crackling voice for Linux workstations

[sayantandas]

Hi,

we have 10 ubuntu 10.04 and ubuntu 12.04 workstations connected to vicidial installed on ubuntu 10.04 LTS server. The agents complain of cracking voice and also the customers at the other end cannot hear the agents. we have tried xlite for linux, zoiper, sflphone and ekiga. all have the same issue.
Howeer, the moment we switch to windows + xlite all problems disappear.

Any idea why this may be happening on linux?

Vicidial: VERSION: 2.6-370a BUILD: 120529-2112 | Asterisk 1.4.39.1 | PHP5 v5.3.6 | Ubuntu 10.10 x86_64| Single Server | No Digium/Sangoma Hardware | No Extra Software After Installation | Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5700 @ 3.00GHz | 1 TB Hard Drive

[williamconley]

compare all voice protocols and codecs

i note that you say "when we switch to windows". shall i assume that you changing to new physical hardware at this point or just booting a different os on the same hardware?

if you are changing hardware, then you have to look at the specs of the two different sets of hardware (sound card makes a difference ... usb devices with good drivers available also makes a difference)
___________

when you post, please post your entire configuration including (but not limited to) your installation method and vicidial version with build.

this IS a requirement for posting along with reading the stickies (at the top of each forum) and the manager's manual (available on EFLO.net, both free and paid versions)

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[sayantandas]

compare all voice protocols and codecs

i note that you say "when we switch to windows". shall i assume that you changing to new physical hardware at this point or just booting a different os on the same hardware?

if you are changing hardware, then you have to look at the specs of the two different sets of hardware (sound card makes a difference ... usb devices with good drivers available also makes a difference)
___________

the systems are dual boot systems. so its the same hardware.


Vicidial: VERSION: 2.6-370a BUILD: 120529-2112 | Asterisk 1.4.39.1 | PHP5 v5.3.6 | Ubuntu 10.10 x86_64| Single Server | No Digium/Sangoma Hardware | No Extra Software After Installation | Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5700 @ 3.00GHz | 1 TB Hard Drive

[williamconley]

have you tried sip and iax2?

g729/ulaw/gsm? (in both sip and iax2?) ... ok skipping g729 since it's not free, but at least ulaw & gsm on sip & iax2?

next: does your os have a driver for the sound card(s) on these machines? can you get good sound from a media player while you're in linux?

Also of note: I see a complete lack of mention of the sound hardware in use? Are you using USB headsets with microphones? Microphone and speaker from an onboard sound card? Add-on sound cards? Are all the workstations using the same hardware for sound? Is it possible you just happen to be using a "non-linux-friendly" motherboard/sound card? (no drivers, so the system is using "generic"?)

[sayantandas]

have you tried sip and iax2?

g729/ulaw/gsm? (in both sip and iax2?) ... ok skipping g729 since it's not free, but at least ulaw & gsm on sip & iax2?

next: does your os have a driver for the sound card(s) on these machines? can you get good sound from a media player while you're in linux?

Also of note: I see a complete lack of mention of the sound hardware in use? Are you using USB headsets with microphones? Microphone and speaker from an onboard sound card? Add-on sound cards? Are all the workstations using the same hardware for sound? Is it possible you just happen to be using a "non-linux-friendly" motherboard/sound card? (no drivers, so the system is using "generic"?)

We use headphones with microphones from different brands. But sound seems fine when testing with normal videos or monitoring calls. None of the systems have additional sound card. They use inbuilt cards. Most systems are Dell Optiplex business machines.
We use sip accounts so, tried sip only. I have tried GSM, ulaw. Both codecs start cracking when we use Linux clients. On the same bandwidth ( 0.9 Mbps upload, 20Mbps download ), Windows with x-lite 3.0 no problems.

[williamconley]

sounds like you have old dells that don't have good linux drivers for the OS you are using.

you could try getting a single sound card that has a known good driver for the OS you are using (or a USB headset that has a driver for that OS).

with old "everything on the motherboard" computers this can happen. especially dell as they love to have their own "proprietary" version of everything.

one sound card could be a reasonable investment compared to hours of hunting. and if that works, you can consider investing in the research to see if those built-in cards may have a hidden driver out there on the web. if the card does NOT work, that's a different story entirely.

[sayantandas]

sounds like you have old dells that don't have good linux drivers for the OS you are using.

you could try getting a single sound card that has a known good driver for the OS you are using (or a USB headset that has a driver for that OS).

with old "everything on the motherboard" computers this can happen. especially dell as they love to have their own "proprietary" version of everything.

one sound card could be a reasonable investment compared to hours of hunting. and if that works, you can consider investing in the research to see if those built-in cards may have a hidden driver out there on the web. if the card does NOT work, that's a different story entirely.

the interesting thing is that while watching youtube videos, listening music or barging calls the voice does not crack. then why only during calls?

[williamconley]

all those other sound types will have 16khz or above (often stereo) quality. telephone calls have 8khz mono.

[jlamconsulting]

Ubuntu workstations do not like softphones I have a client using this solution after trying the softphones you listed and it works great http://www.sipservices.gr/web2/web-base ... r-web-site its completely web based
They were having the same issues static etc and only on their ubuntu workstations

[DomeDan]

I have been running Debian with ekiga and firefox on my workstations a long time, had some problems but they have been solved.
hardware:
CPU: P4 1.7Ghz,
Mem: 512Mb,
Soundcard: "Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1" or "Creative Labs CA0106 Soundblaster" or "Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller"

that was just some soundcards I had laying around that worked, I think I had some problems using the internal soundcard

Find out what soundcard you have (command: lspci) and search on google, the ubuntu community have probably already found a way to fix the problem.
And as william suggested, try with other soundcards.

You can do some debugging by setting up a echo test extension http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/v ... =4&t=23172
and I have used mhwaveedit (similar to audacity) to test headsets with "apt-get install mhwaveedit"

[Acidshock]

Its probably a load issue or a driver issue. Also are you doing any automounting of home directories, etc.?

[zefgan]

1. Try adjusting your input and output volume.
2. Try using linphone softphone.

That was my problem before.
I'm using lubuntu and linphone / twinkle
My input volume is set to 70% at MAX...

[leothor]

1. Set your input volume to unamplified.
2. Set your device as "Default ALSA" in your softphone (Ekiga, Twinkle, etc.).

That was our problem too before.
We are using Ubuntu 11.10 /twinkle