Link and Onboard Incoming Audio Levels Low after ASL3 update / upgrade

AllStarLink
1

Hello all.

After finally issuing an apt update && apt upgrade, allowing ASL3 to be updated to the specs shown below, I noticed, first via my playnews script running, that ANY AUDIO, outside of anything handled by my simpleusb (repeater) portion, is much lower than the repeated audio ( yes I am using ASL3 as a repeater as well).

This "ANY AUDIO" includes the audio files being played from playnews, which are converted to the proper format, and any link audio from other repeaters or my separate ASL3 hub.

I did notice a new parameter called linkmongain in the rpt.conf file after the update set to -22 which I am only assuming controls link audio. I changed that to 0db and the audio levels from either connected links or the playnews script did not change. I even set it to +20 with no changes.

I did realize modules, such as dahdi, were re-compiled and updated so I am, again, only assuming this may be the start of my issue.

Just to add, I actually noticed the change after re-installing my ASL3 HUB which installed the latest ASL3 version (rxchannel = Local/pseudo) on a Debian 13 machine where I initially ran the playnews script so that anyone connecting to the HUB, including my repeater that auto connected, could tune into the broadcast.

Then, I ran the playnews script before I did the update / upgrade on my repeater where the audio was working fine but drop drastically afterwards. That's what really caught my attention.

Any ideas of where to start troubleshooting this change? Again, below is listed my current OS and ASL3 version information which seems to include individual module versions as well.

Thanks for any assistance in this matter.

********** AllStarLink [ASL] Version Info **********

OS : Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
OS Kernel : 6.1.0-48-amd64

Asterisk : 22.8.2+asl3-3.8.3-1.deb12
ASL [app_rpt] : 3.8.3

Installed ASL packages :

Package Version
============================== ==============================
asl3 3.17-1.deb12
asl3-asterisk 2:22.8.2+asl3-3.8.3-1.deb12
asl3-asterisk-config 2:22.8.2+asl3-3.8.3-1.deb12
asl3-asterisk-modules 2:22.8.2+asl3-3.8.3-1.deb12
asl3-menu 1.18-1.deb12
asl3-update-nodelist 2.0.0-1.deb12
asl-apt-repos 2.0-1.deb12
dahdi 1:3.1.0-2
dahdi-dkms 1:3.4.0-11.asl.deb12
dahdi-linux 1:3.4.0-11.asl.deb12
dahdi-source 1:3.4.0-11.asl.deb12

2

So I manually connected my repeater to the WINN System in monitor mode and the audio there seems to be fine.

Now I think Im just looking at playnews. Maybe SOX, LAME and/or BC were updated as well and now is causing some sort of issue.

I'll dig deeper and see.

Thanks

Kilo (Harold)

3

Be sure only ulaw audio files exist in the directory with the name of the file you are attempting to playback. ASL3 may attempt to playback non ulaw audio files, if they have the same name, and the audio level may not be the same.

David, WD5M

4

Thanks for the replay.

The script removes all none ulaw files once it converts and chops em up.

Im going to do a full reinstall of everything to see what happens. I didnt jot down which

version I was running before I updated so I cant figure out which older version to install to test.

Kilo K7ILO

5

Nothing about playback/localplay audio levels have changed in the latest set of packages. They'll be played in at normal "line level" into Asterisk and only the channel driver will change the audio level (if the channel driver you're using supports it). There was changes to how audio files are detected. The other issue if your encoding to ulaw might have had a quirk that worked okay with dahdi but not otherwise?

6

Ok, I can see dahdi maybe being an issue. So does the latest ASL3 version not use dahdi anymore or if so, what's the difference in the latest ASL3 version?

Kilo K7ILO

7

BTW

I just looked at the release history and looked for everything that had dahdi in it and I noticed that, when it was working fine (well in my mind), it was up to the last release i tried of 22.7.0_asl3-3.7.1-1 and found starting with version 22.8.2_asl3-3.8.0-1, asl-dahdi was repaired and the dependency for it was removed.

Just a FYI

Kilo K7ILO

8

Ok so I found that something changed between versions 2:22.7.0+asl3-3.7.1-1.deb12, where the audio level is good and drops in the latest version of 2:22.8.2+asl3-3.8.3-1.deb12.

I manually updated to 22.9.0_asl3-3.9.0-1 from the github site since its not yet available via apt with the same low audio level results.

I just downgraded to 2:22.7.0+asl3-3.7.1-1.deb12 which seems to work as I need at the moment

Just my observations

Kilo K7ILO

9

So poking around on Google, I found I was totally unaware that asl3 already has asl-play-arn

available for arn playback. I will check later on to see if this performs differently than the script I am currently using.

Kilo K7ILO

10

from Terminal: asl-<TAB><TAB> is your friend (command completion) :nerd_face: