[arch-general] alsa, hdmi, and the invisible magic output

Fri Dec 3 16:18:32 EST 2010

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Damjan Georgievski <gdamjan at gmail.com>wrote:

> > Also, when trying to open a file with alsaplayer, if vlc or banshee are
> > already playing something, that error pops out:
> >
> > ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
> > snd_pcm_open: Device or resource busy (plug:dmix)
> > [...]
> > NOTE: THIS IS THE NULL PLUGIN. YOU WILL NOT HEAR SOUND!!
> >
> > I don't understand.
> > As far as I remember, I was always able to play a game while watching a
> > video and/or playing music.
> > What happends?
>
> lsof /dev/snd/*
>
> this command will tell you what program has the sound card open.
>
> --
> damjan
>

while using vlc and/or banshee, lsof returns:
COMMAND    PID  USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
pulseaudi 6704 faust  mem    CHR  116,4          4477 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
pulseaudi 6704 faust   21u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi 6704 faust   22u   CHR  116,4      0t0 4477 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
pulseaudi 6704 faust   23u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi 6704 faust   30u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0
mixer_app 6821 faust   22u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0

and once I started playing a video with opera (shutting down vlc/banshee),
lsof gives:
COMMAND     PID  USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
pulseaudi  6704 faust   23u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi  6704 faust   30u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0
mixer_app  6821 faust   22u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0
operaplug 29834 faust  mem    CHR  116,4          4477 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
operaplug 29834 faust   10r   CHR  116,2      0t0 3694 /dev/snd/timer
operaplug 29834 faust   11u   CHR  116,4      0t0 4477 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
operaplug 29834 faust   12u   CHR  116,7      0t0 4480 /dev/snd/controlC0

Even if I pkill pulseaudio, after restarting vlc, it comes back.

I'm also a bit surprised by the logs I found on messages:

Dec  3 19:16:01 alpha crond[2005]: FILE /var/spool/cron/root USER root PID
29120 job sys-hourly
Dec  3 19:30:01 alpha crond[2005]: FILE /var/spool/cron/faust USER faust PID
29258 /usr/local/bin/switch_wall
Dec  3 19:38:47 alpha pulseaudio[6704]: module-x11-publish.c: PulseAudio
information vanished from X11!
*Dec  3 18:39:31 alpha rtkit-daemon[2346]: Successfully made thread 29933 of
process 29933 ((unreachable)/usr/bin/pulseaudio) owned by '42' high priority
at nice level -11.
Dec  3 18:39:31 alpha rtkit-daemon[2346]: Supervising 1 threads of 1
processes of 1 users.
Dec  3 18:40:39 alpha rtkit-daemon[2346]: Successfully made thread 31100 of
process 29933 ((unreachable)/usr/bin/pulseaudio) owned by '42' RT at
priority 5.
Dec  3 18:40:39 alpha rtkit-daemon[2346]: Supervising 2 threads of 1
processes of 1 users.
Dec  3 18:40:39 alpha rtkit-daemon[2346]: Successfully made thread 31101 of
process 29933 ((unreachable)/usr/bin/pulseaudio) owned by '42' RT at
priority 5.
Dec  3 18:40:39 alpha rtkit-daemon[2346]: Supervising 3 threads of 1
processes of 1 users.
*Dec  3 19:40:40 alpha pulseaudio[29933]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_delay()
returned strange values: delay 0 is less than avail 16.
Dec  3 19:40:40 alpha pulseaudio[29933]: alsa-util.c: Most likely this is a
bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_hda_intel'. Please report this issue to the ALSA
developers.
Dec  3 19:40:40 alpha pulseaudio[29933]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_dump():
Dec  3 19:40:40 alpha pulseaudio[29933]: alsa-util.c: Soft volume PCM
Dec  3 19:40:40 alpha pulseaudio[29933]: alsa-util.c: Control: PCM Playback
Volume

rtkit-daemon is logging one hour in the past, compared to other processes.
what's that?

whatever...

I read to the pulseaudio wiki page, and tried to "finish" installing it (as
I already may have start, if gnome's already lauching it... I just don't
remember why/how/when I'ld have done that...)

I installed
- pulseaudio-alsa (why would I've installed pulseaudio without
pulseaudio-alsa?!)
- lib32-alsa-plugins (web browser sound does not work without it)
- lib32-pulse
and some gnome modules (gnome-media-....?-pulse, can't find them back in the
history, but I had to uninstall their equivalents without pulse)
then, I rmmod and blacklisted snd_pcm_oss, modified libao.conf to use
pulseaudio
/etc/asound.conf has been replaced (understand: move it, or the related
package won't install), ...
nothing special, just following the wiki page.

And now, I can play quakelive/watch a flash video while listening to music,
using vlc or banshee.
Everything's back to normal. Except pulse is correctly installed.

And, last but not least: TV and motherboard output the same thing, so I can
choose to plug my jack to the TV or to the computer (while before, only vlc
outputed on the TV).

So, thanks for your help!
And sorry for my english...

-- 
Samuel Martín Moro
{EPITECH.} tek5
CamTrace S.A.S
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  Maybe nobody knows ..."
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