[PD] Pd freezing on startup in ubuntu dapper SOLVED

John Harrison john.harrison at wichita.edu
Mon Nov 27 05:04:56 CET 2006


I thought it worth mentioning that I solved this. It turned out the 
problem is no matter what flags I use in the configure part of the build 
and no matter what flags I call pd with, some OSS midi routines were 
still being called and these routines were what was crashing the system 
hard. There was more than one oss midi routine causing the crash i.e. if 
I commented one out in s_midi.c the next one would crash it, but the 
offending code was always inside preprocessor directives labeled 
USEAPI_OSS. Since I have no intention of using any OSS audio or midi, I 
just had to make sure this directive was not set when building. I 
couldn't find a configure flag to disable setting USEAPI_OSS so I 
manually edited the configure file and took this flag out. I rebuilt Pd 
and everything works, including alsamidi. (Maybe OSS doesn't work --- I 
didn't even bother to check since I have no use for OSS.) A build of 
0.39.2 and 0.40-1 both work now and neither worked before.

Perhaps there should be a configure flag to enable or disable oss 
introduced into the Pd build code?

-John

John Harrison wrote:
> Now I have tried building pd-0.39.2 and here is my configure command:
>
> ./configure --disable-alsa --enable-jack --disable-portaudio 
> --disable-portmidi --enable-debug
>
> Build is successful. Yet running pd with any parameter(s) still 
> completely crashes the computer, forcing me to unplug.
>
> So now that I have tried different distros with the same bad results, 
> different versions of Pd, and compiled with as little hardware support 
> as possible, I have no choice but to conclude that Pd cannot run on 
> this sound card with this particular computer. Weird. Maudio Delta 
> 1010LT. If I remove the card, Pd loads up...but I need this card.
>
> -john
>
>
> John Harrison wrote:
>> I booted up a LiveCD of Dynebolic v1.4.1 which has Pd on it. Just as 
>> with my ubuntu machine, trying to run Pd  froze the machine utterly, 
>> completely. So my guess is it has something to do with the driver for 
>> this particular sound card, the Alsa library, and Pd. I'm guessing Pd 
>> must load in the libraries for alsa and/or do some sort of check of 
>> the audio hardware initially, regardless of the flags set on the 
>> command line, and this must be what is crashing it. I'm not sure what 
>> is unique about Pd as opposed to all of the other audio apps I have 
>> tried on this machine, but apparently there's something because no 
>> other audio apps are crashing. I'm also not sure how it is that 
>> others are apparently running this same M-audio Delta 1010LT card w/ 
>> Pd with no problems? Can somebody confirm this? I see the card 
>> referenced in the official Pd docs for installation in Linux, so I'm 
>> assuming this card apparently worked with Pd somehow, at least at one 
>> time.
>>
>> I thought of trying the same card w/ Pd in another machine, but I'm 
>> not even sure where I would go w/ these results...
>>
>> -John
>>
>> John Harrison wrote:
>>> Yes everything works with jack...except Pd. pd -jack still freezes 
>>> the system utterly, completely. What could possibly be causing this? 
>>> I wish I could compile w/out both ALSA and OSS so Pd basically had 
>>> no chance for connection to the audio hardware at all....but that 
>>> breaks the compile, as have already posted about to this list.
>>>
>>> Does anybody know of a LiveCD with Pd on the CD? I'd like to try 
>>> booting this to see if the problem might be in my os config somewhere...
>>>
>>> To anybody else using this card with Pd: any config for the card 
>>> itself (say, using envy24control) I need to know about? Should I try 
>>> a different slot on the computer? This is just crazy...
>>>
>>> -John
>>>
>>> Roman Haefeli wrote:
>>>> hi john
>>>>
>>>> without knowing the deeper details of and reasons for your problem i
>>>> suggest the following:
>>>> -try to run jack with your delta 1010LT
>>>> -then try out, if any other application can use your soundcard over jack
>>>> -if yes, then try 'pd -jack', so that pd connects to jack and then maybe
>>>> you can use your soundcard without freezing.
>>>>
>>>> from my experience, i solved many problems concerning audiosoftware and
>>>> soundcards by inserting 'the jack-layer' in between (on
>>>> linux//debian/ubuntu and osx). hopefully it helps in your situation as
>>>> well.
>>>>
>>>> cheers
>>>> roman
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, 2006-11-03 at 20:16 -0600, John Harrison wrote:
>>>>   
>>>>> If I yank the M-audio Delta 1010LT card out of the machine, Pd runs
>>>>> fine. When I part the card back in, Pd freezes again. So the problem
>>>>> appears to be this M-audio card. The thing is...I Googled and searched
>>>>> this mailing list and it appears people use this card with Pd all the
>>>>> time with no problems. I need Pd and I need this M-audio card. What's
>>>>> my next step?
>>>>>
>>>>> Weird that the card would crash Pd even with this command:
>>>>>
>>>>> $ pd -nosound -noadc -nodac
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> -John
>>>>>
>>>>> John Harrison wrote: 
>>>>>     
>>>>>> Pd is still completely freezing my ubuntu Dapper machine. I have
>>>>>> tried recompiling with Pd 0.40.2 and still absolute and instant
>>>>>> freeze. So I tried the suggestion below. The debugger reports:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Starting program /usr/local/bin/pd
>>>>>> [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
>>>>>> [New Thread -1211066688 (LWP 6400)]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then the machine is completely frozen again, so I have to pull the
>>>>>> plug.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I also tried editing /etc/hosts as was suggested here:
>>>>>> http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2005-07/029853.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and that didn't help either...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have used this on many ubuntu Dapper machines so I don't know
>>>>>> what's so special about this one. Could it be the 2 dual-core
>>>>>> Pentium Xeons? Could it be the M-audio Delta 1010LT card?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When I run
>>>>>>
>>>>>> $ pd -verbose
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I get no response at all. Just the instantly frozen machine.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And I have tried the various flags (-nrt -nomidi -nosound) and
>>>>>> others...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -John
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Frank Barknecht wrote: 
>>>>>>       
>>>>>>> Hallo,
>>>>>>> John Harrison hat gesagt: // John Harrison wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>   
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>>>> I have now tried
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> pd -nrt -nosound -nomidi
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> and it was the same thing: complete computer freeze with even mouse and 
>>>>>>>> keyboard not responding, requiring me to pull the plug.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I've tried both as root and not.
>>>>>>>>     
>>>>>>>>           
>>>>>>> Can you try to start Pd under a debugger? That is: 
>>>>>>> $ gdb /usr/bin/pd
>>>>>>> (gdb) run
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> and if Pd crashes and your machine is still alive try to catch a
>>>>>>> backtrace with:
>>>>>>> (gdb) bt
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ciao
>>>>>>>   
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>> ____________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> 		
>>>> ___________________________________________________________ 
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>>>>   
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> John Harrison
>>> Associate Professor of Violin
>>> Director: CRATEL
>>>   (Center for Research in Arts, Technology, Education and Learning)
>>> Wichita State University
>>> Wichita, KS 67260-0053
>>> USA
>>>
>>> http://JohnHarrisonViolin.com
>>> http://cratel.wichita.edu
>>>
>>> tel: 001 316 978 6572
>>> fax: 001 316 978 3625
>>>   
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