annoying problem with XMMS i had last year is now back
 

Dear users

I am experiencing that same issue I complained about last year when I used Fedora Core 3 in regards to the XMMS player suddenly losing the ability to play music.

this time, i ran it in terminal and i get this error when I attmempt to play any file"


ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:851:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to create IPC shm instance

** WARNING **: alsa_setup(): Failed to open pcm device (default): Permission denied


XMMS works under OSS but sounds crappy...the ALSA driver truly is superior. Since it was a permissions error, i tried running XMMS as root. That works out fine, but I'm not sure I want to have to do it each time. not sure why suddnely this has happened, anyone have any ideas?

thanks

i checked out yum and found an update to alsa-libs and alsa-utils.

I ran those and the problem disappeared.

grr
 

and then came back again. anyone?

Alright. It appears that if you turn on sounds to happen in the login screen; it locks up ALSA. I disabled that functionality and now its workign again.

The problem is likely to be that you do not have hardware mixing on your soundcard. So only one program at a time can use sound.
When you play a sound at login, the player for that sound grabs the sound device, and then holds on to it, so XMMS cannot use it.

You have already discovered one solution (Disable the login sound).

Another solution might be to look at K-> System Settings-> Sound System-> General (Or similar for Gnome), then set "Auto-suspend if idle after" to one second. Then, one second after your login sound has finished, XMMS can grab the sound device. Choose a short login sound, or be prepared to wait......

A possible third solution: Please google for "Alsa software mixer"

HTH

thats true
 

on this problem, i do have to be honest that I had my SBLive break (a user error with a certian jack on the outside) and I had to switch to onboard audio and that was when it happened (*this time)

In the past, it would happen with the normal SBLive card.

I got a new Audigy card today, and will install it later tonight. Let's hope that it works, otherwise I'll have to reinstall Fedora