sound with XMMS but not with anything else

jimjamjahaa · 05-01-2006, 08:47 AM

i have sound working nicely in XMMS but in flash videos, VLC, xine and ePSXe the sound does not work

i am using a breezy server install with fluxbox. not sure what other information to give

bulliver · 05-01-2006, 10:10 AM

Start apps that do not work from the cli and read the errors when it tries sound playback ie:

Code:

$ xine <file>

jimjamjahaa · 05-01-2006, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bulliver

Start apps that do not work from the cli and read the errors when it tries sound playback ie:

Code:

$ xine <file>

from VLC:

[00000303] oss audio output error: cannot open audio device (/dev/dsp)

does that help you?

i have a feeling this is to do with file permissions...

brianthegreat · 05-01-2006, 11:13 AM

You could try killall esd and see if that works but the problem seems to persist somewhere else.

jimjamjahaa · 05-01-2006, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianthegreat

You could try killall esd and see if that works but the problem seems to persist somewhere else.

ok i dont know why i didnt try this before but it seems that the file /dev/dsp gets locked when anything that uses sound is running, meaning that only one thing can use sound at a time. which is not very helpful.

however i did just have a good bash on ye olde resident evil which i was most pleased about.

killall esd returns "no process killed"

bulliver · 05-01-2006, 12:06 PM

Quote:

it seems that the file /dev/dsp gets locked when anything that uses sound is running,

Are you using OSS or Alsa? What soundserver are you running if any? I have heard of people having troubles such as yours with arts...

I use alsa and _no_ soundserver, and it works just fine for me. That is, I get simultaneous playback from 2 or more sources...

jimjamjahaa · 05-01-2006, 03:39 PM

in my process list i can't find alsa or OSS and i wouldnt know what else to look for...

in synaptic alsa says its installed, how can i make sure it is set to start up at boot time?

jimjamjahaa · 05-03-2006, 11:22 AM

BUMP!

(at least 10 characters lol)

herd · 05-03-2006, 12:42 PM

try dmesg | grep -i alsa

jimjamjahaa · 05-03-2006, 01:33 PM

ok, done, no error, no message of any kind....

herd · 05-08-2006, 09:33 AM

Just saw the OSS line and here is the explanation:

OSS is single user only, meaning no two programs can use OSS at the same time.
You have to pick a sound server that supports mixing:
- alsa (not dependant on anything else)
- artsd (KDE related)
- esd (gnome related)
are your options

Probably, a server install will not start any of these, why should it? Servers are headless boxes with no sound in general.

Once you have configured one of these sound servers to be started with bootup,
configure each app to use it. (xmms: plugins/output). The trouble is that all of these servers will try to cooperate with legacy apps that insist on OSS and stopping their output so that a running xmms instance using OSS can block sound output for all others forever.

Some apps like mplayer (command line, not gmplayer) are smart enough to detect which sound server is running and tell you on their console output and gently degrade e.g. from esd to alsa to oss.

hth,

herd