virtualbox.org

Hi all

Updating from VB 5.1.26 to 5.1.30 ("All Distributions" package for
AMD64) leaves me without Sound via ALSA. Switching to OSS works and
produces sound. After that I tried VB 5.2.0 and that's the same. No
sound from ALSA but sound from OSS. Downgrading to 5.1.26 (or older)
and ALSA is working again. I found nothing noteworthy in the logs.
Anyone else seeing this problem or was there any change in VB related
to ALSA I didn't notice?

Thanks.

The problem persists with VB-5.2.2. Only sound with oss, not with ALSA.
I investigated a little further and let the Windows 7 guest play a .mp3
in a loop with output to ALSA. Then I can see in the VB-log repeated lines:

[..]

00:00:28.567234 ALSA: Using output device "default"
00:00:28.568827 ALSA: Using output device "default"
00:00:28.570017 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:28.572079 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:52.896504 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:52.897584 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:54.530274 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:54.531318 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:55.282028 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:55.283070 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:55.563366 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:55.564508 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:55.905224 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:55.906251 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:56.176493 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:56.177571 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:56.608520 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:56.609611 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:56.969753 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:56.970836 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2ead (11949) - 99.85 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:57.231078 PIT: mode=2 count=0x4ad (1197) - 996.81 Hz (ch=0)
00:01:14.779065 ALSA: Using output device "default"
00:01:14.780708 ALSA: Using output device "default"
00:01:14.807455 ALSA: Error starting stream 00007fc4ac5ea340: Broken pipe
[...]

I can see in the changelog that VB-5.1.28 got some sound changes and the prior version
VB-5.1.26 was/is the last one that works here with ALSA. Might this be a bug that made his
way also into the VB-5.2.x line? Using Kernel 4.9.x, alsa-lib-1.1.2. Has anyone
else noticed problems with ALSA output?

Thanks.

Thanks for the report; I can confirm that this also affects 5.2(.2).

I'll have a look into that shortly.

Should be fixed with the latest 5.1 test builds. Those can be found here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds.

Could you please give those a try to see if this fixes the issue for you? Thanks!

pentagonik wrote:Should be fixed with the latest 5.1 test builds. Those can be found here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds.

I tested VirtualBox-5.1.31-119301-Linux_amd64.run. ALSA Sound is working again
and I found nothing unusual in the logs. Perfect.

Thank you for your help.

Great, thanks for verifying! The fix will be available in the next upcoming maintenance version.