Mailing List Archive

> I previously had a problem where the first firefox session
> would get sound,

OSS or ALSA?
On 18/06/2011 10:03 AM, "Daiajo Tibdixious" <daiajo@gmail.com> wrote:
> If I use firefox-bin (32 bit) or firefox (64 bit) on youtube, I get
> sound no problems.
> If I run mplayer I get sound also.
> If I use firefox-bin with a java applet that plays sound, I get no sound
at all.
> I can't load this applet in firefox, which is why I still use
> firefox-bin for it.
>
> Googling "no sound in firefox java" gives lots of hits, mainly from
> people with the same problem.
> 1 solution was to "modprobe snd-pcm-oss" which did not help. I.m
> fairly sure this is redundant with base layout 2.
>
> I upgraded the kernel twice, from linux-2.6.36-gentoo-r5 where I
> initially had the problem,
> to linux-2.6.36-gentoo-r8 and now on linux-2.6.38-gentoo-r6 paying
> careful attention to all the sound related configuration options. This
> had no effect.
>
> I've run out of things to try, so I'm asking the list.
>
> I previously had a problem where the first firefox session would get
> sound, but no subsequent application, including firefox would have
> sound, in other words the first invocation of firefox would lock the
> sound. I could live with that, this current problem is far more
> annoying.
>

Daiajo Tibdixious <daiajo@gmail.com> skribis:
> If I use firefox-bin (32 bit) or firefox (64 bit) on youtube, I get
> sound no problems.
> If I run mplayer I get sound also.
> If I use firefox-bin with a java applet that plays sound, I get no sound at all.
> I can't load this applet in firefox, which is why I still use
> firefox-bin for it.

I would set up pulseaudio (if it isn't set up already) and then worry
if I still had trouble with sound.

Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com>
> OSS or ALSA?

Using ALSA by default, although I suspect java or firefox is using OSS
hence playing around the the OSS emulation.

I meant to include this
# lspci | grep Audio
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc HD48x0 audio

I've tried selecting both devices in alsaconf. Same symtoms for both.

On 6/18/11, Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
> I would set up pulseaudio (if it isn't set up already) and then worry
> if I still had trouble with sound.

I installed pulseaudio, added the pulseaudio use flag, and rebuild
with --newuse.
I went thru <http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup> logged out & in from kde,
and got no sound at all.
Rebooted and still no sound, in any application.

If I mplayer -ao pulse, it opens the sound okay, but no sound is audible
if I mplayer -ao alsa it can't find the library, I think thats because
of the rebuild
with pulseaudio use flag.
There is no /dev/dsp device (which is the oss compatibility device).

pavucontrol runs, but doesn't see any sound devices.

<http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/PulseAudio>
suggests doing a "fuser /dev/snd/*" and kill off any process listed.
I have nothing listed here. Before rebooting there were a few KDE
things, eg. knotify
This also suggests killing the daemon and doing "pulseaudio -vvvv"
which gave:
:
D: cli-command.c: Checking for existance of
'/usr/lib64/pulse-0.9.22/modules/module-esound-protocol-unix.so':
success
E: socket-server.c: bind(): Address already in use
E: module.c: Failed to load module "module-esound-protocol-unix"
(argument: ""): initialization failed.
E: main.c: Module load failed.
E: main.c: Failed to initialize daemon.
:
The problem is I now have 3 pulseaudio daemons, which keep starting,
stopping, restarting,
so the PIDs keep changing. I'm about to reboot again to get rid of them.

Daiajo Tibdixious posted on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:48:23 +1000 as excerpted:

> I installed pulseaudio, added the pulseaudio use flag, and rebuild with
> --newuse.
> I went thru <http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup> logged out & in
> from kde,
> and got no sound at all.
> Rebooted and still no sound, in any application.
>
> If I mplayer -ao pulse, it opens the sound okay, but no sound is audible
> if I mplayer -ao alsa it can't find the library, I think thats because
> of the rebuild with pulseaudio use flag.
> There is no /dev/dsp device (which is the oss compatibility device).

I believe Barry and I disagree on pulse. It's yet another layer between
the apps and the hardware that can break, and I don't need it, so from my
perspective I'm better off without it.

As such I know little about it. However, I *DO* know one of the frequent
issues with alsa is that it starts with everything muted by default. You
have to unmute and set the volumes to something reasonable, then if you
want it to keep that instead of coming up muted at each boot, you must
setup something to set it back to the saved settings. (The GUI desktops
normally handle it pretty much automatically, so they're "something", or
setup alsactl to run and set the saved settings at boot, for console-
users. I believe Gentoo's alsa initscript does that if you put it in a
runlevel.)

A lot of folks don't know that and think their audio is broken, even tho
it's simply muted by default.

I've no idea if pulse is similar, tho it would make sense, given you
don't want something blaring unexpectedly so mute-by-default is a very
good policy, but if it is, have you checked that it's not simply muted?

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

On 6/19/11, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> Daiajo Tibdixious posted on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:48:23 +1000 as excerpted:
>
>> I installed pulseaudio, added the pulseaudio use flag, and rebuild with
>> --newuse.
>> I went thru <http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup> logged out & in
>> from kde,
>> and got no sound at all.
>> Rebooted and still no sound, in any application.
>>
>> If I mplayer -ao pulse, it opens the sound okay, but no sound is audible
>> if I mplayer -ao alsa it can't find the library, I think thats because
>> of the rebuild with pulseaudio use flag.
>> There is no /dev/dsp device (which is the oss compatibility device).
>
> I believe Barry and I disagree on pulse. It's yet another layer between
> the apps and the hardware that can break, and I don't need it, so from my
> perspective I'm better off without it.

> I've no idea if pulse is similar, tho it would make sense, given you
> don't want something blaring unexpectedly so mute-by-default is a very
> good policy, but if it is, have you checked that it's not simply muted?

Yeah, checking mute/volume is part of the debugging process.
At the moment I only have 1 master volume, not the whole rack of
volumes in AlSA's mixer, but its not muted nor too low to hear.
I think my problem is that my sound card is not defined to pulse,
can't find out what to do about it.

pulse did seem like a solution to my initial problem.
Anyway, I'm hoping solving this problem will help me with my original problem
(sound in all but firefox java applet).