Frequent Device Busy errors - pulseaudio interfering

[lgirdwood]

Seeing lots of device busy failure recently

020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_COMMAND] sof-tplgreader.py /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg/sof-bdw-rt286.tplg -f 'type:playback' -b ' pcm:HDA Digital,Media Playback,DMIC16k' -e
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_INFO] Testing: Low Latency [hw:0,0]
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_COMMAND] aplay -D hw:0,0 -c 2 -r 48000 -f S16_LE /dev/zero -q
aplay: main:830: audio open error: Device or resource busy
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_INFO] /home/ubuntu/sof-test/test-case/multiple-pipeline-playback.sh will use topology /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg/sof-bdw-rt286.tplg to run the test case
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_INFO] Pipeline list to ignore is specified, will ignore 'pcm=HDA Digital,Media Playback,DMIC16k' in test case
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_INFO] Run command to get pipeline parameters
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_COMMAND] sof-tplgreader.py /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg/sof-bdw-rt286.tplg -f 'type:capture' -b ' pcm:HDA Digital,Media Playback,DMIC16k' -e
2020-07-15 08:45:13 UTC [REMOTE_INFO] Testing: Low Latency [hw:0,0]

but nothing in dmesg or sof-logger to indicate any FW or driver problems.

This is causing a poor SNR with test results.

[lgirdwood]

Could something else in userspace be opening the device in these failures ? Do we check the result of close() on these devices ?

[paulstelian97]

Are we sure PA isn't causing trouble on Ubuntu 20.04?

[aiChaoSONG]

@lgirdwood @paulstelian97 Pulseaudio will go through pipelines after system start up. Currently, we don't find a good way to disable and enable PA during test, so we remove PA. I am upgrading OS to Ubuntu 20.04 this week, and forget to remove PA after upgrading, that's why we see device busy. Sorry for the inconvenience, now checked PA on DUTs upgraded, issue should disappear.

[lgirdwood]

@aiChaoSONG thanks, I think there is a global pulseuadio file where you can disable the respawning. i.e. this would allow your scripts to start and stop pulseaudio as needed. Please google for the details.

[plbossart]

/etc/pulse/client.conf
; autospawn = yes
->
autospawn = no

[aiChaoSONG]

I think @Bin-QA has tried the audospawn option, seems not work

[lgirdwood]

@Bin-QA @aiChaoSONG please also check systemd config for pulseaudio - it could be respawning. It could also be a gnome setting that's doing this too.

[aiChaoSONG]

@lgirdwood We tried a lot of ways to deal with pulseaudio, but in vain. And now we temporarily remove PA at every deployment to avoid failures brought by PA. @marc-hb is trying to find a good way to disable/enable PA during test. Before he comes up with a solution, we will keeps the PA removal solution.
BTW, you shouldn't see this issue any more, because PA is 99.999999% percent removed.