SOLVEDx2: PBXiaF Choppy Sound

[andygee]

NOTE: Be sure to read to the end of this thread for two solutions that work. --wm

I'm running this new distro in a VM window. I have recorded several options and they are all very choppy. Any ideas on correcting this? On my previous old version of Trixbox this wasn't an issue but both on this version and the new beta of Trixbox they have the same results. I have hard set the CPU speed in the VM per some other suggestions I have found but this doesn't appear to affect it. I must say the quality got much better in the PBX-in-a-Flash version versus the Trixbox beta.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Andy

 

[jroper]

Hi

I found this on a web site.

Close down VMware server
Edit pbxinaflash.vmx file with wordpad or similar
add this line to the bottom of the "Advanced Stuff" section near the bottom or the file: -

processor1.use = "FALSE"

Then save, fire up vmware, and see if the situation improves.

Can you report back either way.

Yours

Joe

 

[andygee]

Hi

I found this on a web site.

Close down VMware server
Edit pbxinaflash.vmx file with wordpad or similar
add this line to the bottom of the "Advanced Stuff" section near the bottom or the file: -

processor1.use = "FALSE"

Then save, fire up vmware, and see if the situation improves.

Can you report back either way.

Yours

Joe

This doesn't seem to make it any better. It's almost like I'm on a bad phone line yet I'm testing all on the same network. Maybe this is a hint though, the on-hold music sounds great but the audio/speaking part sounds terrible.

Andy

 

[andygee]

Hate to say it but CentOS 5 takes considerably more horsepower than CentOS 4 for some tasks. And you're exactly right, Music on Hold is crystal clear while voicemail recordings and text-to-speech apps sound terrible. I've tested the build on 2 year old $500 machines with VMware and it's pretty painful. On a new HP notebook, you don't notice the choppy sound at all but it has twice the horsepower. Download Sysinternal's Process Explorer and crank up the priorities for the VMware threads. Sometimes that helps, and sometimes you just need to buy a new $300 machine and dedicate it to this app... or buy a $1500 Windoze machine and it should run fine in a VMware window.

I agree, my HP laptop doesn't have this issue. It's just my VM servers that are a couple of years old that have the issue.

 

[frontline]

Not sure if I am on to the specific problem . One option if decoding (decompressing) is the issue might be to use raw files. There is a rudimentary raw player and instructions for converting to raw sound files included in the asterisk distribution.

 

[colman]

Audio judder

Andy,

I had the same problem some time ago, and I think Joe may be referring to the post I made about my experience, here. The point of the processor1.use statement is to try to ensure that Asterisk is only using one core of dual core machines.

However, this was the last of a number of tacks I tried to sort this problem, and I can't guarantee that this alone solved it. So you might want to try some of the other hacks I link to in the post to see if they help ?

Good luck,

Colman

 

[andygee]

Andy,

I had the same problem some time ago, and I think Joe may be referring to the post I made about my experience, here. The point of the processor1.use statement is to try to ensure that Asterisk is only using one core of dual core machines.

However, this was the last of a number of tacks I tried to sort this problem, and I can't guarantee that this alone solved it. So you might want to try some of the other hacks I link to in the post to see if they help ?

Good luck,

Colman

Ok here is what I found works for me. I had put the processor statement in my vmx config file and it was not making a difference. I went into my other vm's and did the same but allowed them to use the processors that the pbx in a flash isn't using. I won't say it's 100% but is 99%.

 

[gaijin]

Same problem here

I have the exact same problem and I have tried everything suggested here & have a brand new dual core server. I bought this because of the same problem with trix 2.2.X and I thought it would clear up.

One thing: When I built the images (both times) I did it on my notebook, a Centrino Duo then moved the VM over...

Could that have an impact?

 

[rjm]

Not working for me

I tried both fixes. Even set the VMware stuff up to Real Time.

This is really an issue for me as I will have to start from scratch if there's not another way.

Has anyone had any success with vmware on a single processor machine? Is there a way to switch out of .wav files and into something less processor dependent?

BTW, I also noticed that the beep to signal start recording was also playing choppy. It stutters.

 

[wardmundy]

If you're running PBX in a Flash under VMware, try adjusting the kernel settings as we did in the good old days.

Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and change the kernel line to the following:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 acpi=off noapic nosmp nolapic clock=pit

If your existing kernel line looks different on the front end, just add the stuff starting at acpi. All of this goes on one line. This finally solved the choppy sound issues for us even on relatively old, clunker machines. Don't forget to reboot. After reboot, if the text-to-speech is too fast, then try deleting nosmp and reboot again.

 

[gaijin]

GREAT - This fixed my problem!!!

It even fixed it on my production server, not Piaf, but the "other one"

 

[rjm]

Choppy voice fixed

Third time's a charm. Editing the kernal commands worked perfectly for me. All process priorities set to normal, just the kernal command fixes and the audio smooth. Way to go! Thanks again.

 

[jakono]

Hi All,
I'm running PBX in a Flash under VMware on a DELL Inspiron 530S core2 DUO (Processors 1
Model Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4400 @ 2.00GHz
CPU Speed 2 GHz
Cache Size 2.00 MB
System Bogomips 4089
50 Gig HD - RAM 2 Gig)
I adjusted the kernel settings as suggested to fix the chopping sound by editing /boot/grub/grub.conf and change the kernel line to:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.img acpi=off noapic nosmp nolapic clock=pit
Centos 5 won't load anymore and I'm getting the following error:
VFS: cannot open root device "VolGroup00/LogVol00" or unknown-block(0,0)
please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing:
VFS: Unable to Mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
Any Idea how I can recover from this error? I put a lot of hours on this
test machine but now it's locked can't get to login.
Any help would be appreciated!

 

[jroper]

Hi

You could login in single user mode, see instructions here: -

http://www.redhatlinux.com/docs/man...ustom-guide/s1-rescuemode-booting-single.html

You should be able to edit grub.conf using vi editor, and with hope, fix the typo made in this file, or at least put it back to where you were, or edit the kernel line.

Yours

Joe

 

[jakono]

Thanks for the resource I was able to recover the system by editing grub.conf but I'm still having the choppy sound.

 

[jroper]

Hi

You may have made a typo, try again, at least this time you will know how to fix it if it goes wrong.

Joe

 

[bonald]

I still have the same problem on the vm. The nosmp helped , but the choppy sound is still there after a couple of second.

My spec :
Pentium 4 2.66
1280mb RAM
Windows 2003 VMware host

 

[bonald]

OK, I fixed my problem by using some centos vmware kernel.

wget http://dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.i686.rpm
wget http://dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-devel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.i686.rpm

rpm -ivh kernel-vm*.rpm

Reboot, select kernel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5vm from the Grub menu.

Install and configure VM-tools.


No more choppy sound!

 

[Topo]

OK, I fixed my problem by using some centos vmware kernel.

wget http://dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.i686.rpm
wget http://dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-devel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.i686.rpm

rpm -ivh kernel-vm*.rpm

Reboot, select kernel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5vm from the Grub menu.

Install and configure VM-tools.


No more choppy sound!

Ditto.

Just a couple of notes.

1) It seems that the VMWare config file leaves the VM configured as a "Windows XP" machine (or at least my VMWare server 1.0.4 is assuming that). In order to install VM-tools you probably want to change the machine type to Linux.

2) I had to rebuild zaptel for the new VM-optimized kernel. It gave me a warning about ztdummy not being "usable" because of the clock setting, but so far is working fine.

regards,

Topo

 

[klingon888]

OK, I fixed my problem by using some centos vmware kernel.

wget http://dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.i686.rpm
wget http://dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-devel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.i686.rpm

rpm -ivh kernel-vm*.rpm

Reboot, select kernel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5vm from the Grub menu.

Install and configure VM-tools.


No more choppy sound!

This WORKS GREAT!! THANKS! No more chopiness running on VM.

Now, how do I make it automatically boot using kernel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5vm instead of having to manually choose it? Sorry - noob!