keeping Jack from stopping

[oNNogitaar]

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adm dialout fax cdrom audio video plugdev netdev lpadmin admin sambashare

thanks Pablo! it looks like i am already in...

hmm, it is not realy workable like this...
these are my settings
and also my inputs got funny names now. I remember when running it on my previous laptop it would just be numbered audiofire1-12...


help is highly apreciated here, since it looks like i am almost there (i hope)

[Pablo]

So you are in the audio group. That is right In any case, I think you should disable "no memory lock".

And now that you are not an "absolute beginner" anymore, maybe reading old posts will help you. At least for providing useful info for the potential helpers. jack configuration is very important but there are a lot of variables involved in your hardware-software system and some of them can spoil things. And you know, linux is evolving all the time, and it is important to know your distro and version, and version of jackd, at the very least.

For reporting relevant info about your system the command line is your best friend. Also, take a look at the wiki here and in ffado.org.

On the other hand, I have no experience with firewire devices. Others can help you better, here or in the ffado forums and mailing list.

Cheers, Pablo

[AutoStatic]

Hello Onno,

It's better to untick the no memory lock option. You really want to be able to lock memory. Also your JACK prio is too high. Now the JACK watchdog thread runs with prio 99 and there is a big chance the audio group isn't allowed to do so which can cause weird issues with JACK. I'd lower it to below 80. You can change the funny portnames in the Display tab of QjackCtl's settings window. Try playing a bit with the JACK client/port aliases options.

Best,

Jeremy

[oNNogitaar]

Thank you!!
===

you should disable "no memory lock"

It's better to untick the no memory lock option.

okay, done...
====

your JACK prio is too high. Now the JACK watchdog thread runs with prio 99 and there is a big chance the audio group isn't allowed to do so which can cause weird issues with JACK. I'd lower it to below 80.

I got that from here. "Priority is associated with the realtime options mentioned in the preparations article; while you can take it all the way to 90, I like to at least keep it at 89; that way, something utterly important to system stability will take precedence."

It is on 70 now, would you say that is alright? I do not understand either motivation
my settings:
===
Ardour does work but it has too many hickups to use.
Starting Ardour I still get this warning

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WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory. This might cause Ardour to run out of memory before your system runs out of memory.

I found this but the link is dead. And I do not understand this
Should I change to a RT-kernel, and if yes, which one should I pick for Ubuntu 11.10?
===

You can change the funny portnames in the Display tab of QjackCtl's settings window. Try playing a bit with the JACK client/port aliases options.

Cool, yeah, that works. (I ticked: "enable client/port aliases" and than selected "first")

Thanks in advance!

[AutoStatic]

I got that from here. "Priority is associated with the realtime options mentioned in the preparations article; while you can take it all the way to 90, I like to at least keep it at 89; that way, something utterly important to system stability will take precedence."

Check the comments in the article where the author refers to: http://linuxhomerecording.blogspot.com/ ... tions.html

It is on 70 now, would you say that is alright? I do not understand either motivation

JACK has a so-called 'watchdog' thread that keeps an eye on all JACK clients and shuts down JACK when clients are badly misbehaving. This watchdog has it's own priority, namely 10 higher than JACK's priority (the one you assign in QjackCtl). So if you assign JACK prio 89 than the watchdog gets prio 99 and if your user isn't allowed to run 'threads' (processes) with such a high prio JACK can start showing weird behaviour. And even if your user is allowed to run things with prio 99 than there is a big chance the watchdog has to share its prio with things like the real time clock (/dev/rtc0) which is not optimal either. So running JACK with a sane prio (say, below 85) and making shure it doesn't have to share its prio with anything else should yield the best results.

my settings:

You might want to raise the Timeout value. I use either 2000 or 5000, just as long as it's below 10000. Verbose messages ticked also causes extra overhead

Starting Ardour I still get this warning

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WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory. This might cause Ardour to run out of memory before your system runs out of memory.

I found this but the link is dead. And I do not understand this
Should I change to a RT-kernel, and if yes, which one should I pick for Ubuntu 11.10?

No:

JACK Audio Connection Kit: jackd, libjack0, qjackctl essentieel
Tijdens de installatie van jackd zal je gevraagd worden of je jackd met realtime priorities wilt gebruiken, selecteer Yes. Dit zal een bestandje audio.conf aanmaken in /etc/security/limits.d wat het mogelijk maakt voor gewone gebruikers om applicaties te prioriteren in een real-time context en om bepaalde applicaties (zoals Ardour) toe te staan geheugen te 'locken'

Apparently something went wrong there so you could either edit /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf manually and make sure it has the following line:

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@audio   -  memlock    unlimited

You could also run dpkg-reconfigure:

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure jackd

And select 'Yes' after the question if you want to enable realtime process priority. This will silence Ardour

Best,

Jeremy

[Pablo]

WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory. This might cause Ardour to run out of memory before your system runs out of memory.

This ardour warning used to go on and give a hint on how actually check the memlock limit. In a terminal:

ulimit -l

Of course, this is just to check. To get it right do as Auto suggests. But note that you need to restart the computer if you make any change in the security limits configuration.

[Pablo]

Should I change to a RT-kernel, and if yes, which one should I pick for Ubuntu 11.10?

You can always install the low-latency kernel from Alessio Abogani's PPA and give it a try. Follow instructions on how to add the PPA to your software sources and just install the linux-lowlatency.

https://launchpad.net/~abogani/+archive ... er=oneiric

[AutoStatic]

But note that you need to restart the computer if you make any change in the security limits configuration.

No need to restart, logging out and logging back in is enough. The only reason why you need to restart a Linux system is after a kernel update (unless you use ksplice). Or when your system locks up of course.

[oNNogitaar]

Hi and thank you all!

Check the comments in the article

done, I do not understand all of it but i think i got the idea.

making shure it doesn't have to share its prio with anything else

how do you know?

raise the Timeout value

done, it is 5000, Verbose messages unticked

ulimit -l

it says:

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unlimited

bepaalde applicaties (zoals Ardour) toe te staan geheugen te 'locken' Apparently something went wrong there so you could either edit /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf manually and make sure it has the following line:

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@audio   -  memlock    unlimited

I do not know how so i did:

You could also run dpkg-reconfigure:

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure jackd

but nothing happened (i think) but since it said "unlimited" i should be okay, right??
Cheerz, oNNo

[AutoStatic]

making shure it doesn't have to share its prio with anything else

how do you know?

By running

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ps -eLo rtprio,cmd | grep -i -e "irq" -e "jack"

This will give you a list with all the priorized processes and their respective real-time prios. From there it's just making shure there are no double rtprios in that list for applications (like JACK).

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unlimited

That's good.

i should be okay, right??

Yup.

[oNNogitaar]

Thanks! were getting there

By running

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ps -eLo rtprio,cmd | grep -i -e "irq" -e "jack"

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- [ksoftirqd/0]
- [ksoftirqd/1]
- /usr/sbin/irqbalance
- grep --color=auto -i -e irq -e jack


is that good? or should i put it higher than 70?

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unlimited

That's good.

that is funny? i did not change anything. Also the warning is still there...

WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory. This might cause Ardour to run out of memory before your system runs out of memory.

Cheerz, oNNo

[oNNogitaar]

Hi,
been fiddling around a bit...
Some things I do not understand:
Why is there sound out of "playback5" while there is nothing connected to it?
Why are some ports blue?
Why is it not possible to disconect one by one?


The system seems to be pretty stable at the moment but the latency is too high to my liking.
The latency adds up but that is inherent to my setup.
Guitar is captured 4in, 4out is connected to my effectboard, its return is captured 5in, the wet signal is played back through 11&12out...
In this way I can record with effects but record the dry signal as well for if I wish to change an effect in the end.

[oNNogitaar]

Hi,
i managed to do some recording...
I changed the routing a bit

Still I do not understand why is there sound out of "playback5&6" while there is nothing connected to it.
The latency makes the playing a bit sloppy, should i change the frames or the periods to try and fix that?

[oNNogitaar]

...sorry the pic does not show entirely.
It is here

[slowpick]

Do a test with some lower settings, you'll get some popclicks consistantly when you are too low.
I have been right at the border on occasion, and heard a few loud clicks, but kept playing
because they are easy to remove, but they were not recorded.
For usb, i use frame/period 256 and period buffer 3,
for line-in, I use frame/period 128, period buffer 2

Lots of people can go lower, with more modern computers.