Re: [FFADO-user] Firewire Audio Setting RME FF400 into Ubuntu 20.10

[Jonathan W. <jw...@ju...>]

Hi Riccardo

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 09:26:59PM +0000, Riccardo Wanke via FFADO-user wrote:
> Hey,I am a new user of FFADO, but I think I am dealing with a complicate
> matter, and I would probably need help.I would like to use a firewire
> Audio device (RME Fireface 400) with Ubuntu 20.10.  My computer doesn't
> have any native firewire output, so I try to connect it through
> thunderbolt (from thunderbolt-3 to thunderbolt-2 and then to Firewire with
> adapters).

Using an adapter chain like this has been successful for others in the past.

> I try to compile my kernel adding the ieee1394 drivers and all
> other possible things that may help (adding the CONFIG_SND_FIREFACE). ...

FFADO consists of two mostly separatable components: ffado-mixer for
controlling device settings and the audio streaming driver which is used
through jackd.

There are two avenues for getting audio into and out of the FF400 in Linux:
 - FFADO's audio streaming system
 - The ALSA fireface driver (snd-fireface)

The ALSA audio driver is developed as part of the ALSA system and is
independent of FFADO.  If you require assistance with this please contact
the ALSA developers through the ALSA mailing lists.

For controlling the FF400 settings, ffado-mixer can be used with either
audio streaming solution.

If you want to make use of FFADO for audio streaming, the kernel
snd-fireface driver is of no use to you.  You will in fact need to ensure it
is NOT loaded.  You can do this either by not enabling it when you compile
your kernel or blacklisting the snd-fireface module.

> But still when I type
> ~$ lsmod | grep fireface
> I dont get nothing.

This means the snd-fireface kernel driver is not loading.  If you intend to
use FFADO through jackd for audio streaming this is not a problem.  However,
if you have compiled snd-fireface and you haven't blacklisted it then one
would expect it to have been loaded if the FF400 was visible on the bus
during this test.  This suggests that there may be an issue with the chained
adapters.

> Instead, when I type
> ~$ lsmod | grep firewire
> I get
> firewire_sbp2          24576  0
> firewire_core          69632  1
> firewire_sbp2crc_itu_t              16384  1 firewire_core

This makes sense given what else you've said.

> But still FFADO does not work:
> ~$ ffado-mixer &
> 
> 1606147832947530:  (ffado-dbus-server.cpp)[ 275] main:  Discovering devices...
> 1606147832950335: Fatal (devicemanager.cpp)[ 187] initialize: No firewire adapters (ports) found.

This suggests that either the firewire adapter isn't being seen through the
thunderbolt adapters or you don't have permission to access the firewire
bus.

> When I run lsusb, I apparently see only one dongle:
> Bus 001 Device 005: ID 05ac:1657 Apple, Inc. Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter
> but I dont know if is a problem of missing drivers or is the connection
> that does not work (with the use of two adapters). 

I'm not sure how far lsusb will see down the chain in your case.  It
certainly won't list anything on the firefire bus.  I suspect it wouldn't
report the thunderbolt-2 adapter either, since from the system perspective
that will be on a thunderbolt bus.  Do you see anything related to this in
the output from the "lspci" command?

Could you please post the output of the "ffado-diag" command?  One thing to
check is your user's group memberships.  In order to access audio devices on
the firewire bus your user needs to be in the "audio" group.  If this isn't
the case then you won't be able to access the firewire audio device through
FFADO.  Your user's group membership will be reported by ffado-diag so we'll
be able to determine if this is the situation.  You can also check this
directly with the "id" command.  If "audio" isn't mentioned in the "groups"
list you will need to add yourself to the "audio" group.

One other thing you can check is the output of the "dmesg" command.  Take a
look for messages related to the firewire bus and post these.  This will
help us work out how far up the adapter chain the system can see.

Regards
  jonathan