Bug 192622 – issue initializing the sound driver (while in KDE?)

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description Gustavo 2007-09-15 20:52:16 UTC]

Sound worked fine in my computer; but some issues started (probably) when I updated the kernel (from gentoo-sources-2.6.21-r4 to gentoo-sources-2.6.22-r5). I didn't change the sound options in it.
Now, whenever I login in my machine, a dialog box (from arts) is displayed saying that an error occurred while initializing the sound driver. The same dialog box is displayed if I open kcontrol, go to Sound System and (re-)enable the sound system.
The sound doesn't work anymore for any KDE application, although Firefox and Real Player both seems to work with the sound. I don't have GNOME so I don't know if it is exclusive for KDE.
Initially, the alsa driver I was using was that one built-in in the kernel; changing to alsa-driver didn't solve the problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Login in KDE

or

1. Open kcontrol
2. Go to Sound System
3. (Uncheck and) Check the checkbox "enable sound system"
Actual Results:  
Sound doesn't work (apparently for applications that use arts), but also didn't work for ogg123 (in vorbis-tools)


localhost gugamilare # lspci | grep audio
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Sound Controller (rev a0)

localhost gugamilare # emerge --info
Portage 2.1.3.9 (default-linux/x86/2007.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r4, 2.6.22-gentoo-r5 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.22-gentoo-r5 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3000+
Timestamp of tree: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 16:20:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
app-shells/bash:     3.2_p17
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.33-r1
dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r7
sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.9-r2
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61-r1
sys-devel/automake:  1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17-r1
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.24
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.21
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="ccache distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://mirrors.localhost.net.ar/pub/mirrors/gentoo http://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo"
LINGUAS="pt_BR"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.samerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X aac aalib acl acpi alsa arts bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip bzip2 cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus dvb dvd dvdr emacs encode firefox fortran ftp gdbm gif hal history iconv imap ipv6 irc isdnlog jabber jpeg jpeg2k kde kdeenablefinal md5sum midi mikmod mime mmap mmx mng motif mozilla mp3 mpeg mplayer msn mudflap mysql mysqli ncurses netmeeting nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl php plotutils png pppd python qt4 rar readline reflection sdl session sms spl ssl svg svga szip tcpd tetex tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode unrar vorbis wavpack win32codecs x86 xml xorg xpm xvid zip zlib" ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="pt_BR" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="sis vga"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY

localhost Millenium # ogg123 Beth\ Carvalho\ -\ 01\ -\ Vou\ Festejar\ \(ao\ vivo\).ogg
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:831:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to create IPC semaphore
=== Could not load default driver and no driver specified in config file. Exiting.

[Comment 1 Gustavo 2007-09-15 20:55:36 UTC]

Oh! Almost forgot: The dialog box shows this message:

Title: "Informational - artsmessage"

 Sound server informational message:
 Error while initializing the sound driver:
 device: default can't be opened for playback (Function not implemented)
 The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

[Comment 2 Gustavo 2007-09-23 15:05:32 UTC]

It looks like that Real Player doesn't play any sound anymore. The only application that seems to work with the sound is firefox.

[Comment 3 Wulf Krueger (RETIRED) 2007-12-17 22:24:28 UTC]

Please stop using arts. It will block your soundcard for anything but arts and is broken itself, abandoned by upstream and generally not something you want unless you have a very special reason. Set "-arts alsa" in make.conf and do an "emerge -uDN world" to recompile things without arts but with alsa. Finally, reboot.

In KControl, go to "Sound & Multimedia", "System Notifications", click "Player Settings" and choose "Use an external player". You might want to consider using media-sound/sox which is a lightweight external player (and sound converter). It will install the "play" binary which you can use in the text box as the external player.

[Comment 4 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) 2007-12-25 13:11:05 UTC]

I've seen this, when the duplex checkbox is checked, while the card doesn't support it, but this may happen for several other reasons as well. As Wulf stated, please don't use aRts.

Closing this as upstream, even though I wouldn't expect any upstream activity on aRts bug reports either.