Alsa strange issues

HackTidus · 12-30-2008, 01:52 PM

I'm using FC 9, Alsa 1.17-2 and a Pulseaudio server in KDE 4, lately I did a update of a few components including new kernel and after that some programs lost sound, I rebooted and no program makes any sound output, aRtsd isn't able to start alsa either, quite oddly, the ONLY thing that works is lastfm application which says that uses alsa in the settings (can't choose anything else either)

on xine-based apps such as amarok or kaffeine, choosing alsa as the sound engine ends up with an error: xine hasn't been able to init sound device or something like that, selecting pulseaudio seems to do fine, but no sound is made either and app crashes in a few seconds.

I've noticed that every time I want to use sound on anything, the same error comes up:

Code:

ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1008:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device: default can't be opened for playback (Device or resource busy)

I've updated pulseaudio but didn't solve it, alsa updates are not available through yum and tried installing sources which resulted in heavy disaster (why installing a program that is rather big from sources does always fail? hmmm...)

I really don't wanna mess up with sources, there's gotta be another way, because lastfm works...

help me please, not knowing what's wrong with alsa frustates me a lot...

btw, card is a CMI9880

business_kid · 12-31-2008, 07:58 AM

Just try (as root)

modprobe cmipci (I think that's the module)
service alsa restart

and tell us what errors show

HackTidus · 12-31-2008, 12:20 PM

cmicpci isn't the name of the module, anyway, if I try service alsa restart just says that there's no such service...

business_kid · 01-01-2009, 05:03 AM

Your error is telling you it can't find the sound card it's looking for.

You are right about the module - it's been a while since I had that chip; snd-cmipci od snd-cmi8330 are the 2 c-media modules in 2.6.21.5 which is the latest kernel I have here.

It seems to me your new kernel does not have the module for your sound card, or does not have a working sound setup. Try again this way:

Have /usr/src/linux-*/Documentation/sound/alsa/Alsa-Configuration.txt open in another terminal and read along.

I would enable all c-media modules. Building extra modules is pretty harmless, as they just take up a few k of hard disk space.

HackTidus · 01-02-2009, 04:17 AM

Thanks! I'll give it a go!

I don't find strange it was because of the new kernel... a year ago I stopped using linux for two months because the kernel would just not support wlan correctly and that pissed me off...

well, let's see what can I do, I'll hit you back with the results!

HackTidus · 01-02-2009, 04:26 AM

there's no "alsa" folder inside "sound"

besides, the sound folder wasn't inside my linux distro folder, I use fedora and there was a "redhat" folder on /usr/src but there was nothing useful, I found some other folders with names of my kernel and previous ones, and there wasn't any "alsa" folders inside the "sound" folder...

anyway, I want to ask something, if it is because of the kernel, this issue will end when a new kernel is released right?

If that's the case I think I'd better wait for a new kernel unless you guys come up with something

thanks to anyone who helped me here!

HackTidus · 01-03-2009, 04:50 PM

solved.

strangely, as fast the sound went away, as fast it came.

don't remember changing any configuration or installing any updates, but today, alsa started to work again

thanks to everyone here anyway ^^

HackTidus · 01-03-2009, 05:37 PM

it started failing again... I hope that a new kernel will be release in less than a month...