OpenAL making glitch when looping sound

Question

I'm playing sounds for my game with openAL and I have some problems that sometimes a small glitch is played while looping. Also without looping I get a small pop...sometimes but not all.

I think it has something to do with the buffer being a little too long so there is some undefined data in the end. I just can't figure out how to change this. I'm loading a caf file with this function:

void* MyGetOpenALAudioData(CFURLRef inFileURL, ALsizei *outDataSize, ALenum *outDataFormat, ALsizei *outSampleRate, ALdouble *duration) {
OSStatus                        err = noErr;    
SInt64                          theFileLengthInFrames = 0;
AudioStreamBasicDescription     theFileFormat;
UInt32                          thePropertySize = sizeof(theFileFormat);
ExtAudioFileRef                 extRef = NULL;
void*                           theData = NULL;
AudioStreamBasicDescription     theOutputFormat;

// Open a file with ExtAudioFileOpen()
err = ExtAudioFileOpenURL(inFileURL, &extRef);
if(err) { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: ExtAudioFileOpenURL FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit; }

// Get the audio data format
err = ExtAudioFileGetProperty(extRef, kExtAudioFileProperty_FileDataFormat, &thePropertySize, &theFileFormat);
if(err) { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: ExtAudioFileGetProperty(kExtAudioFileProperty_FileDataFormat) FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit; }
if (theFileFormat.mChannelsPerFrame > 2)  { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData - Unsupported Format, channel count is greater than stereo\n"); goto Exit;}

// Set the client format to 16 bit signed integer (native-endian) data
// Maintain the channel count and sample rate of the original source format
theOutputFormat.mSampleRate = theFileFormat.mSampleRate;
theOutputFormat.mChannelsPerFrame = theFileFormat.mChannelsPerFrame;

theOutputFormat.mFormatID = kAudioFormatLinearPCM;
theOutputFormat.mBytesPerPacket = 2 * theOutputFormat.mChannelsPerFrame;
theOutputFormat.mFramesPerPacket = 1;
theOutputFormat.mBytesPerFrame = 2 * theOutputFormat.mChannelsPerFrame;
theOutputFormat.mBitsPerChannel = 16;
theOutputFormat.mFormatFlags = kAudioFormatFlagsNativeEndian | kAudioFormatFlagIsPacked | kAudioFormatFlagIsSignedInteger;

// Set the desired client (output) data format
err = ExtAudioFileSetProperty(extRef, kExtAudioFileProperty_ClientDataFormat, sizeof(theOutputFormat), &theOutputFormat);
if(err) { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: ExtAudioFileSetProperty(kExtAudioFileProperty_ClientDataFormat) FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit; }

// Get the total frame count
thePropertySize = sizeof(theFileLengthInFrames);
err = ExtAudioFileGetProperty(extRef, kExtAudioFileProperty_FileLengthFrames, &thePropertySize, &theFileLengthInFrames);
if(err) { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: ExtAudioFileGetProperty(kExtAudioFileProperty_FileLengthFrames) FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit; }

// Read all the data into memory
UInt32      dataSize = theFileLengthInFrames * theOutputFormat.mBytesPerFrame;;
theData = malloc(dataSize);
if (theData)
{
    AudioBufferList     theDataBuffer;
    theDataBuffer.mNumberBuffers = 1;
    theDataBuffer.mBuffers[0].mDataByteSize = dataSize;
    theDataBuffer.mBuffers[0].mNumberChannels = theOutputFormat.mChannelsPerFrame;
    theDataBuffer.mBuffers[0].mData = theData;

    // Read the data into an AudioBufferList
    err = ExtAudioFileRead(extRef, (UInt32*)&theFileLengthInFrames, &theDataBuffer);
    if(err == noErr)
    {
        // success
        *outDataSize = (ALsizei)dataSize;
        *outDataFormat = (theOutputFormat.mChannelsPerFrame > 1) ? AL_FORMAT_STEREO16 : AL_FORMAT_MONO16;
        *outSampleRate = (ALsizei)theOutputFormat.mSampleRate;
    }
    else 
    { 
        // failure
        free (theData);
        theData = NULL; // make sure to return NULL
        printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: ExtAudioFileRead FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit;
    }   
}

// Alex(Colombiamug): get the file duration...
// first, get the audioID for the file...
AudioFileID audioID;
UInt32 audioIDSize = sizeof(audioID);
err = ExtAudioFileGetProperty(extRef, kExtAudioFileProperty_AudioFile, &audioIDSize, &audioID);
if(err) { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: ExtAudioFileGetProperty(kExtAudioFileProperty_AudioFile) FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit; }

//now the duration...
double soundDuration;
UInt32 durationSize = sizeof(soundDuration);
err = AudioFileGetProperty(audioID, kAudioFilePropertyEstimatedDuration, &durationSize, &soundDuration);
if(err) { printf("MyGetOpenALAudioData: AudioFileGetProperty(kAudioFilePropertyEstimatedDuration) FAILED, Error = %ld\n", err); goto Exit; }

*duration = soundDuration;
//printf("Audio duration:%f secs.\n", soundDuration);

Exit: // Dispose the ExtAudioFileRef, it is no longer needed if (extRef) ExtAudioFileDispose(extRef); return theData; }

It is part of this soundengine: SoundEngine

I have tried to put my caf file directly into the sample code and it is the same small glitch. (This caf file was doing fine with the old Apple SoundEngine.cpp but I had other issues with that so i decided to change)

Answer 1

Answering my own question ;)

By pure luck I must admit I tried to remove the kAudioFormatFlagIsPacked flag from this line:

theOutputFormat.mFormatFlags = kAudioFormatFlagsNativeEndian | kAudioFormatFlagIsPacked | kAudioFormatFlagIsSignedInteger;

and that fixed it.

If anybody can tell me why it could be nice to know..or if there are some problems in removing that flag I would also like to hear about it.