Generic USB device not working

Software
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1

Hello! First of all, thank you for this product.

I tryng to connect my Yamaha AG06 sound card to Zynthian.

If I specify “Generic USB device” at Hardware/Audio in settings, and Yamaha AG06 certainly is it, system did not starts properly and journal is full of such errors:

Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: jackdmp 1.9.14
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: Copyright 2004-2016 Grame.
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: Copyright 2016-2019 Filipe Coelho.
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 70
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|256|2|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|16bit
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: ALSA: Cannot open PCM device alsa_pcm for capture. Falling back to playback-only mode
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: configuring for 44100Hz, period = 256 frames (5.8 ms), buffer = 2 periods
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 16bit little-endian
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: ALSA: cannot set period size to 256 frames for playback
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: ALSA: cannot configure playback channel
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: Cannot initialize driver
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: JackServer::Open failed with -1
Jan 09 04:39:03 zynthian jackd[4724]: Failed to open server

What steps can I take in this case to fix the problem?

The card itself can be located in aplay -L

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
hw:CARD=Headphones,DEV=0
    bcm2835 Headphones, bcm2835 Headphones
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=Headphones,DEV=0
    bcm2835 Headphones, bcm2835 Headphones
    Hardware device with all software conversions
default:CARD=Headphones
    bcm2835 Headphones, bcm2835 Headphones
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=Headphones
    bcm2835 Headphones, bcm2835 Headphones
    Default Audio Device
dmix:CARD=Headphones,DEV=0
    bcm2835 Headphones, bcm2835 Headphones
    Direct sample mixing device
default:CARD=V2
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=V2
    Default Audio Device
hw:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    Hardware device with all software conversions
default:CARD=AG06AG03
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=AG06AG03
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    Front output / input
surround21:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
dmix:CARD=AG06AG03,DEV=0
    AG06/AG03, USB Audio
    Direct sample mixing device
hw:CARD=vc4hdmi0,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=vc4hdmi0,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Hardware device with all software conversions
default:CARD=vc4hdmi0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=vc4hdmi0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=vc4hdmi0,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Front output / input
iec958:CARD=vc4hdmi0,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
dmix:CARD=vc4hdmi0,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-0, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Direct sample mixing device
hw:CARD=vc4hdmi1,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=vc4hdmi1,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Hardware device with all software conversions
default:CARD=vc4hdmi1
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=vc4hdmi1
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=vc4hdmi1,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Front output / input
iec958:CARD=vc4hdmi1,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
dmix:CARD=vc4hdmi1,DEV=0
    vc4-hdmi-1, MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0
    Direct sample mixing device
2

Welocome @baduga to the community. The warmest of Zynthianic greetings to you.

The problem is that JACK (the audio subsystem) is configured to use the first hardware soundcard (or MIDI interface) it finds. (This is setting hw:0.) You need to change this setting.

  • In webconf, navigate to HARDWARE->Audio.
  • In the Jackd Options section change hw:0 to hw:AG06AG03.
  • Save the settings then reboot.

Hopefully this should resolve the issue. Note that you must have the USB soundcard connected from before boot and it must remain connected. You cannot hot-plug the USB soundcard because Zynthian depends on the primary soundcard to be available all the time. Also note that you may only use one soundcard. Zynthian does not support simultaneous use of multiple soundcards.

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Thank you very much, it works!

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Hi all,
I’m new in the community — I’ve received my Zynthian last week! — and I have no experience with the language behind Zynth’s software…

The thing is, I need to connect my iConnectivityAudio4+, but as many newbies, I still don’t manage to do it… I’ve been diving in the forum looking for an updated answer, and I’ve changed the sound card to Generic USB Device (as @riban suggests here), but just a few seconds after rebooting, it reboots again, and again… I’ve tried with this change of the JACK setting (or at least I think I did — again, I don’t fully understand the language) but the problem remains. Any thoughts?

On a related note: as long as these crashes keep happening, is there a way to stop the rebooting loop without having to reburn the SD card and starting from scratch each time? ^^’

Thanks in advance!

Best,
Martín

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The essential part of connecting a Generic USB device is that the zynthian and the Device agree about how they are going to refer to the device when things start up.
If the zynthian in trying to start the Jack layer, where all these conversations take place, cannot make any sense of what the webconf setup describes then you are going to get a perpetual reboot.

The Generic USBdriver can either look for a specific name to start up, and if it’s there then everytihng is great or it can be a bit more generic and try to refer to it via a number that might or might not reference the actual device.

20240129_19h21m00s_grim
20240129_19h21m00s_grim1909×1080 292 KB

Here’s the one for my Behringer 1820 and as you can see the name in the Advanced details section for the jackd options match.You need to establish the name for your machine to use in this section #…

As you can see I get this information using the aplay -l command and this is what you need to get, to make sure you get the machine to start up correctly each time.

In the Interface section of the Webconf there is a section marked Terminal and this is specifically designed to help with this sort of problem. In there you can type aplay -l ( thats a lower case ‘L’ not a 1) and then press enter it should show you a list like mine, and you need to replace the UML1820 with whatever your zynthian reports. Do of course make sure it’s plugged in when you do this. I’ve confused myself that way !

Come back and tell us how you get on.

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to stop rebooting - just change in webconf device to “Rbpi Headphones” for example .
(At the “loop” - Wi-Fi works , so you can change config)

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Thanks a ton, @wyleu and @RusBay!
I’ve managed to stop the infinite loop and to make the interface work.
I’ll certainly be around asking further basic questions, but for now I’m on balance.
Best,
M.

2 Likes
8

Excellent!! May I refer the gentleman to a page describing how best to express gratitude round here ?

1 Like