Behringer ASIO audio card in Ubuntu

Question

I am owner of Behringer UMC202 audio card and i want to get it working with my Ubuntu 14.04 PC. There is no official support for this card on Mac or Linux (probably).

If i connect device to my PC (with a USB connection), i can see u96k interface appeared in System Settings > Sound. But i hear nothing from analog output of UMC202, and cannot receive any signal. I only hear short 'tick' or noise sounds then i turn PC on or reconnecting device. LEDs on my card are all OFF after a while, except the Power one.

My card has two mono inputs (or stereo one) and two mono outputs (or stereo one), but i also see S/PDIF output in Sounds dialog..

I have found that jackd is required for my case, and installed packeges jackd2 and qjackctl. But problem is that if i open qjackctl and set it to use u96k interface (using Setup button, Settings) it won't start then with this output:

08:12:32.111 Patchbay deactivated.
08:12:32.125 Statistics reset.
08:12:32.149 ALSA connection change.
08:12:32.161 D-BUS: Service not available (org.jackaudio.service aka jackdbus).
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
08:12:32.174 ALSA connection graph change.
08:12:35.451 JACK is starting...
08:12:35.451 /usr/bin/jackd -m -dalsa -dhw:U96k,0 -r96000 -p1024 -n2 -s -m -P -o2 -zr
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
Cannot create thread 1 Operation not permitted
Cannot create thread 1 Operation not permitted
08:12:35.489 JACK was started with PID=9883.
Cannot create thread 1 Operation not permitted
unknown option character  --silent OR -s ]
               [ --sync OR -S ]
               [ --temporary OR -T ]
               [ --version OR -V ]
         -d master-backend-name [ ... master-backend args ... ]
       jackdmp -d master-backend-name --help
             to display options for each master backend
Available backends:
      netone (master)
      loopback (slave)
      firewire (master)
      net (master)
      dummy (master)
      alsa (master)
      alsarawmidi (slave)
Available internals:
      netadapter
      profiler
      netmanager
      audioadapter
08:12:35.587 JACK was stopped with exit status=255.
08:12:35.594 Could not connect to JACK server as client. - Overall operation failed. - Unable to connect to server. Please check the messages window for more info.
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started

I really want to configure this card to use with my ubuntu pc, otherwise i will have to go back to Windows. I am sure that it's even possible sometimes to use windows drivers for Linux systems, but this is too advanced for me alone..

UPDATE Somehow i've started jack server, but do not hear anything or cannot check it. UPDATE 2 Still does not work... Please help if you can...

Solution

You should not need JACK, audio interfaces supporting the USB audio standard (all versions) should work without you having to do anything. In fact, installing JACK may very well be the source of your problems. Usually it is the other way round: USB audio devices work on Linux out of the box while drivers are needed for Windows.

The most frequent problem is that one of the channels is muted or at a low volume, or that JACK is messing things up. So my suggestion is:

• Undo everything you've done, including installing JACK.
• Unplug the sound card, reboot your system, login and then plug the sound card back in and select it from the sound settings.
• Install and run pavucontrol (a GUI tool) to see if anything is muted
• Then also run alsamixer (from a terminal) to check any other channels. In alsamixer, press F6 to select your sound card, then F5 to show all channels. Check that none have the muted checkbox set. Press M to mute/unmute channels.

If it works after these steps, and you are sure that you absolutely need the (possibly) lower latency that JACK provides, you can then always go and try using the device again using JACK. But you should make sure that the device works beforehand.

Comments

[Croll]

It does not work, always silent. ive followed your recommendations (thanks) but no success. Real tragedy...

[Croll]

After few days of hope... I did anything i can imagine. Actually, this page saved me: askubuntu.com/a/150932/383077, somehow, i didn't notice before, that alsamixer shows output channels are MUTED, regardless their volume set maximum. To unmute i had to press M key. To select my card, i used F6 in alsamixer.

[Croll]

Thank you very much. But could you tell me how do i control sample rate and asio buffer size? Do i have to use jackd for that?

[jmiserez]

@DmitrijA I have no idea, sorry. But at least you now know that the card works...

[Matthis Kohli]

If the problem is the input not being recorded then I suggest in the back do toggle the +48V button which solved the issue for me after going through all software configuration steps mentioned in the internet :)