I'm running Mandrake 9.1 with a Soundblaster Live card. It has worked fine as recently as last night, but today I get no sound whatsoever. Mplayer is the only program I've tried that actually gives me an error:

"Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound"

XMMS gives no error and continues to operate; a flash video that normally contains sound is silent.

Here's dmesg:
Linux version 2.4.21-0.13mdk (flepied@bi.mandrakesoft.com) (gcc version 3.2.2 (Mandrake Linux 9.1 3.2.2-3mdk)) #1 Fri Mar 14 15:08:06 EST 2003
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000013ff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 0000000013ff0000 - 0000000013ff3000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 0000000013ff3000 - 0000000014000000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
319MB LOWMEM available.
ACPI: have wakeup address 0xc0001000
On node 0 totalpages: 81904
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 77808 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=linux ro root=301 devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 997.492 MHz processor.
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 1985.74 BogoMIPS
Memory: 320668k/327616k available (1410k kernel code, 6564k reserved, 1118k data, 136k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 256K
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Pentium III (Coppermine) stepping 06
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 997.4759 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 132.9966 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 1329966, slice: 664983
CPU0<T0:1329952,T1:664960,D:9,S:664983,C:1329966>
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20030122
ACPI: Disabled via command line (acpi=off)
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb020, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
PCI: Disabling Via external APIC routing
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x07 (Driver version 1.16)
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
devfs: v1.12c (20020818) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x1
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xd4800000, size 4096k
vesafb: mode is 800x600x16, linelength=1600, pages=3
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:0a08
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 25593 bytes).
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80x16
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 32000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686a (rev 1b) IDE UDMA66 controller on pci00:07.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd000-0xd007, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd008-0xd00f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddMA
hda: C/H/S=28733/16/255 from BIOS ignored
hda: WDC WD600BB-32CXA0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: CREATIVE DVD-ROM DVD1243E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: DMA disabled
blk: queue c03cb420, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdb: DMA disabled
hdc: SONY CD-RW CRX230E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: IC35L120AVVA07-0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: DMA disabled
hdd: DMA disabled
blk: queue c03cb9a8, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 117231408 sectors (60022 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=116301/16/63, UDMA(66)
hdd: host protected area => 1
hdd: 241254720 sectors (123522 MB) w/1863KiB Cache, CHS=239340/16/63, UDMA(66)
Partition check:
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 < p5 >
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target1/lun0:<6> [PTBL] [15017/255/63] p1
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 46k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Mounted devfs on /dev
Mounted devfs on /dev
Freeing unused kernel memory: 136k freed
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 15:32:56 Mar 14 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:07.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:07.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:0b.0
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd400, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:07.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:07.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:0b.0
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd800, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
Adding Swap: 1422248k swap-space (priority -1)
hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-1, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x46d/0xc00e) is not claimed by any active driver.
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
input0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse] on usb1:2.0
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
usb.c: registered new driver usb_mouse
usbmouse.c: v1.6:USB HID Boot Protocol mouse driver
0: nvidia: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 nvidia.o Kernel Module 1.0-4321 Wed Mar 5 19:13:04 PST 2003
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: SONY Model: CD-RW CRX230E Rev: QYS1
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
i2c-core.o: i2c core module version 2.7.0 (20021208)
i2c-algo-bit.o: i2c bit algorithm module version 2.7.0 (20021208)
Linux video capture interface: v1.00
bttv: driver version 0.7.100 loaded
bttv: using 4 buffers with 2080k (8320k total) for capture
bttv: Host bridge is VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C693A/694x [Apollo PRO133x]
bttv: Host bridge is VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI]
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 00:09.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 12 with 00:09.1
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 00:09.0, irq: 12, latency: 32, mmio: 0xdc102000
bttv0: detected: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13], PCI subsystem ID is 1461:0004
bttv0: using: BT878(AVerMedia TVCapture 98) [card=13,autodetected]
bttv0: Avermedia eeprom[0x4002]: tuner=2 radio:no remote control:no
bttv0: using tuner=2
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16c54 (PV951)
tuner: probing bt848 #0 i2c adapter [id=0x10005]
tuner: chip found @ 0xc2
tuner: type set to 2 (Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and compatibles))
bttv0: i2c attach [client=Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and ,ok]
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 ... ok
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
hdb: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide1(22,65), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.26
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0a.0
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xd5012000, 00:30:84:9d:6d:52, IRQ 11
eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139C'
inserting floppy driver for 2.4.21-0.13mdk
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 251x/52x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
eth0: Setting 100mbps full-duplex based on auto-negotiated partner ability 41e1.
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
Creative EMU10K1 PCI Audio Driver, version 0.20, 15:30:48 Mar 14 2003
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:0b.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:07.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:07.3
emu10k1: EMU10K1 rev 7 model 0x8061 found, IO at 0xe000-0xe01f, IRQ 5
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x8384:0x7608 (SigmaTel STAC9708)
emu10k1: SBLive! 5.1 card detected
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,EPP]
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 262M
agpgart: Detected Via Apollo Pro chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 32M @ 0xda000000
parport0: Printer, APOLLO APOLLO P-2200
parport_pc: Via 686A parallel port: io=0x378
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
Splash status on console 0 changed to off
smb_retry: no connection process
smb_retry: no connection process

Drakesound doesn't show any problems either any ideas?

do you get an error when you start kde that says "unable to open sound device /dev/dsp"?

it seems your audio module is loading, but post your lsmod here

also, do ls -l /dev/dsp and see what it is; you should go ahead and do chmod 777 /dev/dsp while su in konsole

I get no errors when KDE loads. ls -l /dev/dsm results are:

lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 9 Mar 4 20:52 /dev/dsp -> sound/dsp

looks like you might be using devfs

after booting try

chmod -R 777 /dev/sound

if it works then put that in some startup file like /etc/rc.local

There is a way of telling devfs to remember it's settings, haven't gotten around to check how, yet

cheers
bareego

Still nothing.

Out of frustration, I decided to try installing SuSE 9 on my desktop (I'd been running it previously only on my laptop) and still have no sound, though Mplayer now encounters no error. I think this might be a mixer setting problem, though I've checked every mixer that was installed, and everything seems to be correct, and YaST detects my sound card correctly.

go back to your original distro and do chmod 777 /dev/dsp and chmod 777 /dev/mixer

I've had a similar problem; it happened to me when I added a USB webcam with a microphone on it.

The problem was that usb devices get set up first, and so the USB device got set up as my first sound card, and my regular sound card got second place.

Since the system assumes that there's only one sound card, it tried to send sound out my webcam and got an error (and no sound).

From the dmesg output you've got, I suspect your video tuner is getting to be your first sound card.

try instaling speex (it's a voice audio codec). some video files need it in order to hear the audio part of them. just use http://rpm.pbone.net/ to find the right package for ur distro.
PS: after u install speex u might need to reinstall mplayer.
i hope this will help u, if u didn't solve the problem yet .

I got the same problem. I have FC8, i386. I have solved my problem like this : just go to mplayer-preferences-audio and from the audio drivers, try one by one untile u get it working. The first of them worked for me.

Since i've been using by default pulseaudio in fc8 and oss with alsa on it (for some specific reasons) i've tried to then edited it (with vim) and changed to all works for me now. however you can try add a while you play your files. this should work too.