Recommendation from Lennart Poettering: In ALSA_OpenAudio(): instead of setting period_size+n_periods OR buffer_size I'd recommend copying the hwparams stuff before you do this, then first try period_size+n_periods, and then apply it with snd_pcm_hw_params() and check if that works. If it didn't you should take the copy of hwparams and try setting buffer_size and apply that via snd_pcm_hw_params() and check if that worked. And if that failed too, then take the copy and don't apply neither period nor buffer settings and see if that works.