Facebook, Firefox, Netflix and Video on AMD

ahmadafef

This might by the weirdest post that I've ever posted and it's really hard to explain.

###Let's start with the easy part, Netflix.
I'm having huge screen tearing while watching Netflix. On YouTube I can watch 4K 60 FPS, no issue.
On Netflix, 1080p is tearing more than an important paper that was in your back pocket for weeks.

###Now for the weird compilation Facebook and any other video source on the web.
I'm not really sure it's Facebook, but I notice it more and more as soon as I use Facebook or if I'm using Facebook.
The sound of the video will have an echo or duplicated stream with less than a second of delay from the original stream, and there will be tons of noise. I've tried to replicate the issue but it's very random, sometimes after 15 minutes or more, sometimes it's immediate. I've tried to record the screen to show toy the issue, and you know what? it doesn't get recorded!! the recorded video and audio are crystal clear!!

So I've managed to get it on video using my phone camera!
So, here is the Video:

High distorted volume alarm. Lower your speaker volume if you care about your ears!!

PS: restarting Firefox without opening Facebook will get the audio output to normal.
The effect is Global. when it start, it will take effect system-wide. Closing Firefox and waiting few minutes will get it back to normal. This issue happened also on Chrome, but I was using Firefox and Facebook as well, I'm not sure what's the trigger.

###and here is an image of my PC important parts:

This is the "lspci" output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Root Complex 00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) I/O Memory Management Unit 00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge 00:01.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge 00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge 00:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge 00:03.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) PCIe GPP Bridge 00:04.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge 00:07.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge 00:07.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B 00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge 00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus B 00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 59) 00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 0 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 1 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 2 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 3 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 4 00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 5 00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 6 00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Data Fabric: Device 18h; Function 7 01:00.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset USB 3.1 XHCI Controller (rev 01) 01:00.1 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset SATA Controller (rev 01) 01:00.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset PCIe Bridge (rev 01) 02:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 01) 02:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 01) 02:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 01) 02:08.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] 400 Series Chipset PCIe Port (rev 01) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03) 06:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Kingston Technology Company, Inc. Device 5008 (rev 01) 07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev e1) 07:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590] 08:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin/Raven/Raven2 PCIe Dummy Function 08:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) Platform Security Processor 08:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin USB 3.0 Host controller 09:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Zeppelin/Renoir PCIe Dummy Function 09:00.2 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 51) 09:00.3 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) HD Audio Controller

zeseb

Hello,

My video card is an AMD RX 580, I assume your video driver is amdgpu loaded by default. To disable screen tearing, I created a new file 20-amdgpu.conf into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d folder, and inserting the following lines

Section "Device" Identifier "AMD" Driver "amdgpu" Option "TearFree" "true" EndSection

This will activate vsync and reduce tearing after reboot. Maybe you can give it a try with this settings for your RX 590.

ahmadafef

zeseb Yes. This completely solved the tearing issue in Netflix.
Weird thing is, It didn't happen anywhere else, not even in games!

Anyway, Thank you for the solution and I hope someone can get this weird Facebook issue!

ahmadafef

[unknown] I had no idea what espeak is or why it's installed.
I've removed it and I'm goint to reboot now.

I'm just trying to play some YouTube Video. I used Super Mario Bros as a test since there is no human living on earth these days who doesn't recognize it. "Shame on people who doesn't" It's history!

Anyway, I'll update the comment when I come back from the reboot.

For the Netflix thing, it was completely solved by zeseb

Update: Looks like [unknown] did it.

It's been more than 10 minutes of playing videos and using Facebook together whiteout an issue.

I really wonder what was wrong!

ahmadafef

Last Update:

The Netflix issue was solved here zeseb
The Firefox issue with sound was solved here: ahmadafef

I believe it's official now, this post is to be marked as solved.

zeseb

Indeed this is a weird sound issue. Some questions :
Does your CPU is overclocked ?
Did you try to connect headphones to check the sound with this kind of device, instead of speakers ?
Maybe a latency issue with pulseaudio ? Very weird it happens only with Facebook/web content, not with local content (Games/VLC etc.)

ahmadafef

zeseb I haven't use headphones and the audio output is HDMI.
I'll try to find some headphones and give a try.
The CPU isn't overclocked.

This issue wan't present in other Linux systems that I've uesed on the same machine:
OpenSUSE
Ubuntue
Kbuntue
OpenMandriva
Manjaro

ahmadafef

zeseb Ok, So I've tried with headphones, I have the same issue.

Funny thing, This time instead of restarting Firefox, I've just closed the Facebook tab and the sound just went back to normal!!

zeseb

Wow OK. Did you try to clear the Firefox cache ?

I don't know if it helps but you can check the latency value with :
pacmd info | grep "current latency"
My latency varies from 22 to 33ms for my audio device (headphones).

You can also try to open the file /usr/share/pulseaudio/system.pa, search for the line load-module module-udev-detect and edit it to load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0 to decrease latency on reboot.

I hope someone can help to solve this issue, maybe you can try on the IRC Solus channel.

ahmadafef

zeseb ###The valuse while playing normally are:
current latency: 20.88 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 70.00 ms

###The values when having the issue are:
current latency: 0.45 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 0.00 ms current latency: 51.98 ms current latency: 0.00 ms
It changed channel???

I have no idea what IRC Solus is, but I'll look into it.

Justin

ahmadafef Solus IRC is described here: https://getsol.us/articles/contributing/getting-involved/en/#irc

Hopefully, someone here or there can assist, audio issues are beyond my expertise.

ahmadafef

Update:

Today the sound issue happened on another website.
I still can't make it happen unless I'm using Facebook, so I'm still unable to tell what's triggering it.

I guess it's Firefox related, not specific website.

Neumie

Did you try the tsched=0 fix mentioned above? I had a very similar issue and that fixed it.

ahmadafef

Neumie Yes I tried it. Nothing changed.

ahmadafef

update

This is how the sound settings looks like after a while of using Firefox:
https://prnt.sc/o4xw1h

No other program do the same.

arkhenius

@ahmadafef I actually have a very similar problem (with a Ryzen 2600 to boot, on an Aorus x470 Ultimate Gaming board). An entity named "SpeechDispatcher" or some sorts get created under my sound settings, and if I set it up to output to any device that I am not using (let's say an empty line out or anything) the problem is solved. So basically the SpeechDispatcher is causing the distortion for me. Though it only happens with the audio out from my motherboard. The USB earphones I use are perfectly fine.

ahmadafef

arkhenius

I have the same thing!
https://prnt.sc/o529ej

How can I make it output into an empty line?

ahmadafef

Update:

It's not solved!
Just came back!!

Removing espeak cause the removal of Kdenlive. Reinstalling Kdenlive made espeak to come back.

Is there a way to have Kdenlive and remove espeak?

Justin

[unknown] I'd recommend just using sudo to manage packages, not sudo su as if you forget you've elevate you can easily wipe half your system.

ahmadafef

[unknown] Thanks for the reply. I was already looking into other distros, not just a flavor. But this one looks and feels very nice and it plays extremely well with my GPU/CPU. I'm unable to change the video editor since I can't really find anything that's as good as this except for a software called Olive, but it's still in Alpha or Beta and it can't even run on my system.
The other issue about removing the stupid espeak is, it also removed Krita!

Justin I didn't use sudo or sudo su, I've just used the software app.

ahmadafef

Update - hopefully last time!

It appears to me that this issue is now fixed. I didn't had it once all day today and I didn't need to remove anything from the computer.
All I did was to disable the following command in Firefox:

media.webspeech.synth.enabled

I' not sure that it's completely solved, but so far it's working just fine!
The issue was indeed with espeak for some reason and I'm still unable to tell why.