VoIP Mailing List Archives

[doug at crompton.com]

Using 1.2.29 on Linux version 2.6.18.8-0.3 (SUSE 10.2) Intel 686 dual
core.

I just switched over to this system from an older SUSE 2.4.10 kernel
system.

I am getting choppy audio in voicemail and general message playback.

I installed Zaptel and ztdummy module and the following is zaptel status:

slate:/etc/init.d # cat /proc/zaptel/1
Span 1: ZTDUMMY/1 "ZTDUMMY/1 (source: RTC) 1"

Is this indicating proper installation? Is there anything else I should
try/do??

The choppyness is not extreme, just not perfect. I had no problem in my
old system with 2.4. I had not even installed zaptel or ztdummy there.

Doug

****************************
* Doug Crompton *
* Richboro, PA 18954 *
* 215-431-6307 *
* *
* doug at crompton.com *
* http://www.crompton.com *
****************************

[doug at crompton.com]

As an addendum to my original message...

In my research it appears this often happens when using more than one
processor. I am using a dual core Pentium.

I guess my dilema here is which way to go. Clearly the audio is not
working the way I would like it to and the way I came to expect from my
old system. When playing messages it seems to get out of sync. Sometimes
skipping ms's of audio. This seems to happen at about a 2-4 second rate.

I believe that I have things setup to use the RTC as a timing device (see
below) but that did not seem to change the problem. It may have made it
better but not much.

What are my choices? HW card?, Upgrade Asterisk?, ????

Doug

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, Doug Crompton wrote:

[noahisaacmiller at gma...]

Hi Doug -

[spectro at gmail.com]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 2:15 AM, Doug Crompton <doug at crompton.com> wrote:

[doug at crompton.com]

I saw that bug. Most of my files are WAV though. Would it apply to them
also?

Doug

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, Noah Miller wrote:

[bkruse at digium.com]

Doug Crompton wrote:

[doug at crompton.com]

OK just to be clear on what you recommend...

Stop everything, unload zaptel and zrdummy modules... then just
restart asterisk? Does it start zaptel?

This is NOT a slow box. P6 dual core 4 gig cache, 3800 bogomips.

Doug

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, bkruse wrote:

[ben4asterisk at yahoo.com]

[doug at crompton.com]

OK in my research here is what I found.....

I seem to get the idea from what I read that ztdummy is not needed for 1.2
(and above) versions for anything but meetme. I never used ztdummy in my
old system and it worked just fine. I really see no difference here with
it running or not. Please confirm - is this timing required for just
simple wav/gsm playback - like voicmail, etc. ?

I played around with kernel options....

echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Which essentially makes it a 1 CPU system at max performance.

NO CHANGE.

Then put it back...

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

Tried this....

echo 1 > /sys/module/processor/parameters/max_cstate

Default was 8.

NO CHANGE.

Let me reconfirm what I am hearing. The audio choppiness is subtle but
definitely there. It seems to happen at the exact SAME place everytime I
play it, which is suspicious! Could this be sometihng completely different
then what we are suspecting????? It seems to get out of sync. sometimes it
seems it is playing future audio on top of current by only Ms's or maybe
it is putting a hole there. Hard to tell.

OH I also tried compiling with the O2 optimization rather then the O8 in
the default Asterisk Makefile. Again NO CHANGE.

Any more ideas would be helpful.

Doug

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, Benjamin Jacob wrote:

[tzafrir.cohen at xorco...]

On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 02:47:34PM -0500, spectro wrote:

[doug at crompton.com]

Tzafrir,

I have neither of those commands available here. Did a search to see if
they were somewhere else but nothing. Using SUSE 10.2. In /proc I only
have apci directory.

Doug

On Wed, 2 Jul 2008, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:

[doug at crompton.com]

I am not sure who all see's this list but I do have a few questions that
probably only the developers or somone really in the know of Asterisk
could answer.

- What is the requirement for timing vs. audio playback in Asterisk.
Specifically voicemail and IVR's (Not meetme)

- Has this requirment changed in newer versions?

This obviously is when using Asterisk with no internal cards. I used
Asterisk for several years with a P3 Linux system, NO timing, and it
worked flawlessly. Now with this new Pentium Dual core system I do not
have the perfect audio I experienced with the less powerful system.

I fully know there are MANY variable here. It could be a combination of
many things, including the OS (Linux Kernel) etc. BUT I offer this input,
Music on Hold works fine. This uses mpg123. So why can this palyback fine
and the other wav/gsm audio be choppy?

I would gladly switch to a newer Asterisk (using 1.2.29) if someone said
this was solved in that version.

My system can obviously play (mpg123 - background) audio fine. Why then
does Asterisk internal audio not also play well?

Doug

****************************
* Doug Crompton *
* Richboro, PA 18954 *
* 215-431-6307 *
* *
* doug at crompton.com *
* http://www.crompton.com *
****************************

[eric at fnords.org]

Make the card stop sharing it's IRQ with your IDE controller. Try
moving the card to another slot.

Asterisk has to send an audio packet every 20ms for VoIP calls. I
believe Zaptel expects no more than a few ms of latency. If something
is causing a delay, like the IDE controller locking interrupts and doing
disk activity then you're not going to get your interrupts serviced fast
enough and you will have audio issues.

Doug Crompton wrote:

[bkruse at digium.com]

Eric "ManxPower" Wieling wrote: