Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

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SoraJS
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by SoraJS »

Three weeks ago I bought an Acer Swift 3 AMD Ryzen 7 laptop and then just returned it because Musescore was stuttering, audio gaps, repetition. What I did find over the 3 weeks was that if I waited about 5 minutes, the sound would somehow right itself. But then during the wait time, I was finding that the sound issue was also getting into my general web listening...so that during the wait time, I couldn't listen to or watch anything. And it was getting worse over the 3 weeks. So I returned the laptop last week.

Then I purchased, just arrived and set up an HP 2021 Ryzen 5 laptop. I put on AV MX21 Wildflower Linux with Debian 11. Now, 2 days after installing - it's having the exact same problems.

I'm not tech savvy, so I doubt I can do a work-around, unless it is pretty simple.

Hmmm...do I need to return this laptop as well? Argg...which laptop is safe for sound and Linux and AV now?
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

SoraJS wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 6:45 pm Three weeks ago I bought an Acer Swift 3 AMD Ryzen 7 laptop and then just returned it because Musescore was stuttering, audio gaps, repetition. What I did find over the 3 weeks was that if I waited about 5 minutes, the sound would somehow right itself. But then during the wait time, I was finding that the sound issue was also getting into my general web listening...so that during the wait time, I couldn't listen to or watch anything. And it was getting worse over the 3 weeks. So I returned the laptop last week.

Then I purchased, just arrived and set up an HP 2021 Ryzen 5 laptop. I put on AV MX21 Wildflower Linux with Debian 11. Now, 2 days after installing - it's having the exact same problems.

I'm not tech savvy, so I doubt I can do a work-around, unless it is pretty simple.

Hmmm...do I need to return this laptop as well? Argg...which laptop is safe for sound and Linux and AV now?
If you're using the Behringer UMC404HD then try what I wrote in the post above yours. If you don't have that Behringer device you could start another topic.

Good luck! :)
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by greengardener »

Thanks for all the help everyone. The device has been returned. They did say they have had a few returns with issues with windows 10, sometimes its the interface, other times its the laptop.

With some of the troubleshooting (on Windows 10) they wanted me to ensure the latest drivers were install and was forced to 24bit.

Its really a pity because the device is exactly what I needed. This situation reminds me of the old graphics and wifi support on linux a decade ago! ie. don't buy new because it probably wont work!
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

greengardener wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 2:54 am Thanks for all the help everyone. The device has been returned. They did say they have had a few returns with issues with windows 10, sometimes its the interface, other times its the laptop.
On this forum we recently had a problem or two with these series of Behringer audio devices not properly working out of the box anymore. I personally do not know yet if Behringer changed a chip in 'm or if they were simply broken devices.
greengardener wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 2:54 am [...]
Its really a pity because the device is exactly what I needed. This situation reminds me of the old graphics and wifi support on linux a decade ago! ie. don't buy new because it probably wont work!
I wholeheartedly agree with you. This problem w/ the Behringer audio devices seems like a step back in time, into the Linux Dark Ages. As for any audio device: a thing like that needing a driver in Windows is ludicrous. USB audio class compliance is not there for nothing! The B. ones were the only that really didn't need any set-up at all. The Focusrite ones work with additional configuration (I don't even know if all of 'm work).

According to Behringer's website it still doesn't need a driver in MacOS (or they don't support MacOS which is highly unlikely). That would imply that it's (still) class compliant so neither should it need a driver in Linux.

Thank you for sharing you experiences and let us know which audio device worked with Linux in the end. :)
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by luke08 »

Just to add my experience.

I have the UMC 404 HD and all went fine using it in Mac Os X and Windows.

However last week I wanted to drive it from my Raspberry Pi 4 with Kernel 5.15-v7l+.

I had the same issue reported here: Clock Source 41 not valid and audio gaps.

I rebuilt the kernel patching the snd_usb_audio by adding a delay after commands (following the same
quirks done on other interfaces for invalid clock source , like Teac for instance).

With the new patched kernel module, the error on invalid clock source 41 disappeared, but the audio gaps
are still there.

Just for the record, I experimented a bit with the current quirks available:

QUIRK_FLAG_GET_SAMPLE_RATE
QUIRK_FLAG_ALIGN_TRANSFER
QUIRK_FLAG_TX_LENGTH
QUIRK_FLAG_PLAYBACK_FIRST
QUIRK_FLAG_SKIP_CLOCK_SELECTOR
QUIRK_FLAG_IGNORE_CLOCK_SOURCE
QUIRK_FLAG_ITF_USB_DSD_DAC
QUIRK_FLAG_CTL_MSG_DELAY
QUIRK_FLAG_IFACE_DELAY
QUIRK_FLAG_VALIDATE_RATES
QUIRK_FLAG_SET_IFACE_FIRST

with no success.

The new device firmware changed something that seems to not play nice with actual snd_usb_audio implementation.
Anyone have any idea on what else to try?
Last edited by luke08 on Mon May 02, 2022 11:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by bluzee »

I think you'll need to email ALSA devel with a bug report. They will direct you to supply the needed debugging logs and hopefully work out a solution.
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by luke08 »

Good idea, I will try to get in touch with them!
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

luke08 wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 11:22 am Just to add my experience.

I have the UMC 404 HD and all went fine using it in Mac Os X and Windows.

However last week I wanted to drive it from my Raspberry Pi 4 with Kernel 5.15-v7l+.

I had the same issue reported here: Clock Source 41 not valid and audio gaps.

I rebuilt the kernel patching the snd_usb_audio by adding a delay after commands (following the same
quirks done on other interfaces for invalid clock source , like Teac for instance).

With the new patched kernel module, the error on invalid clock source 41 disappeared, but the audio gaps
are still there.

Just for the record, I experimented a bit with the current quirks available:

QUIRK_FLAG_GET_SAMPLE_RATE
QUIRK_FLAG_ALIGN_TRANSFER
QUIRK_FLAG_TX_LENGTH
QUIRK_FLAG_PLAYBACK_FIRST
QUIRK_FLAG_SKIP_CLOCK_SELECTOR
QUIRK_FLAG_IGNORE_CLOCK_SOURCE
QUIRK_FLAG_ITF_USB_DSD_DAC
QUIRK_FLAG_CTL_MSG_DELAY
QUIRK_FLAG_IFACE_DELAY
QUIRK_FLAG_VALIDATE_RATES
QUIRK_FLAG_SET_IFACE_FIRST

with no success.

The new device firmware changed something that seems to not play nice with actual snd_usb_audio implementation.
Anyone have any idea on what else to try?
Just for my information: did you try it with an older distribution (= older kernel, older ALSA version)? If the device does work with the older distro it's probably ALSA (i.e. the snd_usb_audio driver) that is the fault. If it still doesn't with an old distro then, indeed, those idiots at Behringer messed a good thing up and our beloved "hassle free" 404 doesn't work out of the box anymore until the ALSA devs can figure out how to fix it.

Gone are the days that we Linuxers can recommend the 404 I'm araid... :cry:
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by luke08 »

I only tried with 5.x kernels.
I will check with a 4.x kernel.
In the meanwhile I also filed a bug in the ALSA driver, confirmed for kernels 5.15 and 5.8, and bcdDevice=1.35
(highlighting that bcdDevice=1.12 works well).

If there will be news, I will report here.

>> Gone are the days that we Linuxers can recommend the 404 I'm araid... :cry:

I believe too :(
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by bluzee »

I asked on Music tribe discussion if there has been changes to these however they wish for a support ticket to be created. They did not answer directly.

If you wish to create a support ticket that is another avenue for you.
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by luke08 »

Thank you bluzee,
I will try but I have no illusions, sadly the device is formally supported only on
Windows and Mac OS X so I don't think they will give us Linux-specific information.

as bit update, just tested with Kernel 4.18 and got same behavior: clock source 41 not valid , audio stuttering, on both x86_64 and arm64.

So confirmed on all the kernel tested until now.
I will try also a low-latency kernel just to see how it behaves.
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by bluzee »

They can't patch the Linux driver if that is what is needed, but hopefully they can determine if the device has a defect before any time is wasted trying to debug the Linux driver. At least I doubt they would have patches. One never knows. They do use Linux in their mixers AFAIK.
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

luke08 wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 6:25 pm Thank you bluzee,
I will try but I have no illusions, sadly the device is formally supported only on
Windows and Mac OS X so I don't think they will give us Linux-specific information.

as bit update, just tested with Kernel 4.18 and got same behavior: clock source 41 not valid , audio stuttering, on both x86_64 and arm64.

So confirmed on all the kernel tested until now.
I will try also a low-latency kernel just to see how it behaves.
It's been a while since I messed with kernel modules so forgive me the stupid remarks... :roll:

I don't know exactly how ALSA works, but if one installs an older kernel on one's current distro, then will the ALSA drivers stay the same? Or will the they also change? Because I believe that's what you did: install an older kernel in your current distro that previously ran on kernel 5.

I thought that there are kernel modules (i.e. drivers) that you can load from hard disk, that might not change if one changes kernels. And there are drivers hard coded in the kernel that you "can not get rid of".

Before we ask Behringer about changing hardware components I think we'd better be sure they did. What command did you use the get the "Clock Source 41 not valid" and "audio gaps" errors? I'd like to make sure that mine does not have it so we know that the 404 works with kernel 5.8 and ALSA version 1.2.2.

Could you run the following commands to determine ALSA versions:
1. Determine ALSA version:

Code: Select all

aplay --version
2. Determine version of ALSA kernel modules in use:

Code: Select all

cat /proc/asound/version
3. Determine kernel version in use:

Code: Select all

uname -a
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by luke08 »

Thanks Linuxmusician01 for your comment.

Actually, when you rebuild a kernel from the source, you have to configure it and decide which module to build (I always opt for modules .ko files on disk for sound). They are installed per-kernel-version in folder /lib/modules and loaded from there (I always verify the version of asound).
So when I load the snd_usb_audio module I precisely know which module version from the disk is loaded (as reported, I also tried with my own patched module using a combination of available quirks, with no success - moreover, for my patched modules, I always dump an ID message to verify what I have loaded, adding an alert printk in the source code).

However, the test with kernel 4.18 was done on a different machine with an older debian, so the problem is confirmed on both architecture (x86_64 and arm64) with two major kernel version 4.18 and 5.15 (and also 5.10, 5.13).

To perform the test I am using aplay and speaker-test:

Code: Select all

aplay -L  # to discover the device (usually plughw:U192k or default:U192k)

Code: Select all

speaker-test -D plughw:U192k -r <freq>  # tested with 44100 , 48000, 96000
The "clock source 41 not valid" error happens at module snd_usb_audio loading time.

Audio stuttering is not an error, it is a dysfunction that happens always during playback,
and it is clearly verifiable using the speaker-test command above.

I cannot test with different firmware versions for the UMC404hd since I only own a device with bcdDevice=1.35.
So I cannot say that version prior to 1.35 works (I trust post that are saying this).

I think that this information should be enough for folks at Behringer to trace the problem (if they are willing to do so).
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Re: Behringer UMC404HD stuttering / audio gaps

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

luke08 wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 10:32 am[...] However, the test with kernel 4.18 was done on a different machine with an older debian, so the problem is confirmed on both architecture (x86_64 and arm64) with two major kernel version 4.18 and 5.15 (and also 5.10, 5.13).
Clear. Thanks.
luke08 wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 10:32 am To perform the test I am using aplay and speaker-test:

Code: Select all

aplay -L  # to discover the device (usually plughw:U192k or default:U192k)

Code: Select all

speaker-test -D plughw:U192k -r <freq>  # tested with 44100 , 48000, 96000
Audio stuttering is not an error, it is a dysfunction that happens always during playback, and it is clearly verifiable using the speaker-test command above.
Thanks. I tried that on mine. With one speaker attached. Been playing for a few seconds now. I hear no stuttering in the white noise.
luke08 wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 10:32 am The "clock source 41 not valid" error happens at module snd_usb_audio loading time.
How can I check that myself?
luke08 wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 10:32 am I cannot test with different firmware versions for the UMC404hd since I only own a device with bcdDevice=1.35.
So I cannot say that version prior to 1.35 works (I trust post that are saying this).
Bloody hell, I didn't even realize that this device has firmware. Output of dmesg when I connect my 404:

Code: Select all

$ dmesg
[13066.363838] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 9 using ehci-pci
[13066.472861] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=1397, idProduct=0509, bcdDevice= 1.12
[13066.472864] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=3, SerialNumber=0
[13066.472865] usb 1-1.2: Product: UMC404HD 192k
[13066.472867] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: BEHRINGER
So mine appears to have firmware 1.12.
luke08 wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 10:32 am I think that this information should be enough for folks at Behringer to trace the problem (if they are willing to do so).
I agree. Do you think it's the hardware or the firmware change from 1.12 to 1.35?
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