[Ardour-Users] X Runs at Exactly 10 Minute Intervals

[Brett Clark]

This sounds very suspicious like a cron entry.  You mentioned checking the System Manager, but im wondering if that would show all potential cron jobs.  Can you do a 'tail /var/log/cron' and see if there's anything executing at the time of the XRuns.  Usually there will be an sa1 audit running every 10 minutes, but that should be pretty light. Additional cron jobs that execute in that timeframe could be scheduled in the /etc/cron.d directory.
 
Another problem could be a constant running job that does some type of polling at 10 minute intervals and increases the system load.  One way to locate this would be to run 'top' and see what pops to the top when the XRuns happen.
 
--Brett
 
 

________________________________

From: ardour-users-bounces at lists.ardour.org on behalf of Martin Lynch
Sent: Wed 9/26/2007 10:44 AM
To: ardour-users at lists.ardour.org
Subject: [Ardour-Users] X Runs at Exactly 10 Minute Intervals



Hoping someone can help me figure out what's causing X runs at precisely 10 minute intervals - not 9:59, not 10:01 but exactly 10 mins.

My setup: 

AMD 64 X2
Feisty
2 GB DDR2 800 mhz
M-Audio Firewire Solo using Freebob
Sample rate: 96,000
Periods: 3
Frames: 64
Latency: 2 ms
Realtime checked in Qjackctl
Priority = 89
Qjackctl 0.2.21

# ps -C jackd -cmL 
shows:

  PID   LWP CLS PRI TTY          TIME CMD
24142     - -     - ?        00:14:40 jackd
    - 24142 TS   20 -        00:00:00 -
    - 24143 TS   24 -        00:00:00 -
    - 24144 TS   24 -        00:00:00 -
    - 24145 TS   24 -        00:00:00 -
    - 24146 FF  139 -        00:00:00 -
    - 24147 FF  129 -        00:05:51 -
    - 24148 FF  132 -        00:00:00 -
    - 24149 FF  132 -        00:00:00 -
    - 29990 FF  139 -        00:00:00 -
    - 29991 FF  133 -        00:00:25 -

As I understand it, the FF indicates realtime.

Messages from JACK:

Load = 6.0202 max usecs: 44.000, spare = 622.000
LibFreeBoB ERR: SLAVE XMT : Buffer underrun! 64 (0 / 256) (0 / 0 )
17:34:51.873 XRUN callback (2).
FreeBoB MSG: xrun detected
LibFreeBoB ERR: Xrun on connection 1
load = 53.0101 max usecs: 3481.000, spare = 0.000
load = 29.7333 max usecs: 43.000, spare = 623.000

Load = 4.9502 max usecs: 25.000, spare = 641.000
LibFreeBoB ERR: MASTER RCV: Buffer overrun!
LibFreeBoB ERR: Xrun on connection 1
17:44:51.782 XRUN callback (3).
FreeBoB MSG: xrun detected
load = 4.4270 max usecs: 26.000, spare = 640.000

Note that in the first instance it's an underrun; 2nd instance an overrun, which seems odd to me (ie I'd think with the X runs happening on such a precise schedule it would show the same problem each time).

I've tried using System Manager to track down any processes which might be scheduled to run every 10 mins and can't pin down anything. I also tried stopping ntpd but the problem continued.

Other programs which run simultaneously:

- Beryl
- Mythtv backend

Using Ardour neither increases the X runs nor eliminates them - they still pop up at 10 min intervals.

Any ideas or suggestions? Could Freebob be the problem? Are there system processes known to run at 10 min intervals that could be interfering?

Also, not sure this has anything whatsoever to do with my X runs, but Qjackctl also reports a whole series of:

QTextCursor::gotoParagraph Index: 49 out of range
load = 4.1724 max usecs: 26.000, spare = 640.000
load = 4.0381 max usecs: 26.000, spare = 640.000
load = 3.9710 max usecs: 26.000, spare = 640.000
QTextCursor::gotoParagraph Index: 49 out of range
QTextCursor::gotoParagraph Index: 49 out of range

I also tried running JACK from console, with the same results.

Driving me nuts as every time I need to do a take, I have to wait until an X run hits, then I have a 10 min window to record, which leaves me thinking about the impending X run, rather than the part I'm playing!

Many thanks!