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/dev/dsp busy, killall esd

After I loaded amarok, and previously when I tried to get mplayer to work, I got an error message that /dev/dsp was busy. I was told that 'killall esd' could fix that. So, I tried it and it -did- work.

Why is /dev/dsp busy?
Why did I have to issue 'killall esd'?
Where can I set it so that esd doesn't come into play, without having to write a little script that runs 'killall esd', unless that's the only choice?

This is the latest hoary release, hoary-rc-install-i386.iso

root@bsubuntu:/proc # cat version
Linux version 2.6.10-5-386 (buildd@terranova) (gcc version 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-8ubuntu2)) #1 Wed Mar 30 19:46:52 BST 2005

root@bsubuntu:/proc # uname -a
Linux bsubuntu 2.6.10-5-386 #1 Wed Mar 30 19:46:52 BST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

Thanks...

Okay, first things first, I run Slackware and am completely unfamiliar with Unbuntu so "grain of salt" and all that.

Now on to the show. Next on the agenda, a broad brush of how sound is handled. Sound as a device has a file in /dev that can be owned by an application, therefore there is a restriction of one application at a time to use the sound.

The way to counter act this is to use a sound daemon. ARTs is the daemon that comes with KDE and Esound is anpther daemon that's out there. There maybe more, however, so if you're interested take a look see.

Why anyone would tell you to 'killall esd' I don't know since that would effectively kill your Esound daemon thereby only allowing one application at a time to use the sound card UNLESS you're also running ARTs, in which case it would make sense however IMHO they could have given you a little background versus just handing out orders. Give a man a fish ...

Now, the easiest way to find out if you are running arts or not is a 'ps aux | grep arts'. 'ps' gives a list of running processes with aux being options ('man' it if you don't understand it) while the pipe symbol '|' takes the output from the first command and pipes it into the second command with 'grep' searching for whatever comes next (in this case 'arts')

The same can be done with esd. 'lsof' gives a list of open files soooooooo if you want to know what application has /dev/dsp open you can do a 'lsof | grep /dev/dsp'. The best path forward here for you (again IMHO) is to figure out which sound daemon you wish to use, read the documentation on the proper installation/configuration and then configure your applications to speak to the sound daemon instead of trying to control the sound directly. Best of luck.

.
Well, I found this :

Quote:

3. Sound and third party software

Ubuntu uses a program called esd to allow multiple applications to access the sound card at one time. However, many third party applications not in Ubuntu main aren't designed to use esd to access the card. On some sound cards, this causes these applications to not produce sound. To work around this problem, esd must be configured to release the sound card when it is not using it. To do this, edit /etc/esound/esd.conf and change the line that begins with spawn_options to begin with default_options. Then, change the -as 5 to -as 2. Finally, remove the two bottom lines about default_options (they are unnecessary).

Note: this problem only occurs on the Ubuntu Hoary release and newer, Warty is not affected by this.

Quote:

bs@bsubuntu:/etc$ cat ./esound/esd.conf
[esd]
auto_spawn=0
#spawn_options=-terminate -nobeeps -as 5
default_options=-terminate -nobeeps -as 2
spawn_wait_ms=100
# default options are used in spawned and non-spawned mode
#default_options=

Before I did that, esd was 'bound' to /dev/dsp. After I did that and then run amaroK, I get:

Code:

bs@bsubuntu:/etc$ lsof | grep /dev/dsp

amarokapp 7708        bs  20w      CHR      14,3              6919 /dev/dsp

(and then after I kill amarok)

bs@bsubuntu:/etc$ lsof | grep /dev/dsp

bs@bsubuntu:/etc$

I did that and rebooted and now I can play amaroK without doing the killall esd.
esd is intermixed among almost everything that produces sound:

Code:

bs@bsubuntu:/etc$ lsof | grep esd

x-session 7515        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

esd      7571        bs  cwd      DIR        3,3    4096    655362 /home/bs

esd      7571        bs  rtd      DIR        3,3    4096          2 /

esd      7571        bs  txt      REG        3,3  39320    844175 /usr/bin/esd

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3  73304    901327 /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnsl-2.3.2.so

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3 1222116    901322 /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.3.2.so

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3  130432    901325 /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm-2.3.2.so

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3  142408    843616 /usr/lib/libaudiofile.so.0.0.2

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3  28656    901475 /lib/libwrap.so.0.7.6

esd      7571        bs  mem      REG        3,3  88936    901160 /lib/ld-2.3.2.so

esd      7571        bs    0r      CHR        1,3              1247 /dev/null

esd      7571        bs    1w    FIFO        0,5              11640 pipe

esd      7571        bs    2w    FIFO        0,5              11640 pipe

esd      7571        bs    3u    unix 0xf1d3bac0              11909 socket

esd      7571        bs    4u    unix 0xf1d3b640              11910 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs    6u    unix 0xf1d3b4c0              11913 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs    7u    unix 0xf1248680              11993 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs    8u    unix 0xef3bb980              12146 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs    9u    unix 0xee0d1dc0              12213 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs  10u    unix 0xecee0200              12293 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs  11u    unix 0xebedab40              12338 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs  12u    unix 0xebbff0a0              12439 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs  13u    unix 0xeb150ac0              12505 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs  14u    unix 0xea016500              12546 /tmp/.esd/socket

esd      7571        bs  15u    unix 0xea2599c0              12580 /tmp/.esd/socket

gnome-set 7575        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gnome-smp 7610        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gnome-vol 7614        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

nautilus  7616        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gnome-pan 7618        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gnome-cup 7620        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gnome-ter 7622        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gaim      7626        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

gaim      7626        bs  mem      REG        3,3    5564    967889 /usr/lib/ao/plugins-2/libesd.so

update-no 7628        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

evolution 7632        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

wnck-appl 7642        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

evolution 7658        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

trashappl 7663        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

evolution 7673        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

mixer_app 7695        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

notificat 7697        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

firefox-b 7741        bs  mem      REG        3,3  32472    843619 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

Many thanks for the fix.
I have been trying very hard to find a solution to /dev/dsp busy, with no success, no I can use both mplayer and realplayer to listen to the BBC, amongst other things.

Jugjogee

Have you tried this?

I do have full duplex sound on Hoary but can't quite remember how I did it, but maybe the method described above gets you the same result. Good luck.

angkor,

Many thanks, I have re-read my post and it should have read
"now I can use both mplayer and realplayer to listen to the BBC" and not 'no'.

I have made a note of the URL, as it has other things that could be of use to me later.

Jugjogee

Quote:

Originally posted by jugjogee
I have re-read my post and it should have read
"now I can use both mplayer and realplayer to listen to the BBC" and not 'no'.

Look at the the bottom right of your post and there's an Edit button. You can click that to fix typos. Also, most people will have read that as 'now', I think, anyway.