[arch-general] audio skipping frequently with vlc

[Isaac Dupree]

On 03/03/11 00:08, Matthew Monaco wrote:
> What output are you using? I'm on HDMI. Here is what happens in VLC with
> a verbosity of 2 for every skip:

Built-in laptop output (both internal speakers and headphone jack work). 
  lspci calls it "Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High 
Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)".  Working with either plain ALSA 
or Pulseaudio in force. (Modulo an unrelated default-muted-channel issue 
that I fix every boot so I can hear anything.)  My laptop has a Mini-DVI 
port for which I have no adapters, and USB and Firewire ports but e.g. I 
have no USB Audio devices, so I don't think there are any other output 
modes I can test.

> [0x3415df0] main audio output debug: audio output is starving (21344),
> playing silence
> [0x3415df0] alsa audio output debug: recovered from buffer underrun

Is that log output from VLC? Kernel? Something else?

> I've found some forum postings on this, but can't find any definitive
> solutions, certainly nothing that's worked for me.

Certainly you're having a problem!  I'm just hoping that the info that 
not everyone has the problem is helpful for debugging (or I could post 
some log if you think it'd help).

FYI, sometimes I get skipping due to system load (additionally DVDs, 
being optical media - high latency -, are often a bit more annoying) -- 
but I can deal with these whenever they occur by closing other open 
programs.

-Isaac