All playback now high-speed

[wychwood]

I'm running Audacity 2.0.3 on Xubuntu 13.10. I recorded a number of projects in Audacity back in October, with no problems; playback worked fine, everything was as expected. However, I have just tried to play some of them again, and the playback speed is enormously too fast. I haven't changed any settings that I know of (although I think I would have been running 13.04 when I recorded them). I have tried adjusting the "play at speed" slider from its current position, slightly below the halfway mark, and it seems to work, but even the slowest possible speed is so fast that all I hear is a high-pitched squeal / clicking noise. I tried recording a new project, and although the recording seemed to be OK, playback was still having the same issues. Also, if I stop playback before the end of the file, Audacity freezes. I'm using ALSA as my audio host, not OSS, and I've tried all my output devices - two HDMI options, which appear to play back normally but produce no sound, and "pulse" and "default", which both have the speed issue.

As I said before, I haven't changed any settings since the last time I used it without any problems, so I assume this is either a change in Audacity or an incompatibility with something which has been updated in Xubuntu. I can't see anything in the known issues or the bug-tracker which seems to correspond.

All suggestions gratefully received!

[steve]

It'll be a "sound system" issue rather than an "Audacity" issue. There's a lot of things that could cause to problem, so we'll need to try and narrow it down.

If you open Audacity, generate a tone ("Generate menu") and then play back, does the problem occur? (by default a 30 second tone is generated at 440 Hz)

When you say "enormously too fast" can you quantify that. If the problem occurred with the generated tone, how long does it take to play the 30 second tone.
Does it also play at higher pitch as well as too fast (check with some music that plays correctly in other media players.

How do you normally listen to music on your computer? Do you plug headphones into the headphone socket on the computer?

Please select in Audacity "Help > Audio device info". When the information appears (could take a few seconds), copy and paste the full contents into your reply.

[wychwood]

Thanks!

Yes, the same thing happened with a generated tone. Playback lasted roughly three seconds. I tried playing another audio file, as you suggested; it doesn't sound high-pitched so much as it does like static on the radio - crackling.

I normally listen to sound through speakers. Other audio on the computer is sounding fine - soundtracks on flash games, MP3s played in totem, YouTube videos.

Code: Select all

Audio device info:
==============================
Default capture device number: 6
Default playback device number: 6
==============================
Device ID: 0
Device name: HDA Intel PCH: ALC662 rev3 Analog (hw:0,0)
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 0
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: -1.000000
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: -1.000000
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 1
Device name: HDA Intel PCH: ALC662 rev3 Alt Analog (hw:0,2)
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 2
Output channels: 0
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: -1.000000
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: -1.000000
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 2
Device name: HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 0 (hw:0,3)
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 0
Output channels: 8
Low Input Latency: -1.000000
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: -1.000000
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 3
Device name: sysdefault
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 128
Output channels: 0
Low Input Latency: 0.042653
Low Output Latency: -1.000000
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: -1.000000
Supported Rates:
==============================
Device ID: 4
Device name: hdmi
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 0
Output channels: 8
Low Input Latency: -1.000000
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: -1.000000
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 5
Device name: pulse
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 32
Output channels: 32
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 6
Device name: default
Host name: ALSA
Input channels: 32
Output channels: 32
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 7
Device name: /dev/dsp
Host name: OSS
Input channels: 16
Output channels: 16
Low Input Latency: 0.011610
Low Output Latency: 0.011610
High Input Latency: 0.046440
High Output Latency: 0.046440
Supported Rates:
==============================
Selected capture device: 6 - default
Selected playback device: 6 - default
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Available mixers:
==============================
Available capture sources:
0 - Front Mic:0
1 - Rear Mic:0
2 - Line:0
3 - Front Mic:1
4 - Rear Mic:1
5 - Line:1
==============================
Available playback volumes:
0 - Master:0
1 - PCM:0
2 - Front:0
3 - Front Mic:0
4 - Front Mic Boost:0
5 - Surround:0
6 - Center:0
7 - LFE:0
8 - Line:0
9 - Line Boost:0
10 - Rear Mic:0
11 - Rear Mic Boost:0
==============================
Capture volume is native
Playback volume is native

[steve]

This is weird, your "HDA Intel PCH: ALC662" device is reported as having no output channels

What sort of computer is this? Is it a laptop or an "all in one" PC?
How are the speakers connected? Are they built in?
Does your computer have a headphone socket? If it does, does it work properly?

[wychwood]

It's a regular desktop PC. The speakers aren't built-in, they plug into the tower. There's a headphone socket, and that works fine.

[steve]

The speakers aren't built-in, they plug into the tower

Where do they plug in? What sort of connector? A small round lime green "mini jack" socket? USB? HDMI?

[wychwood]

Yes, sorry, into a green socket with the same kind of plug as regular headphones ("mini-jack"?). I also have USB headphones, which again have always been fine.

[steve]

Let's try with your USB headphones.

Plug in the headphones, then open Audacity (headphones connected first).
In the device toolbar playback settings there should be a new USB option that corresponds to the USB headphones. Select that and try playing something. What happens?

[edam]

Hi.

I notice this thread seems to have died a couple of months ago. But I'm also suffering the exact same symptoms...

To summarise:

• all playback is *way* too fast and sounds terrible -- it's not high-pitched that I can tell, it sounds like the sound is being skipped over, as dragging the play position in a media player
• playing a generated 30 second tone takes approx 2 seconds to complete
• I am using ALSA, with either "default" or "pulse" selected as output device
• recording from pulse works fine
• I use Debian sid/unstable on amd64, audacity package version is 2.0.6-2

Some other things I have noticed that may or may not be related/relevant:

• If I change the playback device from "pulse" to "default", I *sometimes* get correct playback for one play only, then back to fast, skippy audio.
• The device toolbar contains no dropdown widgets whatsoever, only the two icons (I can provide a screenshot).
• If I stop playback, audacity freezes until I kill it. If I allow playback to complete, it doesn't.
• ALSA plugin container appears in pavucontrol playback tab only briefly, but disappears before playback completes

The audio device info shows:

Code: Select all

==============================
Default recording device number: 1
Default playback device number: 1
==============================
Device ID: 0
Device name: pulse
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 32
Playback channels: 32
Low Recording Latency: 0.008707
Low Playback Latency: 0.008707
High Recording Latency: 0.034830
High Playback Latency: 0.034830
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Device ID: 1
Device name: default
Host name: ALSA
Recording channels: 32
Playback channels: 32
Low Recording Latency: 0.008707
Low Playback Latency: 0.008707
High Recording Latency: 0.034830
High Playback Latency: 0.034830
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
==============================
Selected recording device: 0 - pulse
Selected playback device: 0 - pulse
Supported Rates:
    8000
    9600
    11025
    12000
    15000
    16000
    22050
    24000
    32000
    44100
    48000
    88200
    96000
    176400
    192000
Unable to open Portmixer

When I play sound, I get this on stdout:

Code: Select all

12:17:08: Debug: AudioIO::GetBestRate() for playback
12:17:08: Debug: GetBestRate() suggested rate 44100 Hz
12:17:08: Debug: GetBestRate() Returning 44100 Hz
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:7843:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
....

Do you want the complete stderr output? Because there's quite a bit more.

It may also be worth noting that, like the previous poster, I also have two audio devices: the built-in audio on my motherboard, and a USB headset (which I'm using for playback).

What could be going wrong? (I'm a developer, so don't be shy of techy-talk!)

[steve]

The audio device info shows:

That is very odd. It does not show any physical (hardware) audio devices Why is that?