[ALSA - driver 0000879]: (snd_)opl3sa2 (isa) doesn't work (fails on playback) on 2.6.x kernels

[bugtrack@alsa-project.org]

The following issue has been set as RELATED TO issue 0001296.
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<https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=879> 
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Reported By:                iive
Assigned To:                
======================================================================
Project:                    ALSA - driver
Issue ID:                   879
Category:                   ISA - opl3sa2
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   block
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     new
Distribution:               Slackware 10
Kernel Version:             all 2.6.x kernel version (current 2.6.10)
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Date Submitted:             02-03-2005 03:42 CET
Last Modified:              08-04-2005 08:51 CEST
======================================================================
Summary:                    (snd_)opl3sa2 (isa) doesn't work (fails on playback)
on 2.6.x kernels
Description: 
It doesn't work on all 2.6.x kernel I have tried (current 2.6.10)
alsaconf doesn't detect the card as PnP, and fails to find it with
bruteforce.

When module is loaded by hand it shows no error, but on `aplay samle.wav`
I got
"ALSA /work/install/alsa-driver-1.0.5a/alsa-kernel/core/pcm_lib.c:2172:
playback
write error (DMA or IRQ trouble?"

on boot with 2.4.x kernel, everything magically works (alsaconf, aplay
etc..)

the bug is reported 4 months ago on
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3117
that's why some versions are old (but I had tried alsa-1.0.8 before
reposting this bug here)

======================================================================
Relationships       ID      Summary
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related to          0001296 isapnp is incompatible with pnpbios and...
======================================================================

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 jdthood - 04-13-05 21:59 
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Submitter: Is there any way you can do more research into the problem?

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 iive - 04-14-05 00:02 
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Tell me what to do and I'll do it.
btw have you took a look of the attached file?

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 ahaning - 07-09-05 06:38 
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I was able to get alsa to brute-force detect my opl3sa2 card in linux 2.4
and then copy the modules.conf to modprobe.conf and then (after installing
the drivers compiled for the currently-installed kernel) I can do
'alsasound start' and I get audio just fine in kernel 2.6(.12.2).

HTH.

FWIW, here is the modprobe.conf that was generated under kernel 2.6:

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF version 1.0.9rc3 ---
alias snd-card-0 snd-opl3sa2
alias sound-slot-0 snd-opl3sa2
options snd-opl3sa2 fm_port=-1 midi_port=-1 port=0x370 wss_port=0x530
dma1=3 dma2=1 irq=9
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---


and here is the configuration generated under 2.4 (that works in 2.6,
too):

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF version 1.0.9 ---
alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias snd-card-0 snd-opl3sa2
alias sound-slot-0 snd-opl3sa2
options snd-opl3sa2 fm_port=-1 midi_port=-1 port=0x370 wss_port=0x530
dma1=0 dma2=1 irq=11 isapnp=0
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---


HTH.

-Andy

(If you need any other information, I'm probably better reached via email:
ahaning@gmail.com)



----------------------------------------------------------------------
 jdthood - 07-09-05 11:13 
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> btw have you took a look of the attached file?

I just looked at it now.  I see that it contains a lot of information.

jdthood@turmeric:/tmp/isa_opl3sa2$ ls
fullog  isapnp_after  isapnp_before  kernel/  lsmod  proc/  sys/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 jdthood - 07-09-05 11:14 
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See also: https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5456

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 ahaning - 07-28-05 05:17 
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Is there any news on this? I see on LKML that there is a move to remove
"obsolete" OSS drivers from the kernel. This could be fairly disasterous
for people who don't know how to configure their OPL3SA2 card in 2.6
kernels with the ALSA driver, since alsaconf will not detect those cards
correctly on 2.6 kernels.

I was told to file a bug report, which I may do eventually, but I figured
maybe it would be best to keep everything in one place. And since I'd
already posted what I know in this bug, I didn't think it would be worth
writing up another bug report.

Anyway, just wanting to see what may have been done to get OPL3SA2 cards
detected and working well on 2.6 kernels. Thanks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 iive - 08-02-05 00:02 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I must say that it is easier to make opl3sa2 work on 2.2.x kernel than to
make it work on 2.6.x kernel. Because if you had read the link I had
provided you would know that I have used isapnp&pnpdump before and that
now it didn't work.
Didn't work either the modprobe.conf options you have provided me.

In short. I don't care if it is pnp, driver bug, kernel bug. I want it
fixed. If some of developers is willing to investigate I could give him
ssh access on my box. You have my email.

So, it is now kernel-2.6.12.3 and it doesn't work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ahaning - 08-02-05 03:05 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FWIW, I tried 2.6.13-rc4 with ALSA 1.0.9 (driver 1.0.9b) and had no luck
(surprise).

I tried having alsaconf brute force detect with several cs#### drivers and
the opl3sa2 and it configured one of the cs#### drivers. It was wrong,
though.

I think the problem might have something to do with IRQs/ISA and the way
that 2.6 handles them versus previous kernels. However, I'm not a coder or
a kernel hacker, so I could be way off here. When alsaconf has managed to
configure something (like in one of my previous comments) the IRQs were
completely wrong, which I thought was odd.

I'd also offer up a login to my notebook if someone would be willing to
look into this. It would be the first time I'd done such a thing, though,
so you'd probably have to tell me what software you need and how you'd
like it set up.

If there's anything else I can do, someone please say so. Like iive, I'm
getting frustrated that my notebook is over 5 years old and is having
driver regression issues. All drivers for this machine should work like a
charm.

-Andy

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 perex - 08-02-05 22:14 
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The alsaconf-isapnp-2.6.patch should fix the alsaconf probing problem.
Please, confirm.

Also, could you try remove 'options snd-opl3sa2' line from your
modprobe.conf and try the command 'modprobe snd-opl3sa2' on fresh system
(after boot)?

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 perex - 08-02-05 22:16 
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The alsaconf-isapnp-2.6.patch should fix the alsaconf probing problem.
Please, confirm.

Also, could you try remove 'options snd-opl3sa2' line from your
modprobe.conf and try the command 'modprobe snd-opl3sa2' on fresh system
(after boot)?

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 ahaning - 08-03-05 02:46 
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perex: Thanks for the patch! Unfortunately, I'm unable to get it to work.

The patch you attached to this bug appears to be against the CVS tree,
which won't even build for me. Furthermore, I've had trouble figuring out
how to apply the patch. I've tried 'patch -p1 < <patchfile>' from the
./alsa-utils/alsaconf directory, as well as 'patch -p0 < <patchfile>' and
-p1 says it can't find the file to patch. -p0 says that it looks like the
patch has already been applied.

What kernel are you running? I'm still on 2.6.12.2. 

If possible, a patch against ALSA 1.0.9 would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 perex - 08-03-05 11:42 
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I uploaded new alsaconf script. Hopefully, it will work on your system.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 ahaning - 08-03-05 13:42 
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perex:

I copied the attached alsaconf script over my old one and ran it. The
first time, without rebooting, it said it found a OPL3SA2 and would write
the configuration to /etc/modprobe.conf, but either it didn't or it
detected things incorrectly.

After rebooting, it won't even detect the OPL3SA2. "No legacy cards
found."

What version of ALSA and the kernel are you running? If we can try to get
at least similar software, it might be easier to debug these issues. Also,
what kind of OPL3SA2 are you using? I have one in my Gateway Solo 2500 and
I have PNP turned off in the BIOS.

Thanks!

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 ahaning - 08-03-05 15:17 
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After applying that patch to alsa-utils-1.0.9 and reinstalling
alsa-driver-1.0.9b, alsaconf appears to be consistently detecting my card.
I don't think the IRQ setting is quite correct and I'm currently only able
to access the machine over SSH, so I can't tell whether or not it's
working. Here's the modprobe.conf that is generated:

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF version 1.0.9 ---
alias snd-card-0 snd-opl3sa2
alias sound-slot-0 snd-opl3sa2
options snd-opl3sa2 fm_port=-1 midi_port=-1 port=0x370 wss_port=0x530
dma1=1 dma2=0 irq=5
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---


I don't think it's set to IRQ 5 and dma1 is usally set to 0 and dma2 to 1,
but the IO ports look correct. I can load alsamixer and fiddle with the
options. mplayer doesn't seem to be able to play (from what I can tell
from an SSH window).

At least it's a small step.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 perex - 08-04-05 08:51 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You are trying configure legacy cards. Don't try that (select only detected
PnP card in alsaconf). The option opl3sa2 line with manual resources
should NOT be present in the generated configuration. Select only detected
card (and try to remove the whole ALSACONF block from modprobe.conf).

Issue History
Date Modified  Username       Field                    Change              
======================================================================
02-03-05 03:42 iive           New Issue                                    
02-03-05 03:42 iive           File Added: isa_opl3sa2.tgz                    
02-03-05 03:42 iive           Distribution              => Slackware 10    
02-03-05 03:42 iive           Kernel Version            => all 2.6.x kernel
version (current 2.6.10)
04-13-05 21:59 jdthood        Note Added: 0004478                          
04-14-05 00:02 iive           Note Added: 0004485                          
07-09-05 06:26 ahaning        Note Added: 0005438                          
07-09-05 06:38 ahaning        Note Edited: 0005438                         
07-09-05 11:13 jdthood        Note Added: 0005439                          
07-09-05 11:14 jdthood        Note Added: 0005440                          
07-28-05 05:17 ahaning        Note Added: 0005577                          
08-02-05 00:02 iive           Note Added: 0005599                          
08-02-05 03:00 ahaning        Note Added: 0005600                          
08-02-05 03:05 ahaning        Note Added: 0005601                          
08-02-05 03:05 ahaning        Note Deleted: 0005600                        
08-02-05 22:08 perex          File Added: alsaconf-isapnp-2.6.patch             
      
08-02-05 22:14 perex          Note Added: 0005607                          
08-02-05 22:16 perex          Note Added: 0005608                          
08-03-05 02:46 ahaning        Note Added: 0005610                          
08-03-05 11:42 perex          File Added: alsaconf                         
08-03-05 11:42 perex          Note Added: 0005615                          
08-03-05 13:42 ahaning        Note Added: 0005625                          
08-03-05 15:17 ahaning        Note Added: 0005631                          
08-04-05 08:51 perex          Note Added: 0005641                          
08-04-05 08:52 perex          Relationship added       related to 0001296  
======================================================================




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