as guestOS (AC97 device).
pentagonik
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by pentagonik »

@Reno Drums and Teleri Please give 5.2.8 a try -- there the "no sound after some time" issue also should be fixed already.
Sessh
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Joined: 27. Feb 2018, 21:59

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Sessh »

socratis wrote:@Sessh
I merged your thread with the predominant thread on the subject. No need to have multiple threads on the same subject.
Hey, no problem at all. I must have missed this thread while searching. So basically, this is a known problem and the solutions are either go back to a 5.1 build or try a test build. I am kind of relieved that it's not because of something I did wrong!

Edit: I will try 5.2.8 and see what happens.
Sessh
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Sessh »

I just installed 5.2.8, installed the new extension pack and guest additions with no problems. I watched a 31 minute long youtube video with no issues at all, so it seems fixed to me. :mrgreen:
hpmux
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by hpmux »

Nope, didn't fix it for me. Had the Problem with fresh install of 5.2.6 on all VMs (Host Win 7, Guest Win 10 Pro, Linux Mint 18, Linux Manjaro 17).
Upgraded to 5.2.7. Found that sound was good, but stopped after about 10-15 minutes.
Now with 5.2.8 the sound continues, but crackling comes back with a revenge after about 15 minutes.
And yes, I just tried 5.2.9 revision 121058. Same mess as of 5.2.8.
Well I guess I'll have to downgrade to 5.1.xx.
UliBär
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by UliBär »

hpmux wrote:(...)
Well I guess I'll have to downgrade to 5.1.xx.
That won't work either, cause the last version without major sound problems was 5.1.30, which won't run latest Linux kernels as guest. :(
Teleri
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Joined: 28. Feb 2018, 13:23

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Teleri »

Same for me. With version 5.2.8, after 13-14 minutos playing sound normally, it starts crackling for about 1 minute.
hpmux
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Joined: 1. Mar 2018, 13:55

Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by hpmux »

UliBär wrote:(...)
That won't work either, cause the last version without major sound problems was 5.1.30, which won't run latest Linux kernels as guest. :(
Thank you for the heads up.
Actually 5.1.30 didn't work for me either. Nor did 5.1.34, 5.28, 5.26.
5.1.34 stopped after to or three minutes and apparently locked down all the sound in Manjaro.
5.1.26, 28, 30 showed a cyclical pattern of about two minutes up to a real "storm" of crackling and back to "normal".

In a desperate last try I made the leap down to 5.20. And yes, the VBoxLinuxAddition installed and the sound is working ok now.
But! Where is the common folder? Where is cut and paste? Obviously VB Addition silently failed to install.

OK, trying the skipped versions. First 5.1.24. Fail. Same as the later versions.
Last resort 5.1.22. Guess what? It works!

Btw: I came from 5.1.8, which worked very well for me until the new Manjaro installation needed a newer version of VirtualBox.

Now after trying out 10 (ten!) versions of VB finally number eleven (5.1.22) appears to be the right one. Oh well!
hmo
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by hmo »

pentagonik wrote:@Reno Drums and Teleri Please give 5.2.8 a try -- there the "no sound after some time" issue also should be fixed already.
5.2.8 sound output is OK, but the input from the host is just silent. I have reverted back to 5.1.30 which has crackling and sometimes hanging sound but at least both input and output work. (FTR, anything later than this in the 5.1 train has completely broken audio, including 5.1.34.)
JEBjames
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by JEBjames »

Virtualbox 5.1.34 seems to have some odd issue with timing.

Playing a youtube video with Chromium or Firefox in Lubuntu plays back the audio and video super fast.

Same if I go to a lxterminal and directly play a wav file (aplay -D plughw0,0 filename.wav).

I also notice that right after I boot the guest time is out of synch with the host by about a minute. I experience these problems with both the Ubuntu version of the guest additions and the 5.1.34 guest additions.

If you asked me to randomly guess I'd say the timer interrupt was firing 8x faster than normal, and the guest additions bringing the time back into mostly synch?

This is on on Windows 10 host, Virtualbox 5.1.34, LUbuntu 16.04 guest. I tried Lubuntu 16.04 with both stock 4.4 kernel and 4.13 hwe kernel. Also with Ubuntu guest additions and 5.1.34 guest additions.
atler
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by atler »

Coming back with some feedback about 5.2.8 -- the situation greatly improved comparing to previous releases but the issue is still there. Initially sound works well for like an hour or so but at some point I always hit this "loop" of normal/distorted sound. My measurements are not very accurate but it's something like 55s of normal sound, followed by by 55s of distorted sound, followed by 55s of normal and so on and so on.
Tacoma
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Tacoma »

Also having problems with Audio.
If I play a youtube video the audio will become distorted immediately or after some time has passed.
Sometimes it will recover after a few minutes, or sometimes the distortion seems to continue, but this is happening a lot.

Virtualbox V 5.2.8 including extension pack and guest additions updates.
Host is 64bit Win 10
Guest is fully patched Ubuntu MATE variant of Ubuntu 16.04 with 4 GB RAM memory resources to run in and 2 CPU cores.
Intel HD Audio selected in VM manager settings (and same issue with ICH AC97 audio).
Tried this with Firefox and Chrome, same issues with both.
This happens across several machines with independent builds.
HYX
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by HYX »

Another one reporting audio issues with 5.2.8 r121009 + extension pack (and previous)

Basically the same that has been reported previously: Audio works well for, say, 15 minutes, then starts distorting badly in the guest machine.

Host: Win7 64bit
Guest: Linux Ubuntu variant. (Fully patched)
Windows DirectSound with ICH AC97 audio.
Problem runs across all applications that make use of sound.

For those interested, running this "solves" temporarily the issue:

Code: Select all

killall pulseaudio
Because of its frequency, I have come to just create a script with a short-cut somewhere for quick access. The system usually restarts the service almost instantly, but I noticed that the longer the guest machine has been running, the longer this service takes to restart. (Goes from instantly to a few seconds)

However, the problem will come back some minutes later. Also, keep in mind that some programs don't like to have their audio shut down like that and may behave in strange ways. (Abort playback, required to be closed, etc.)
Air Force One
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Re: Sound Problem With VirtualBox -5.2.x branch

Post by Air Force One »

No new messages here after over two month. But the issue is still here even in the last release (5.2.10) and the test versions. The behavior has changed: it’s now not started after some time but constantly presented all of the time. And now the current version of the 5.1 branch has some audio problems too. Not the kind of news I would like and prefer. I’m asking myself: what all of this reporters doing now? Do they also sticking with last 5.1 version with working audio back end?

Funny fact at the end: the well known German computer magazine c’t done an article about virtualization on Windows at this year’s beginning. Beside this program the MS Hyper V and Vmware were presented. In the detailed description of the Virtual Box the audio issues in the current 5.2 release were directly mentioned. Their advise: use the last 5.1 release. Not so funny: this wouldn’t help now either.
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