Probes¶

Typically, pipeline for audio data processing contains several components separated by data buffers; the probe module is a debug feature that allows for data extraction from (or injection into) these buffers. It aids in finding audio issues or bugs in audio components with possible data analysis from each buffer.

Requirements¶

Install tinycompress (crecord tool)

Enabling Probes¶

Enable the following Linux kernel configuration options:

CONFIG_DEBUG_FS=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_DEBUG_PROBES=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_HDA_PROBES=y

Enable the Probe module in the SOF firmware kconfig using this command:
```
make menuconfig
```
Refer to Step 3 Build firmware binaries in Build SOF from Scratch for reference.

Note that you do not need to modify the audio topology file.

Data extraction¶

Extraction is the most common use case. It allows for data extraction from the audio component data buffer. It requires starting the compress stream by starting the crecord tool. Note that one compress stream may contain data from several extraction probe points which means data parsing is needed at the last stage of extraction.

Start the crecord tool to prepare the extraction stream (read the crecord readme file):

crecord -c0 -d23 -b8192 -f4 -FS32_LE -R48000 -C4 /tmp/extract.dat

Usage:

-d : device ID; equals 23 in the above example.
-b : buffer size. For probes, this is part of the probe
     initialization IPC and denotes the extraction stream buffer size on the host side.
-f : fragments is basically number of periods for compress stream.

The other parameters are “don’t-cares” for the driver.

Use aplay to start the playback stream.

Pause the playback stream. (optional)

Add probe points via the debugfs “probe_points” entry in /sys/kernel/debug/sof

For example, to add a buffer with 7 probe points:

echo 7,1,0 > probe_points

Refer to the host side struct sof_probe_point_desc defined in sound/soc/sof/probe.h or struct probe_point in /src/include/ipc/probe.h from sof for the meaning of the triplets:

/**
 * Description of probe point
 */
struct probe_point {
        uint32_t buffer_id;     /**< ID of buffer to which probe is attached */
        uint32_t purpose;       /**< PROBE_PURPOSE_EXTRACTION or PROBE_PURPOSE_INJECTION */
        uint32_t stream_tag;    /**< Stream tag of DMA via which data will be provided for injection.
                                 *   For extraction purposes, stream tag is ignored when received,
                                 *   but returned actual extraction stream tag via INFO function.
                                 */
} __attribute__((packed));

In the above example, 7 stands for the buffer_id which is a monolithic counter value that follows a component instantiation order.

One way to find out the right instance of buffer_id is to enable dev_dbg in sound/sound/soc/sof/topology.c and search for the widget id from the following messages:
dev_dbg(scomp->dev, "tplg: ready widget id %d pipe %d type %d name : %s stream %s\n",
        swidget->comp_id, index, swidget->id, tw->name,
        strnlen(tw->sname, SNDRV_CTL_ELEM_ID_NAME_MAXLEN) > 0
                ? tw->sname : "none");

Unpause the playback stream. (optional)
Close the playback stream when done.
Close the crecord tool.

Data parsing¶

As previously mentioned, one compress stream can contain data from several extraction probe points which means data parsing is needed at the final stage of extraction. The following example demonstrates how to extract data. Use -p for parse.

Usage and ouput:

$ ./sof-probes -p /tmp/extract.dat
sof-probes:   Parsing file: /tmp/extract.dat
sof-probes:   Creating wave file for buffer id: 7
sof-probes:   done

As a result, buffer_7.wav is generated in the tools/build_tools/probes folder. The wave file can then be examined with your tool of choice such as Audacity.