audio glitch (buffer way too late/out of sync/resampling

[ianp0]

Hi,
I just upgraded to a 2. release and now I have an audio glitch playing any audio file. mp3/flac, etc...
I've tried changing the audio output module, switching time-stretching, peak protection and high quality audio resampling off and on, to no avail.

CPU usage hovers around 1%. I'm using an optical output. Everything worked AOK until I upgraded. I reinstalled the 1. version and it worked fine.

This is in the debug logging:

[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (241422), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(82680 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (82681 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (211744), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(77778 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (77779 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(76678 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (76679 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (242846), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(65793 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (65794 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (198028), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(64680 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (64680 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(62475 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (62476 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (202871), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(65784 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (65785 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(62302 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (62303 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (211843), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(63759 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (63759 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(63384 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (63386 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (216516), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(78885 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (78887 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (180891), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(77779 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (77779 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(82672 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (82673 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (214653), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(75582 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (75583 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(67795 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (67796 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: buffer way too late (230300), dropping buffer
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(60465 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (60467 us), resampling
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates
(73386 us)
[02c5e2a0] main audio output warning: not synchronized (73387 us), resampling.

Any other details, please ask.

[VLC_help]

You run visualization filters?

[ianp0]

No visualizations running. Is that what you mean? No audio filters or effects running

[ianp0]

I've reset all the preferences to default in case some old preference was conflicting.

edit: this appears at the top of the error logger. (something like this, anyway)

[02c8ff88] main audio output warning: PTS is out of range (-9987), dropping buff
er
[02c8ff88] main audio output warning: PTS is out of range (-33535), dropping buf
fer

[blistovmhz]

Same issue here. Tonnes of people posting about this today.
FTR, I'm testing on a Q6600 @ 3GHz per, 4GB RAM, blah blah blah.
I notice that as of 2.0.1, even decoding a 128kbps mp3 is chewing a full core by itself.

As noted by everyone else, rolling back to 1.1.9 solves the issue.

[ianp0]

I'm using a Q6600, too. I didn't notice any unusual CPU usage, but I'll check again.

[turnops]

Same problem here since upgrade to 2.0 and then 2.1 (Win7 x64, Intel Core i7-950). Tried several workarounds like changing output but to no avail. Problem persist even when vlc is the only app running. This is what messages tell in debug mode:
[...]
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (-48866 us)
main warning: not synchronized (-48865 us), resampling
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: buffer too early (-86360), down-sampling
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (-44904 us)
main warning: not synchronized (-44903 us), resampling
main warning: buffer way too early (-128133), clearing queue
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main debug: audio output is starving (-198788), playing silence
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (-43754 us)
main warning: not synchronized (-43753 us), resampling
[...]

CPU load stays within normal parameters.

I've seen some error messages concerning libmad:
[...]
main warning: buffer way too late (184552), dropping buffer
mpgatofixed32 debug: libmad error: bad main_data_begin pointer
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (66121 us)
main warning: not synchronized (66121 us), resampling
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (66123 us)
[...]

I think these problems must have their reason with the CPU clock. I'm using an ASUS board here which can be under/overclocked on the fly within Windows by a little percentage. The tool used is called EPU-6 and it has modes like 'rocket', 'turbo' and 'economy'. Switching the modes leads to different error messages within vlc - the higher clocked modes produce "buffer too late" while the lower clocked modes show "buffer too early".

Can anybody make any sense of this?

[DanteElysium]

Hi,

I use the EPU-6 Engine and I've got the same problem.
In the two eco modes and the Turbo mode, there are some problem...
BUT, in hign perf there isn't any problem anymore !!

VLC 2.00 and 2.01 has clearly a problem with de downclok/overclock af the CPU...

Bye

[ianp0]

I had mine overclocked through BIOS using the AI setting. Changing it back to its default clock setting fixed the problem.

You don't have set something to variable setting in BIOS to use EPU-6, do you?

[turnops]

EPU-6 doesn't overclock variably. You choose one mode and then the cpu clock stays fixed. No other video/audio related program like Windows media player, nor even my DAW or vlc 1.1 has problems like vlc 2.0. So this must be a quirk within vlc. Even vlc 1.1 had minor problems with audio. It always lost some audio at startup. But because it were only about 300 miliseconds, it was no great problem for me

[Eikka]

Try setting the CPU affinity of VLC to one core in the task manager. It seems to me like this is a thread scheduling problem of some sort.

[turnops]

Sorry, but I think these issues should be solved by fixing the code, not by workaraounds. If other media related apps had the same problems, this would be a different case. But this sure is a task for the development team. So please developers, delve into these problems! vlc has a reputation to loose.

[WhosDownWithVLC]

I don't use the Windows version of VLC but in Linux we are having the same problem. The fix for us is to install the pulse audio libs and rebuild vlc.

[kiitehOver]

I don't use the Windows version of VLC but in Linux we are having the same problem. The fix for us is to install the pulse audio libs and rebuild vlc.

Hi folks, long time listerner, first time caller.

I would just like to say that using Xubuntu 12.04 with the PPA Nightly builds, I found I had this exact problem when I would pause any audio or video, and then restart playback. The audio would not restart. I recieved the exact same warnings as ianp0 which led me here.

It was solved on my system by simply installing vlc-plugin-pulse. It was that simply.

Please forgive me for posting this here in the Windows section, but the obvious link is to this page. I wish such a simple solution for the Windows version. I am posting this here in reply to WhosDownWithVLC helpful comment so that others can quickly check to see if this also does not resolve their issue. I did check the forums and it appears I am either lacking in the skill to navigate here, the results I did find did not match the current issue enough for me, or no one needed to get that far; seeing as how simple it was for me to resolve.

Thank you WhosDownWithVLC, I was in another dimension after coming from a Debian system without pulseaudio. Although I didn't have the problem then, it was because I was using VLC 1.8 I believe.

VLC Is the greatest digital media player available. Thanks for everything. I will try to give as much help for future code as I can without being a nuisance, which I hope I am not being right now.

[DanteElysium]

Problem solved in VLC 2.1 RC1 !

Thanks devs !

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

cool.