I have a problem with my soundcard. It works with most applications, I can use xmms, xine etc.. fine but some applications encounter problems, here is some output produced by some applications:

alsamixer:

ALSA lib control.c:612:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL default
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory


Mozilla (still runs, flash animations have no sound and some streams cause mozilla to crash):
ALSA lib pcm.c:1908:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM hw:0

esd command produces same output as mozilla

I'm using slackware 9.1

I have narrowed down the problem to be something to do with the esound/alsa daemon, but I can;t find configuration files anyone know where these are??? everything works fine using OSS drivers

I know this is an ancient post, but in case anyone searching on the error message 'invalid CTL default' ends up here I'd suggest checking that the file /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf is in the right place and readable. This fixed the problem for me. I'm using alsa version 1.0.6.

To confirm maroonbaboon's findings and hopefully add some useful keywords:

An upgrade of an unknown component in my Fedora Core 4 installation broke ALSA. I was getting the following error from anything using ALSA (notably amixer and alsa mixer):

Turns out that /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf was a symlink to /etc/alsa/alsa.conf. That was all well and good, except /etc/alsa/alsa.conf symlinked back to itself. Totally broken. Fortunately alsa-lib-1.0.10-26.rhfc3.at had left a functioning one in /etc/alsa/alsa.conf.rpmnew. Removing the bad symlink and moving the rpmnew into the normal name fixed things instantly.