I ran R5D1 successfully for months. Did a fresh install of R5E50
on the same hardware (except a fresh 250Gig drive). During boot,
alsa driver crashes. Subsequently, system runs (well, at least sound
does work if I connect to /dev/mixer1). But if I try to run aumix or
alsamixer on the 0 sound card, it will hang forever. /dev/mixer1
corresponds to the (VIA) motherboard sound hardware.

My guess is that the PC-HDTV card onboard sound interface is
what's doing this.

Why is this happening on R5E50 but not the prior release?

How can I fix this?

Thanks,
Bill in New Jersey

Tuner Card is:
PC-HDTV x000 (doesn't say on the card)
about which lspci says:
00:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 05)
00:09.1 Multimedia controller: Conexant CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [Audio Port] (rev 05)
00:09.2 Multimedia controller: Conexant CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [MPEG Port] (rev 05)
00:09.4 Multimedia controller: Conexant CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [IR Port] (rev 05)



BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000
printing eip:
deabd70b
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
PREEMPT SMP
Modules linked in: gameport snd_ac97_codec snd_ac97_bus snd_mpu401_uart usbhid snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device parport_pc parport cx88_dvb cx8802 cx88_vp3054_i2c mt352 dvb_pll or51132 video_buf_dvb dvb_core nxt200x isl6421 zl10353 cx24123 lgdt330x cx22702 8250_pnp 8250 serial_core cx88_alsa snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm snd_timer snd soundcore snd_page_alloc cx8800 cx88xx i2c_viapro serio_raw via_ircc irda ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore bt878 tuner tvaudio tda7432 bttv video_buf firmware_class ir_common compat_ioctl32 i2c_algo_bit btcx_risc tveeprom i2c_core videodev v4l1_compat v4l2_common shpchp pci_hotplug via_agp agpgart evdev
CPU: 0
EIP: 0060:[<deabd70b>] Not tainted VLI
EFLAGS: 00010202 (2.6.18-chw-13 #1)
EIP is at snd_cx88_capture_volume_get+0xb/0x30 [cx88_alsa]
eax: 00000000 ebx: dc373440 ecx: 00000001 edx: dbced000
esi: 00000000 edi: dbced040 ebp: 00000000 esp: ddda9da4
ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068
Process amixer (pid: 2058, ti=ddda8000 task=ddea8770 task.ti=ddda8000)
Stack: debb674f dc373440 dbced000 22222222 dc4f054c 00000000 dc4f05bc dbced000
dc4f0400 debb7f83 dc4f0400 dbced000 ddda9df4 dc31b260 00000000 debd4000
00000000 dc3734a8 dc4f054c dc4f054c 00000001 00000002 00000000 00000000
Call Trace:
[<debb674f>] snd_ctl_elem_read+0xbf/0xd0 [snd]
[<debb7f83>] snd_ctl_ioctl+0x863/0xb10 [snd]
[<c015ac8e>] find_get_page+0x1e/0x50
[<c015acaa>] find_get_page+0x3a/0x50
[<c015da9f>] filemap_nopage+0x13f/0x410
[<c015dc73>] filemap_nopage+0x313/0x410
[<c016e6c8>] page_add_file_rmap+0x18/0x20
[<c0168c36>] __handle_mm_fault+0x546/0x950
[<c016892d>] __handle_mm_fault+0x23d/0x950
[<c018e04c>] do_ioctl+0x1c/0x70
[<c018e0f2>] vfs_ioctl+0x52/0x2e0
[<c018e3dd>] sys_ioctl+0x5d/0x70
[<c01031f7>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
Code: e1 05 0f bc c2 75 05 b8 ff ff ff ff 01 c8 e9 81 fe ff ff 0f 0b 9c 01 70 de ab de e9 aa fe ff ff 8b 44 24 04 8b 54 24 08 8b 40 5c <8b> 00 8b 40 38 8b 80 94 05 32 00 83 f0 ff 83 e0 3f 89 42 44 31
EIP: [<deabd70b>] snd_cx88_capture_volume_get+0xb/0x30 [cx88_alsa] SS:ESP 0068:ddda9da4

Try disabling the onboard sound then performing the install. Enable the sound after install then run /etc/init.d/alsa.

I don't understand what this will do for me. Can you explain?

The onboard sound is working fine, the driver is crashing when it
tries to interface with the CX23880 as far as I can tell.

A re-install seems so, umm, Windows-like, and takes a while, including
restoring all the recorded shows that I copy over from my old
installation, so I resist that if possible.

Thanks,
Bill

See the R5E50 upgrade hints thread. Search for the word "blacklist" there...

OK, fix is in the R5E50 upgrade hints thread:

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13108

and the actual fix is:

echo "blacklist cx88_alsa" >>/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

to prevent cx88_alsa driver from loading.

Thanks, tjc, for your help.

Bill