Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

We did it!

Thanks to the efforts of Jonpry, (with special thanks to [ACL] and Wozzer) we finally have sound on the TP2!
please visit http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=627997 for more information.

Also, please consider donating to Jonpry via paypal at his email address: jonpry [at] gmail *dot* com

For Historical Purposes
I'm posting this thread because I noticed there's a lot of confusion regarding the status of sound in the Rhod android port, information on the exact reason why sound doesn't work is hard to come by and complicated; so hopefully this thread will clear some of that up.

The Rhodium, like most modern smartphones, has more than one processor, it has four to be exact. Of these processors, two of them are general purpose and two are media processors as follows:

- 1 ARM9 processor that handles the communications stack.

- 1 ARM11 processor upon which the OS (winmo or android) runs on.

- 2 DSP processors that handle the sound and camera functions, they are the QDSP5000 and QDSP4000, they are under the control of the ARM9 processor.

Whenever the phone's OS (WinMo or Android) wants to play sound, it needs to invoke the QDSP5000 chip from the ARM9 processor through a special communications channel between the ARM11 and ARM9 processors. Because this is such a common arrangement in smartphones we already have a standardized way of doing this in the Linux kernel, unfortunately when we attempt to invoke the QDSP5000 chip through this method, it simply does not respond.

This has absolutely stumped developers, there is no reason it shouldn't work, there is nothing wrong with it and it works on every other HTC phone with this chipset, except the Rhodium and Topaz.

How come sound during calls works then?
We have absolutely no idea, it's theorized that WinMo somehow sets it up so that sound during calls is handled exclusively by the ARM9 chip, so when we boot up Android via HaRET, this carries over and in-call sounds are handled all by themselves. Unfortunately this does not carry over to application sounds like the ringer, music and other app sounds.

What can we do to help?
The issue is quite complicated, and at this time it's agreed that the only way to make headway on the issue is to decompile the Rhodium's WinMo sound driver: wavedev.dll. Without the crucial information in this driver, we will never be able to get sound working in the TP2, decompiling drivers is a very tedious, time-consuming and complicated task, and none of the current devs are able to do it at the moment.

If you, or someone you know, has experience in reverse-engineering and decompiling as well as strong C++ and C skills, please take a look at the code. The only way we are going to crack this is by having more eyeballs look at the code.

~ALERT!~(07/16/2010)

Jonpry has developed a wrapper that loads the WinCE "wavedev.dll" driver, eliminating the need to reverse engineer it. Unfortunately loading the wince driver in Android is still not giving us sound, so we need people to help test and develop Jonpry's new 'Vial' wrapper system. The git repository for the source is at http://gitorious.org/vial, please contact Jonpry so he can bring you up to speed on the project.

Thanks for all your hard work bringing sound (et al.) to Android Jonpry!

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Thanks for posting this, I was looking for a good write up on the reasoning for this. I didn't know where the DSP was buried and looking through lines of the current android code wasn't getting me anywhere...

I'm not particularly adept to reverse engineering, but I know a little bit, enough to try and take a look at it.

If you have any headway so far, I'd love to take a look at it and try to continue or make some more headway. shoot me a msg or something.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

+1. Probably the best explanation (concise) I've read about "sound" and Android. Thanks.

Let's hope this thread brings more "eyes" to the project to help solve it.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

You are the man. I just sent you some thanks. Thank you for all your hard work try to get the sound working on android. 1 post and a 35 reputation impressive. It surprises me that 60 people read this post and only 8 people had the common courtesy to say thanks. This guy is doing his best to get the sound working!!!! We should show he more appreciation than this!!!! Only one more thanks for me to make 200 reputation.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

well, I've never really considered myself a programmer, but I've got the flight time to certify..
I've gotten very good at reverse engineering/trouble shooting alot of R&D things over the years (like voip, before it was called that) which brings me to my unique skill set of working in both voice and data. I think alot of data type people have a hard time understanding phone logic.
I have been wanting to get into linux for many years, but never had much reason. till now... sounds like a mystery needs solved..
actually I've never more than looked over a sholder of someone working in c, so I don't even know what the good programming tools for it are, but am willing to give it a go if someone wants to hold my hand till I get walking.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

As this is my first post to the site, I have to say THANKS!!!!! I'm constantly checking the site for any news or updates for android on the Rhodium. I wish you guys the best of luck and I can't wait til it's fully function.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

just FYI, ARM ASM is much different than x86 reversing. I looked into it myself and it's much different.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

My guess is either these are controllers that need firmware from the os to control and run the port for the speakers etc.

Much like most broadcom wifi drivers in linux need a firmware and driver (kernel module) to work. Like most of those you can see you have a wifi card but doesn't work. Firmware can also cause issues like WPA not to work. Most of these chips in the beginning used ndiswrapper which uses the windows firmware to work on linux. Though now there is a built from scratch driver which does have a firmware made for linux.


I also bet more needs built from scratch or hacked from windows to run on linux/android.

Anyway to make a wrapper and process calls through that dll? Is there any specific windows htc audio services that might be the link?

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Anybody find this file? i can see wapdrv.dll and waveapi.dll with total commander...
I've used IDA for x86 stuff and programmed in arm asm so i'd like to at least look in to it

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Thanks for the info, to bad it's not exactly GOOD news lol..

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Indeed, the DSP chips have their own firmware in much the same way wifi chips do.
I suspect that you could load an alternative firmware on to the DSP that would get it to respond the way we want it to, but that's a whole other skill set that few people have, and nearly impossible without either spec sheets from Qualcomm (Which are not publicly available) or extensive reverse-engineering of the chip. Additionally, DSP's have their own language and it's a pretty specialized skill to know how to "speak" it.

An Ndiswrapper style API implementation that would allow us to load the WinCE driver into Linux is possible as well, but I feel that, without other phones that could benefit from this, it would be simpler to decompile the driver with the purpose of gleaning Rhod specific info.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

this question has probably a very simple answer but is there anyway to log absolutely every single process that WinMo does when it activates sound? this way we can see exactly what the process is and reverse it that way. Or is there some type of trace that is changed on the board?

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

wasn't there some kind of trick to get phone working, like making a call during load?
maybe we need a different process to que up the mic and spkr so the proc isn't stuck on phone mode. (maybe why there's startup noise's during boot animation)

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

i am not a programmer but i ran across this recent article on the qualcomm blog perhaps it will help expedite this process :)
http://www.qualcomm.com/blog/2010/05...ace32-software

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Great find!

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Nice find I just sent you some thanks!!!!:headbang:

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

the file is actually called wavedev.dll, to get yourself a copy google "topaz oemdrivers".
thank you phh!

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

is anyone working on the android/dev project chinese? and speaks/reads/writes chinese fluently? I would imagine given that HTC is a taiwanese company. There is much more information on qualcomm's chipsets and this phone in particular on chinese forums.

additionally we could deposit all our "reward" funds into a account and outsource reverse-engineering the driver to a chinese programmer using this "craigslist/ebay"-like online outsourcing service that lets developers bid on doing your "project"

i'm trying to find the name of the site right now. but it had something where you could check the history of the developer bidding to make sure they've done good work in the past for other outsourcers.

my company has outsourced some things on there before with good results.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

http://www.getafreelancer.com may be the site ur referring to

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Wow this is pretty exciting to see more and more people start to get into this issue.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Is there anything in particular I should be looking for? I have decompiled wavedev.dll and am in the process of identifying and renaming all the subroutines that I can. (This is about 45% done.) I'm normally a Java guy but I have done reverse engineering and C in the past. What I haven't really dealt with is kernel or driver development, so while I can map everything out I'm not going to know what it all means.

I have identified multiple functions involved with the audio path, but two of the most interesting seem to be AudioPath2PDA and AudioPath2GSM. Each of them calls the same 3 main functions, but the order is different. AudioPath2PDA disables the receiver, sets the flags and registry that the phone is not active, and then changes the audio mode. AudioPath2GSM turns the hearing aid on (if enabled), sets the flags, sets the audio mode, and then enables the receiver. There is a conditional check on the last step that I think has to do if speakerphone is enabled or not, but it is dependent on a pointer I haven't mapped yet.

Kushiel

P.S. Before anyone asks why there are GSM functions, I've been using the Topaz drivers referenced by ghost_deini.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

i dont understand much of what was said but i know it's way more complicated then simple begging and complaining about when it will be ready can do to help

Thanks android port devs

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Sounds like you guys are moving along with this nicely. Besides ghost_deni, has anyone else visited the irc room? Just want to make sure no one re-invents the wheel if the other devs already are on the same path.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

I actually haven't spoken to any of the devs on the project or joined the irc; I just had some time over the weekend so I thought I would take a crack at it. That being said, I would be delighted to work with other devs to get this taken care of. My wife was jealous of my TP2 when she had a TP, but now that I've moved on to the Incredible and she has the TP2 she wants Android and all the apps!

A little more back on topic, this blog post has some good info on how WM deals with audio: http://blogs.msdn.com/medmedia/archi...ing-guide.aspx As a result, I have been focusing on the HardwareContext class.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Jump in anytime you can. I'm not involved in the sound dev but i know we had 2 guys go into it. Phh and Jonpry were the ones tackling the issue. So just look for them on the irc board.

I spoke to phh to let him know that you guys started this. Here is what he said.

<phh> [acl]: for sound, can you tell the guy to take care of adsp*.dll stuff ?
<phh> (adsp rtos something) adsprtossvccore

I hope that makes sense.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Kushiel, I'm not sure that the Topaz drivers being disassembled are going to help us here. Correct me if i'm wrong here, but my guess is that the topaz and the rhodium translate the audio signals differently... however, I'm sure it won't hurt to have a fully disassembled topaz driver :)

Also judging by the first post here I would guess that what they are looking for is to figure out the way it activates the QDSP5000 processor, currently when they are trying to activate it using a "known" or "common" method, it doesn't respond.

I don't know much about either topics, but I would say that there's where we need to start, how to invoke the processor itself so that it will respond to the calls made to it.

But, assuming I'm correct in that the topaz and rhodium deal with sound differently in their drivers, it also might be a good idea to get a copy of the rhodiums driver rather than the topaz's driver... If needed, I can see about pulling it from my phone or re-compiling the file from the sys files...

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

guys just thought id share something...
on WinMo... there s a program called HD Tweak (NOT HD2 Tweak)
you gotta check this out...
ok, on your TP2, load up HD Tweak.cab (you can find it here on ppcg... remember from the HD1 NOT HD2 Tweak.
Open it and go to the volume settings... Change it from 100db limited to MAXIMAL... Also raise the volume to High on that same config tree...
Reset your phone... In WinMo you will see that the volume is like tripled of that on Audiopara tweak... Awesome... BUT your microphone is now dead... Weird right... Not as much as this... Boot into droid now... Still no sound, and mic is dead too! Change the setting in WinMo and its back..

i think sound has been working the whole time... its just being routed differently...
ive heard of people getting programs like pandora to play sound in android... how?

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

While it's strange that this happens, I'm not sure that it has any bearing on why it's not working. They've already said that they have no idea why the phone calls work with regards to both the mic and the earpiece sound, it just works.

Now if for whatever reason it made the sound play, then we might be on to something.

A good observation though, and it's possible it could help.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

You can't move the wavdev.dll from your phone(i was trying for almost a day) b/c its part of the execute in place kernel, XIP, of winmo. So I went into the irc and phh told me to google topaz oem drivers. As he is one of the most involved devs I did not question him.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

I remember on the TP1 there was an issue with ICR "In-Call Recording" and I was able to copy my wavedev.dll file to my storage card and than from my computer... Not sure if that helps any, but give it a shot...

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

You may not be able to pull it directly from the phone, but you can convert it to a module from the XIP port from within any one of the kitchens for a TP2.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

not sure if this will help but its from the original sprint rom

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Great job gface2K...I am sure this will be very helpful.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Not sure if this will help, but it's just an observation, and maybe it's just my perception.

Whenever my phone sits silent for awhile, and then I do something like...say...bursting the first set of bubbles in Bubble Breaker, it seems as if the sound fades in, as if the sound system was asleep and then woke up.

Is there a subsystem or program that puts the sound to sleep? If so, maybe that's something to look at, how does the sound seemingly fall asleep, and how to wake it up.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

I'm sure that that's just part of the power management that isn't implimented yet, but I'm not sure that it will be of any help.

As has been said, it's more that when the processor is called upon to make sound, it doesn't do anything at all. So whether or not we can wake it up or put it back to sleep at this point is irrelevant, we just need to get it to play any sounds at all.

But as always, any and all observations and thoughts are welcomed. Thanks for sharing. I'm slowly learning ARM ASM, and as soon as it starts to "click," I can hopefully figure out some of the dll files and how exactly they interact with the processors and possibly help to write/fix some of the code. or at least provide the real devs with some good info so that they can write the code and adapt what I find with the existing android code.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

are people still actively working on decompiling the rhodium/topaz drivers?
are they different/do they handle sound differently?
and what specific DLLs am I to focus on.

I'm in the middle of pulling the trigger on outsourcing it to getafreelancer.com to some chinese devs who claim experience with ARM Assembly, developing for mobile platforms/etc. Gonna interview them more thoroughly after I get a better idea of the issue in question. this work they will do will have to be limited to the reverse engineering/decompiling of the .dlls as obviously they won't have the hardware or anything like that to test with.

Want to make sure i'm not duplicating work being done/almost done already.. I'm putting $500 on it for now. although in two months i'll be able to put more $ on the comission. (speaking of which I'm willing to pay that $500 if someone on here manages to to do it and find out what the hang up in the driver is.)

I figure chinese devs have access to resources we don't (in terms of chinese community dev-forums and being able to read white-papers/etc that may be in chinese and not in english.)

so I need to know Do I give them Topaz driver or Rhodium driver?
does anyone know where I can find a comprehensive white paper/documentation of the chipset archictecure for the phone?

I've been playing with the EVO. It would be perfect if it had a hardware keyboard.
sigh. not one decent snapdragon wvga keyboard cdma slider on the horizon.

finally. what is the IRC server and irc channels for this phone and/or the dev efforts?
i found this log page. but is this the most active channel?
http://irclog.netripper.com/?chan=ht...month=5&day=20

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Yes, that is the most active channel.

Pay chinese devs ? or pay chinese htc employees who wanna make a quick buck? :-p

ALso have you guys looked into the win dmesg ? there is tons of crap logged when the phone boots.

edit: here is the dmesg from a rhod400 http://pastebin.com/M1Ad4YMv

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

lol. if these chinese devs claim to have experience with qualcomm chipsets and HTC phones in particular. who am I to question that coincidence.

plausibly they could just be a group of middle-class chinese nerd enthusiasts like us who have the benefit of reading documentation on the chipsets that happen to only be in chinese.

anyway after spending some hours reading the logs. short of the xda-dev thread (Link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...=671998&page=3 ) where someone was willing to tear apart/break his TP2 to do some hardware tracing/diagnostics on the system board itself.



pending what the diagnostics/tracing discovers. I'll hold off on the hiring. might give me more details to add into project goal description.

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Yea. I'm on that thread as well waiting for results. I'm actually salivating just thinking of the possibilities ..

Re: Why sound isn't working on the TP2.
 

Please. let me know of some of these possibilities
I've been hoping the TP2 running android with sound reasonbly fast would be all I need to hold me over.

because Im being tempted with a free HTC evo right now.
and I'm playing with it.
but I realllly like my SERO plan.
and having a hardware keyboard.

but it's tempting me towards the darkside.