Public bug reported: Recently, while watching movies in VLC, after about 45 to 60 minutes sometimes ALSA will crash. The symptoms are: 1) Audio suddenly stops playing. 2) After a few seconds, video freezes. 3) System enters a tight loop, appearing to be almost completely frozen - mouse cursor will not move, SSH clients stop responding (but remain connected). 4) After a few seconds, there is heavy disk activity. The system may then start to gradually respond to keypresses (and SSH clients eventually update), but runs extremely slowly.
The system continues to lag severely (any input takes several seconds to register, screen refreshes only once every few seconds) until pressing Alt+SysRq+K to kill the X session and all processes under it and log in again. Even this takes quite a while to execute. Once the session terminates and GDM appears again, the system once again runs normally and audio resumes working. At some point during this ordeal, a number of messages are written to syslog (see attachment). ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10 Package: alsa-base 1.0.23+dfsg-1ubuntu4 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-28.50-generic 2.6.35.11 Uname: Linux 2.6.35-28-generic i686 AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23. Architecture: i386 Card0.Amixer.info: Card hw:0 'V8237'/'VIA 8237 with ALC655 at 0xc000, irq 22' Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC655 rev 0' Components : 'AC97a:414c4760' Controls : 48 Simple ctrls : 29 Card1.Amixer.info: Card hw:1 'J'/'A4 TECH A4 TECH USB2.0 PC Camera J at usb-0000:00:10.4-3.1.1, high speed' Mixer name : 'USB Mixer' Components : 'USB0ac8:c40a' Controls : 3 Simple ctrls : 2 Date: Sun Apr 3 22:54:31 2011 InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007) PackageArchitecture: all ProcEnviron: PATH=(custom, no user) LANG=en_CA.utf8 SHELL=/bin/bash SelectedCard: 0 V8237 VIA8237 - VIA 8237 SourcePackage: alsa-driver Symptom: audio Title: [VIA8237 - VIA 8237] Playback problem dmi.bios.date: 07/26/2005 dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc. dmi.bios.version: 080011 dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M. dmi.board.name: MS-7032 dmi.board.vendor: MSI dmi.board.version: 1.0 dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M. dmi.chassis.type: 3 dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M. dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M. dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr080011:bd07/26/2005:svnMSI:pnMS-7032:pvr1.0:rvnMSI:rnMS-7032:rvr1.0:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.: dmi.product.name: MS-7032 dmi.product.version: 1.0 dmi.sys.vendor: MSI ** Affects: alsa-driver (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Tags: apport-bug i386 maverick -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/749946 Title: [VIA8237 - VIA 8237] Sound crashes during video playback, wedges system -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs