Bug#674679: pulseaudio: when speakers are set to 5.1 audio can fail on many applications

Sat May 26 17:18:33 UTC 2012

Package: pulseaudio
Version: 2.0-3
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,
*** Please consider answering these questions, where appropriate ***

   * What led up to the situation?
I installed minecraft and found my audio was distorted and the java app didn't
show up in the pulseaudio volume control menus
it also did it when playing two audio stream from say flash and a music player

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?
I've tried reinstalling and removing each application till It was just the
basic system just incase it was a clash with another program e.g kdenlive

   * What was the outcome of this action?
the only thing that did work was setting the speaker configuration to 2 not 5.1
or 4.1 but this means the audio isn't taken advantage of all my speakers
   * What outcome did you expect instead?
I expect that having audio at 5.1 would work

as you can see by this short video there is no entry for alsa/java in the sound
menu but if you watch very closly it will flash up as Minecraft made a popping
noise (was unable to record the audio) on 5.1 speakers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XQEZ6oJnVE

this is a video of it on 2 speakers working perfectly even if the video is
distored sligtly :D
http://youtu.be/pR1GPaOjehk

xpd259 at mars:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RD890 PCI to PCI
bridge (external gfx0 port B) (rev 02)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RD890 PCI to PCI
bridge (PCI express gpp port B)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RD890 PCI to PCI
bridge (PCI express gpp port H)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RD890 PCI to PCI
bridge (external gfx1 port A)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 40)
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev
42)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
IDE Controller (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC
host controller (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 PCI to PCI
Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB OHCI2 Controller
00:15.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI
to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
00:15.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI
to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1)
00:15.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB900 PCI to PCI
bridge (PCIE port 2)
00:15.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB900 PCI to PCI
bridge (PCIE port 3)
00:16.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB OHCI0 Controller
00:16.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0
USB EHCI Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor
HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address
Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM
Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor
Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link
Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev
a2)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev
a1)
02:00.0 USB controller: Etron Technology, Inc. EJ168 USB 3.0 Host Controller
(rev 01)
03:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE9172 SATA III 6Gb/s
RAID Controller (rev 11)
04:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
04:06.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy Game Port (rev 04)
04:06.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04)
04:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)]
IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev c0)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI
Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
06:00.0 USB controller: Etron Technology, Inc. EJ168 USB 3.0 Host Controller
(rev 01)
xpd259 at mars:~$

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/6 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages pulseaudio depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.113+nmu2
ii  consolekit                    0.4.5-3
ii  libasound2                    1.0.25-3
ii  libasound2-plugins            1.0.25-2
ii  libc6                         2.13-32
ii  libcap2                       1:2.22-1.1
ii  libdbus-1-3                   1.5.12-1
ii  libfftw3-3                    3.3.2-1
ii  libgcc1                       1:4.7.0-9
ii  libice6                       2:1.0.8-2
ii  libltdl7                      2.4.2-1
ii  liborc-0.4-0                  1:0.4.16-2
ii  libpulse0                     2.0-3
ii  libsamplerate0                0.1.8-4
ii  libsm6                        2:1.2.1-2
ii  libsndfile1                   1.0.25-4
ii  libspeexdsp1                  1.2~rc1-5
ii  libstdc++6                    4.7.0-9
ii  libsystemd-daemon0            44-1
ii  libsystemd-login0             44-1
ii  libtdb1                       1.2.10-1
ii  libudev0                      175-3.1
ii  libwebrtc-audio-processing-0  0.1-2
ii  libx11-6                      2:1.4.99.901-2
ii  libx11-xcb1                   2:1.4.99.901-2
ii  libxcb1                       1.8.1-1
ii  libxtst6                      2:1.2.1-1
ii  lsb-base                      4.1+Debian4
ii  udev                          175-3.1

Versions of packages pulseaudio recommends:
ii  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio  0.10.31-3
ii  pulseaudio-module-x11     2.0-3
ii  rtkit                     0.10-2

Versions of packages pulseaudio suggests:
ii  paman             <none>
ii  paprefs           <none>
ii  pavucontrol       <none>
ii  pavumeter         <none>
ii  pulseaudio-utils  2.0-3

-- no debconf information