Ardour + Pipewire + Debian Testing = memory allocation error?

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

So, I was running Debian Testing and ran into this issue, so I did a completely fresh re-install and ran into the exact same thing.

I’m trying to use pw-jack, but as soon as I choose it in Ardour and click the button to proceed, I get this error:

Memory allocation error: posix_memalign (64 * 34359738368) failed (Cannot allocate memory)

I have searched and could not find anything related to this. I even compiled Ardour myself (on my install prior to starting completely fresh) and still ran into this same problem.

I tried with and without the limits.conf tweaks, doesn’t seem to make a difference to this error.

Does anyone know what could fix it? I don’t want to go back to Debian Stable (I tried that in between the Testing installs, but had to use Pipewire from backports to get something usable, but had other issues).

#2

Which version of pipewire is that, and which version of Ardour?

64 * 34359738368 = 64 * 2^35 = 2 TB. No wonder your machine cannot allocate that :slight_smile:

It’d be useful to find out where this call originates. Pipewire allocating port-data or Ardour. Getting a backtrace might help: https://ardour.org/debugging_ardour – in your self-compiled version you can directly debug it from the source-tree: ./gtk2_ardour/ardbg

#3

Hi Robin,

The Debian package versions are:
Ardour 8.4.0+ds1-2
Pipewire 1.0.3-1

I’m gonna guess I can’t debug with the Debian packaged version. I will have to reinstall all the build tools and recompile Ardour, I guess. It will take me some time.

#4

You should get the latest release of Ardour, it’s working here on Debian Testing with latest Pipewire

#5

About 4 seconds after I posted my last comment, I had a power outage. When the power came back, I tried Ardour again and it is working, all of a sudden?? I… don’t understand how that could be even possible. Both the self-compiled and the Debian package version are working now.

I do not trust it to stay this way, however, because the first time I saw this issue, it was kinda intermittent, but for the last few days it hasn’t been.

#6

Just as I suspected, I’m back to getting that error.

I followed the instructions, and here’s the full output:

dana@celyn:/music/Ardour$ gtk2_ardour/ardbg
GNU gdb (Debian 13.2-1) 13.2
Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

For help, type “help”.
Type “apropos word” to search for commands related to “word”…
Reading symbols from /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/ardour-8.6.0…
(No debugging symbols found in /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/ardour-8.6.0)
(gdb) r
Starting program: /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/ardour-8.6.0
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library “/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1”.
Ardour8.6.0 (built using 8.6 and GCC version 12.2.0)
[New Thread 0x7ffff03a76c0 (LWP 164812)]
Ardour: [INFO]: Your system is configured to limit Ardour to 1048576 open files
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading system configuration file /music/Ardour/system_config
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading user configuration file /home/dana/.config/ardour8/config
[New Thread 0x7fffebfff6c0 (LWP 164813)]
Ardour: [INFO]: CPU vendor: GenuineIntel
Ardour: [INFO]: AVX capable processor
Ardour: [INFO]: AVX with FMA capable processor
Ardour: [INFO]: CPU brand: Intel(R) Core™ i5-4690 CPU @ 3.50GHz
Ardour: [INFO]: Using AVX and FMA optimized routines
[New Thread 0x7fffeb7fe6c0 (LWP 164814)]
[New Thread 0x7fffeaffd6c0 (LWP 164815)]
[New Thread 0x7fffea7fc6c0 (LWP 164816)]
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading plugin meta data file /music/Ardour/share/plugin_metadata/plugin_tags
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading plugin statistics file /home/dana/.config/ardour8/plugin_metadata/plugin_stats
Ardour: [INFO]: add_lrdf_data ‘/home/dana/.config/ardour8/rdf:/music/Ardour/share/rdf:/music/Ardour/build/rdf:/music/Ardour/gtk2_ardour/rdf:/music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/rdf:/usr/local/share/ladspa/rdf:/usr/share/ladspa/rdf’
Ardour: [INFO]: read rdf_file ‘file:///usr/share/ladspa/rdf/ladspa.rdfs’
[New Thread 0x7fffe9a786c0 (LWP 164817)]
[Thread 0x7fffe9a786c0 (LWP 164817) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffe9a786c0 (LWP 164818)]
[Thread 0x7fffe9a786c0 (LWP 164818) exited]
Ardour: [ERROR]: ControlProtocolManager: cannot load module “/music/Ardour/build/libs/surfaces/websockets/libardour_websockets.so” (libwebsockets.so.17: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
[New Thread 0x7fffe9a786c0 (LWP 164819)]
[New Thread 0x7fffe8fa96c0 (LWP 164820)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd3fff6c0 (LWP 164821)]
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading 459 MIDI patches from /music/Ardour/share/patchfiles
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading default ui configuration file /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/default_ui_config
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading user ui configuration file /home/dana/.config/ardour8/ui_config
[New Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164822)]
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading color file /music/Ardour/gtk2_ardour/themes/dark-ardour.colors
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading ui configuration file /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/clearlooks.rc
start clocking
[New Thread 0x7fffd2fd16c0 (LWP 164823)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd27d06c0 (LWP 164824)]
[Thread 0x7fffd2fd16c0 (LWP 164823) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffd2fd16c0 (LWP 164825)]
[Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164822) exited]
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading bindings from /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/ardour.keys
Loading ui configuration file /music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/clearlooks.rc
[New Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164826)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164827)]
[Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164827) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164830)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164831)]
[Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164830) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164831) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164826) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164834)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164835)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164836)]
[Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164835) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164838)]
[Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164838) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164836) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164834) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164839)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164840)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164841)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd0bff6c0 (LWP 164842)]
[New Thread 0x7fffaffff6c0 (LWP 164843)]
[New Thread 0x7fffaf7fe6c0 (LWP 164844)]
Found nothing along /home/dana/.config/ardour8/templates:/music/Ardour/share/templates:/music/Ardour/build/templates:/music/Ardour/gtk2_ardour/templates:/music/Ardour/build/gtk2_ardour/templates
[Thread 0x7fffaffff6c0 (LWP 164843) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd0bff6c0 (LWP 164842) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd3fff6c0 (LWP 164821) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffd0bff6c0 (LWP 164845)]
[New Thread 0x7fffaffff6c0 (LWP 164846)]
[Thread 0x7fffaffff6c0 (LWP 164846) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffaffff6c0 (LWP 164847)]
[New Thread 0x7fffaeffd6c0 (LWP 164849)]
[Thread 0x7fffaffff6c0 (LWP 164847) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd0bff6c0 (LWP 164845) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffaf7fe6c0 (LWP 164844) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd15dd6c0 (LWP 164841) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd1dde6c0 (LWP 164840) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd37fe6c0 (LWP 164839) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd2fd16c0 (LWP 164825) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffd27d06c0 (LWP 164824) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffe8fa96c0 (LWP 164820) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffe9a786c0 (LWP 164819) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffea7fc6c0 (LWP 164816) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffeaffd6c0 (LWP 164815) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffeb7fe6c0 (LWP 164814) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffebfff6c0 (LWP 164813) exited]
[Thread 0x7ffff03a76c0 (LWP 164812) exited]
[Thread 0x7ffff07eac40 (LWP 164809) exited]
[Thread 0x7fffaeffd6c0 (LWP 164849) exited]
[New process 164809]
[Inferior 1 (process 164809) exited with code 01]
(gdb) thread apply all bt
(gdb)

Edit: also noticed this in dmesg output:

[172247.403219] __vm_enough_memory: pid: 165282, comm: ArdourGUI, not enough memory for the allocation
[172247.403224] __vm_enough_memory: pid: 165282, comm: ArdourGUI, not enough memory for the allocation
[172247.403225] __vm_enough_memory: pid: 165282, comm: ArdourGUI, not enough memory for the allocation
[172247.403230] __vm_enough_memory: pid: 165282, comm: ArdourGUI, not enough memory for the allocation