Spotify - tiny gaps/pauses in the sound

[saintaardvark]

Thanks for the additional info. Let us know if you’re able to confirm that enabling multiroom again brings the symptoms back.

One thing you may want to check: the version of balenaOS you have reports CPU and temperature information back to the dashboard. It would be worth seeing if either are particularly high; high temperatures in particular can lead to cpu throttling, which may exacerbate this problem. Another way to check this would be to run device checks from the Diagnostics tab on the dashboard, as we check for CPU throttling there. If you see high temperatures or CPU throttling, pointing a fan at your Pi would be one way of testing this.

Let us know how it goes for you!

All the best,
Hugh

[speedy]

So I’ve tested it again with multiroom enabled and the issue was there! Switched back to STANDALONE and all is fine. CPU, temp, memory all green.

[dtischler]

Hi there, thanks for the report, I’ll notify the maintainer. The other thing I am curious about is the type of SD Card being used, if it’s perhaps not quick enough to keep up with the read/write. We recommend Sandisk Extreme Pro, with a UHS 1 or A1 rating.

[mcgee]

Hi All, long time experimenter first time poster.
Can confirm I had similar issues today when testing this out, often stuttering with pulse audio having to increase the latency.
([pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency)
Have also tried converting to standalone and has resolved the issue so far with about 35 minutes of constant playback testing.
Tested with RPi3, 16GB factory class 10 card, Samsung Evo card with same results.
Genuine RPi PSU used to ensure enough amps.
Happy to supply more information if it is of any use.

Hope this helps, and keep up the good work!

[tmigone]

Hello, balenaSound maintainer here. Switching to STANDALONE mode shouldn’t have this type of impact with regards to the underruns, at least in theory. Since we have two data points indicating the contrary in this thread I think I need to go back and take a deeper look to see what’s going on.

There is an ongoing GitHub issue where this was initially reported (see here). I’ll keep the discussion and results of my investigation over there, so feel free to drop by or subscribe to the issue if you are interested in it’s resolution.

[garciasteve]

Hi Tomas,
Just as in FYI, you’ll find a third data point (though with RPi3+) here.

newbie unable to select 32-bit for RPi 3

Hi, Trying to add new device via the dashboard. The only RPi options are Pi 3 (using 64-bit OS) and Pi 4. I’ve a 3 B+. Full story: built a 64-bit image and had no sound. From forum, discovered 32-bit is recommended for balena-sound, so I deleted the device in attempt to start fresh. Steve

Steve

[samothx]

Hi Steve, thanks for the input, I will forward it to @tmigone

[superapan]

I have the same issue, I have two devices RPi 3. I have disabled every feature plugin, besides spotify-connect on the multiroom-master Pi (the other is running as multiroom-client), and pi3-disable-bt on both. I did this thinking it’d be good to run as lean as possible.

Only the Pi running as multiroom-master reports these underruns, the client does not.

I have no idea what it means, and I probably don’t help much with this post.

12.11.20 15:41:26 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 245.00 ms
12.11.20 15:41:36 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 250.00 ms
12.11.20 15:42:06 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 255.00 ms
12.11.20 15:42:36 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 260.00 ms
12.11.20 15:42:56 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 265.00 ms
12.11.20 15:43:36 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 270.00 ms
12.11.20 15:44:06 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 275.00 ms
12.11.20 15:44:46 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 280.00 ms

[tmigone]

Hi Calle, thanks for sharing this. Every bit of information helps! I’ll see if I can prioritize this and get to the bottom in the next couple days/weeks.

For anyone else finding this thread, use https://github.com/balenalabs/balena-sound/issues/294 to keep track of progress.

[koyaanisqatsi]

I have noticed that there are periodic glitches that affect all speakers at the same time. In my case, only my RPi Zero W devices have individual glitches, which I sort of understand the source of. But the fleet will have tiny glitches on a regular cycle that seems to fluctuate between about 15 seconds to a minute or so. The glitches are usually a very brief time jump, and then a few seconds later a very brief time delay, as if something shifted and then returned to normal.

[portomarcos]

I have the same issue as reported above — and it’s driving me nuts

In my case though, the problem is way worse when using the spotify service. Playing via Airplay or Bluetooth renders with fewer gaps/crackling episodes.

One other interesting thing: if I mess around with the volume control in Spotify, I notice the crackling sound appearing right after. I’ve tried it with the Spotify player on both my Android phone and my Mac.

Also tested using different speakers and different cables.

Tried, with no success:

• Running as Standalone
• Disabling Bluetooth
• Normalizing Spotify volume, and decreasing gain
• Removing normalization.
• Run diagnostics, all green.

Using:

• RPi 3
• balenaOS 2.60.1+rev1
• Genuine RPi PSU
• 16GB factory class 10 card

[rahul-thakoor]

Thanks Marcos

As Tomas mentioned, we would be grateful if you could follow up on the github issues here https://github.com/balenalabs/balena-sound/issues/294

Cheers

[tmigone]

@speedy, @mcgee, @garciasteve, @superapan, @koyaanisqatsi, @portomarcos
Hi guys, I’m looking for some help in order to troubleshoot this issue.

If you can help me out here I could use some logs with extra verbosity. You’ll need to set environment variable AUDIO_LOG_LEVEL to DEBUG and then share with me the logs. You’ll know it’s on DEBUG mode because logs will show the following:

19.11.20 18:34:42 (-0300)  audio  --- Audio ---
19.11.20 18:34:42 (-0300)  audio  Starting audio service with settings:
19.11.20 18:34:42 (-0300)  audio  - Pulse log level: DEBUG

What I’m looking for in the logs is instances of this error occurring, so make sure you get a few:

W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 320.00 ms

Feel free to upload logs here, using pastebin or you can also use this GitHub issue.

Thanks!

[garciasteve]

Hi Tomas,

Is the following of interest? Or are you looking specifically for “Too many underruns, increasing latency to 320.00 ms”

19.11.20 14:19:06 (-0800) audio D: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Underrun detected, counter incremented to 2

Steve

[Loki]

Hi

Brand new user here.

Fresh install of balena sound on rpi3 model B.

I haven’t tested anything but first thing I see in logs is that.

19.11.20 23:23:16 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 255.00 ms
19.11.20 23:23:56 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 260.00 ms
19.11.20 23:24:16 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 265.00 ms
19.11.20 23:24:36 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 270.00 ms
19.11.20 23:24:56 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 275.00 ms
19.11.20 23:25:06 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 280.00 ms
19.11.20 23:25:46 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 285.00 ms
19.11.20 23:26:06 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 290.00 ms
19.11.20 23:26:11 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-26-11 [Info] (do_read) next read < 0 (balenaSound): -1.982 ms
19.11.20 23:26:26 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 295.00 ms
19.11.20 23:27:06 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 300.00 ms
19.11.20 23:27:46 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 305.00 ms
19.11.20 23:28:06 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 310.00 ms
19.11.20 23:28:26 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 315.00 ms
19.11.20 23:29:16 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-29-16 [Info] (do_read) next read < 0 (balenaSound): -30.582 ms
19.11.20 23:29:16 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-29-16 [Info] (do_read) next read < 0 (balenaSound): -12.065 ms
19.11.20 23:29:16 (+0100)  audio  W: [pulseaudio] module-loopback.c: Too many underruns, increasing latency to 320.00 ms
19.11.20 23:29:18 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-29-18 [Info] (onResync) onResync (balenaSound): 79 ms
19.11.20 23:29:19 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-29-19 [Info] (do_read) next read < 0 (balenaSound): -16.951 ms
19.11.20 23:29:19 (+0100)  multiroom-client  2020-11-19 22-29-19 [Info] (Stream) pMiniBuffer->full() && (abs(pMiniBuffer->mean()) > 50): -106758
19.11.20 23:30:23 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-30-23 [Info] (do_read) next read < 0 (balenaSound): -1.207 ms
19.11.20 23:31:38 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-31-38 [Info] (do_read) next read < 0 (balenaSound): -0.683 ms
19.11.20 23:32:59 (+0100)  multiroom-server  2020-11-19 22-32-59 [Info] (onResync) onResync (balenaSound): 97 ms
19.11.20 23:33:00 (+0100)  multiroom-client  2020-11-19 22-33-00 [Info] (Stream) pMiniBuffer->full() && (abs(pMiniBuffer->mean()) > 50): -178289
19.11.20 23:35:25 (+0100)  multiroom-server  202

Just in case it could help.

@tmigone : I haven’t found how to turn AUDIO_LOG_LEVEL to DEBUG but if you drive me i’ll be glad to help.

I’m installing it on another identical device it’s currently updating, i’ll be back here once it’s finished.

[koyaanisqatsi]

Hi @tmigone,

Here are three logs, one froma RPi 4B, which is my mr-server, one from a MR client-only RPi Zero W that is running nothing but the audio and mr-client containers (a custom build). And the third is from a RPi 4B, running as a regular mr-client, using env vars to set the mode. I have not yet played any music. This is just what was logged shortly after setting the logging to DEBUG. I’ll get logs while playing later tonight.

MR-server:

mrserver - Pastebin.com

Custom MR-client:

mrclient-pizerow - Pastebin.com

Regular MR-client:

mr-client-pib4 - Pastebin.com

Cheers!
Mark-

[grahammcculloch]

@Loki welcome! Thanks for chipping in with your log outputs. I’ll leave the balenaSound details to @tmigone but with regards to setting the AUDIO_LOG_LEVEL environment variable to DEBUG you can follow the instructions here to set this env var on your device via the Balena Cloud dashboard.

[koyaanisqatsi]

Not seeing much in the logs during playback either. But here is what that looks like…

MR client only, on custom build that includes only the audio and multiroom-client containers. RPi Zero W with DAC+.

mr-client-rpizerow-playing - Pastebin.com

MR server while playing. RPi 4B

mr-server-rpi4b-playing - Pastebin.com

MR client while playing, RPi 4B.

mr-client-rpi4b-playing - Pastebin.com

Let me know if you need me to change log settingis or grab them directly off the devices. These log snips are just downloaded form balenaCloud.

Cheers!
Mark-

[portomarcos]

Here is the log:

balenaSound-pi3-debug-logs - Pastebin.com

[tmigone]

Thanks everyone! For new folks that might be reading this, keep’em coming