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NVDA, the free and open source Screen Reader for Microsoft Windows
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Getting distorted sound after several hours of use #13750

Open pranavlal opened 2 years ago

pranavlal commented 2 years ago

Steps to reproduce:

Use NVDA for over 6 to 8 hours with firefox, outlook and chrome

Actual behavior:

I begin to hear crackling through my sound card.

Expected behavior:

The sound should stay clear.

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA installed.

NVDA version:

2022.1.

Windows version:

21H2 (OS Build 22000.708)

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Mozilla firefox version 100.0.2 (64-bit) Outlook 2016 as a part oof an office 365 subscription

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

No

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

No

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

It is too hard to test without add-ons because it is hard to duplicate the steps

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

I have not tried this.

Other system specifications Device name DESKTOP-067CMGH Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900F @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.9 GB usable) System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

I however do have a nvda log of the session but cannot determine how to attach it to this report.

mwhapples commented 2 years ago

This sounds like an issue I have encountered. For me restarting NVDA restores sound back to normal. I have only had it occur on one specific computer, so I had put it down to hardware or driver issue rather than something in NVDA. It though may be an NVDA issue.

CyrilleB79 commented 2 years ago

I have also encountered this issue very rarely (probably less than once in a month). I am not able to remember if it was always on the same computer or not. Restarting NVDA fixes the issue.

I have not been able to test without add-ons since, as said, it happens only very rarely.

It was already present before 2022.1, at least in 2021.x versions. I think that the issue was already present before I have installed add-ons containing a sound-split option, i.e. firstly Tony's Enhancements add-on and then Sound splitter add-on.

pranavlal commented 2 years ago

I can duplicate this issue on my work laptop as well, where sometimes, starting NVDA is enough but at other times, I need to restart the machine. I do have a log but cannot see how to attach it here.

XLTechie commented 2 years ago

What is the audio driver and hardware? Is the audio driver up to date?

Also, do you have "audio enhancements" turned off, under the advanced section of windows sound properties for your audio device?

I am not experiencing this on either machine where I commonly run NVDA in the same pattern.

Also, what synth and voice?

To attach a log, after you tab out of the comment edit field while creating a comment, there is a browse button. Press that, and you will have a normal file open dialog. You can paste in a file path; enter something like %temp%\nvda-old.log; or browse to your desired log file. Press "Open" to attach the file, then post the comment. Or switch the comment editor to "Preview", in order to make sure the file attachment appears where and how you prefer.

Brian1Gaff commented 2 years ago

Is this the memory leak issue in some sound drivers in Acer laptops? Nobody seems to have a solution. Brian

@. Sent via blueyonder. Please address personal E-mail to:- @., putting 'Brian Gaff' in the display name field. Newsgroup monitored: alt.comp.blind-users ----- Original Message ----- From: "pranavlal" @.> To: "nvaccess/nvda" @.> Cc: "Subscribed" @.***> Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2022 5:51 PM Subject: [nvaccess/nvda] Getting distorted sound after several hours of use (Issue #13750)

Steps to reproduce:

Use NVDA for over 6 to 8 hours with firefox, outlook and chrome

Actual behavior:

I begin to hear crackling through my sound card.

Expected behavior:

The sound should stay clear.

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA installed.

NVDA version:

2022.1.

Windows version:

21H2 (OS Build 22000.708)

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Mozilla firefox version 100.0.2 (64-bit) Outlook 2016 as a part oof an office 365 subscription

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

No

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their

behaviors. No

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

It is too hard to test without add-ons because it is hard to duplicate the steps

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing

Tool in NVDA's tools menu? I have not tried this.

Other system specifications Device name DESKTOP-067CMGH Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900F @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.9 GB usable) System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

I however do have a nvda log of the session but cannot determine how to attach it to this report.

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mwhapples commented 2 years ago

Is this the memory leak issue in some sound drivers in Acer laptops? Nobody seems to have a solution. Probably not, I am using a MSI laptop, so if it is the Acer driver issue then its wider than originally thought.

ABuffEr commented 2 years ago

Hi, I usually keep my Asus ultrabook running for various weeks, and I encountered the issue some time ago (a year or so). Then I scheduled two tasks for restarting audio system/services/processes and NVDA itself in the night. I just disabled both to investigate further, I remember a great increasing of some process memory, but not what at the moment. After executing now the two tasks, the situation is the current:

To discover what are the svchost processes (their PIDs) that host audio stuff, I run into an admin prompt:

tasklist /svc /fi "imagename eq svchost.exe" | find /i "audio"

and use classic task manager with additional columns to get the various info.

As you see, I have a system with Conexant sound card, that should not be relevant, with all effects and spatial audio disabled. NVDA runs the unfamous ETI-Eloquence without attenuation (again, it's probably not relevant, but I report it to exclude each specific synth). If there is something else that I can monitor in more details, suggestions are welcome :)

pranavlal commented 2 years ago

Hi all, Here are some more details about my desktop. The audio system is a Realtek(R) Audio sound card. It is integrated with the motherboard. I have not installed any special drivers for it. All drivers that have been installed by windows update are updated.

As for special affects, where should I check them? As far as I know, none are enabled. I am using the espeak synthesizer.

Pranav

Brian1Gaff commented 2 years ago

I seem to recall many also suggest that the older Microsoft drivers were better than the newer ones for this problem. I don't get this, but my motherboard is probably an older version, nonetheless I used to get junk weird whistles from the internal card due to poor screening one suspects and eventually went over to a USB card and disabled the internal one. Brian

@. Sent via blueyonder. Please address personal E-mail to:- @., putting 'Brian Gaff' in the display name field. Newsgroup monitored: alt.comp.blind-users ----- Original Message ----- From: "pranavlal" @.> To: "nvaccess/nvda" @.> Cc: "Brian Gaff" @.>; "Comment" @.> Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2022 2:52 PM Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Getting distorted sound after several hours of use (Issue #13750)

Hi all, Here are some more details about my desktop. The audio system is a Realtek(R) Audio sound card. It is integrated with the motherboard. I have not installed any special drivers for it. All drivers that have been installed by windows update are updated.

As for special affects, where should I check them? As far as I know, none are enabled. I am using the espeak synthesizer.

Pranav

-- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/13750#issuecomment-1140454100 You are receiving this because you commented.

Message ID: @.***>

seanbudd commented 2 years ago

There's a reported problem with Dell machines causing a memory leak https://support.freedomscientific.com/Support/TechnicalSupport/Bulletin/1786. Try following the steps in the above article to disable "Waves MaxxAudio Service Application" to see if this fixes the issue.

CyrilleB79 commented 2 years ago

I have had the issue on my personal HP machine a few days ago. Thus it is not linked to the memory leak issue on DELL machines (unless there are various issues with the same symptom).

Also, I have experienced the DELL machine issue at work two years ago until we have found the solution to disable WaveMax. And I have not seen this issue of distorted sound; rather application and PC freezes and crashes due to RAM and extended memory being full.

just-anotheruser commented 2 years ago

I have the same distortion issue on a Lenovo laptop. Did you check the memory usage? This starts happening on mine when nvda uses too much memory virtual and physical

pranavlal commented 2 years ago

Hi,

I have had this on 2 machines, one is a dell but the other is a custom machine which is what I have posted about.

From: just-anotheruser @.> Sent: Thursday, June 2, 2022 5:50 PM To: nvaccess/nvda @.> Cc: pranavlal @.>; Author @.> Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Getting distorted sound after several hours of use (Issue #13750)

I have the same distortion issue on a Lenovo laptop. Did you check the memory usage? This starts happening on mine when nvda uses too much memory virtual and physical

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/13750#issuecomment-1144798226 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACCF2A62FPIKAJVAOZEXG73VNCRH5ANCNFSM5XG3Z7LQ . You are receiving this because you authored the thread. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/ACCF2A3MJHXQL6QZHY2MZHLVNCRH5A5CNFSM5XG3Z7L2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOIQ6DYEQ.gif Message ID: @. @.> >

k-kolev1985 commented 2 years ago

I also had this issue when I first got this desktop machine in 2019. The distorted sound would occur if the CPU load is high. It has the sound card Realtek ALC892 at Intel Cannon Point PCH. After some time however, the issue stopped occurring. I think the issue stopped occurring after updating the sound card's drivers. The sound card drivers initially used (when the problem was occurring) were from Windows Update. After that, I installed some newer Realtek sound card drivers and I think then the problem stopped occurring. Now I'm using the newer Realtek sound card drivers from the website of the motherboard's manufacturer. The driver is labeled to be from Realtek Semiconductor Corp. and its version is 6.0.9231.1 and it is dated 31.08.2021. So, my suggestion to those who have this problem is to go to the website of the manufacturer of their computer's motherboard or to the website of the manufacturer of the computer itself and get the latest sound card drivers for their machine from there and update to it. Hope this helps.

TechHorseG commented 2 years ago

I too have had the occasional sound flip outs while using NVDA, where the entire system sound becomes crackly and distorted, and only returns to normal on quitting NVDA.

At the moment it happens roughly once a month, but there have been periods where it reduced to more like once a quarter.

It can also happen at any time within a session, whether it's been a couple of hours, or only a few minutes since a fresh logon.

It only seems to trigger in response to my pressing of a key or moving the mouse.

It once happened as I was pressing the arrow keys in an app that was in sleep mode.

It once happened when pressing the arrow keys while Speech Mode was off, so NVDA was awake but not talking or beeping.

It has sometimes happened while pressing arrow keys in a fullscreen playing video, but seems to happen most often when navigating through text.

But again, so far it has never happened when I was not pressing keys or moving the mouse.

Also, and quite oddly, whether the system sound returns to normal on quitting NVDA can depend on the method of quitting.

With some versions of NVDA if I quit using the command-line "nvda.exe -q" the system sound would return to normal, but if instead I press NVDA+Q to quit the sound would remain garbled. Whereas for other versions it might work the other way around.

I do not think that in my case at least this is exclusively an NVDA issue, as this occasional sound flip out problem happened before I started using NVDA on this machine, and while I was still using Narrator on it. It also happened on my old desktop which had completely different hardware, and again with Narrator. So I've always assumed that this was just some quirk of screen readers as the PCs were so different, and has been happening ever since I first started using them, and with two different readers.

The old Win8 PC had a dedicated Creative soundcard, whereas this Win10 PC has onboard RealTek, and every thing else in the case is different too.

Mind you, the peripherals (i.e. monitor, mouse & keyboard) are the same ones that I used on the previous machine, so I suppose theoretically that it could also be something to do with my mouse or keyboard, and the way that certain peripherals handle inputs? As I say, so far the sound flip outs have only happened after an input by me.

ABuffEr commented 2 years ago

Hi, update from my last comment (5 days ago): I had to restart NVDA various times, but for other reasons. No audio problem at the moment. However, about process memory, I notice a huge growth of CAudioFilterAgent64.exe (Conexant High Definition Audio Filter Agent): it passed from 1.700 KB, 5 days ago, to 510.112 KB this morning! I can imagine without difficulties that, launching and using a modern browser and a mail client for some hours, in next days this can bring to a unstable/crackling audio situation due to memory allocation and pagefile swapping. I'd think it's a driver memory leak.

Adriani90 commented 9 months ago

Does anyone still have this issue with NVDA 2024.1 beta and using WASAPI enabled in NVDA advanced settings? cc: @just-anotheruser, @pranavlal, @k-kolev1985 @mwhapples, @ABuffEr, @CyrilleB79, @TechHorseG. I saw this issue only when using a virtual machine with a much lower performance than the local machine. Using the bluetooth audio addon solved my issue but I cannot test with WASAPI using the current 2024.1 Beta NVDA version and add-ons disabled due to security restrictions on my working machine. I am not allowed to install development snapshots.

CyrilleB79 commented 9 months ago

I do not remember having had this issue recently, but it was happening quite rarely on my end. However, I'll keep this issue in mind in the next weeks and report back if I get it again.

I am using regularly two computers, both currently running NVDA 2024.1beta6: