The thread is quite explicit as to what the problem is and how it behaves, but a summary is in order. If the file /etc/asound.state is corrupted, for example due to a file-system corruption after a hard-reboot, the boot process will halt when attempting to restore the mixer settings. This apears to be mainly a cosmetic problem as the boot process can be resumed and no adverse effects once the system is up and running. The fix for this problem seems to be to simply delete the offending file. Upon reboot it will be recreated, and no adverse effects have so far been reported in doing this. cuardin@beech:~;)emerge info Portage 2.0.50-r9 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.6.4) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.4 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.9 distcc 2.12.1 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.3 [enabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58-r1 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache fixpackages sandbox userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.uninett.no/pub/linux/Gentoo http://mirror.pudas.net/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow X Xaw3d acpi acpi4linux alsa apm avi berkdb cdr crypt dga dvd emacs encode esd freetype gdbm gif glut gpm gtk gtk2 imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 java jpeg libg++ libwww mad mikmod mms mmx mozilla mpeg nas ncurses nls offensive oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline sasl sdl slang spell sqlite sse ssl tcltk tcpd tetex truetype unicode usb x86 xinerama xml2 xmms xv zlib"
Oh, I am using alsa-utils-0.9.8
can you try alsa 1.0.5a with a corrupt asound.state file? Maybe it was fixed upstream... if not, I'll have to put in a ulimit...
It seems I cannot manage to duplicate the error. It seems any old corruption will not do. Well, as the workaround is trivial and posted on the forums I will for my part let this bug drift off into oblivion.
Update. A friendly user actually saved their old corrupted asound.state and then mailed it to me. I have now reproduced the bug using alsa-utils-1.0.5. So the bug exists and is real.
Created attachment 37358 [details] An example of an asound.state file that will reproduce the bug. This is the file that I was sent. If it is placed as /etc/asound.state and the computer is rebooted, it will freeze dusing the "Saving Mixer levels" phase requiring a hard reboot. Upon reboot, the computer will pause during the "Restoring Mixer levels" phase, requiring the user to press Ctrl-C in order to resume the boot process.
marking cantfix
whoops... I should've read all the comments... sorry... this looks like an upstream problem and isn't gentoo-specific. Can you file a bug for this on ALSA's bug tracker and let me know the bug number so I can track it? Thanks.
No sweat. Bug number 451 over at ALSA. https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/bug_view_page.php?bug_id=0000451
following this upstream...
