Bug 58619 – gmplayer errors when using alsa

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Matthew Lane 2004-07-27 20:40:12 UTC]

When playing movies with media-video/mplayer-1.0_pre5-r2 an error message is printed to the terminal and an error dialog box is also displayed.

The error dialog box states:
"alsa-control: mixer attach /dev/mixer error: No such file or directory"

And the message to the terminal is:
"ALSA lib control.c:654:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL /dev/mixer0 87%
alsa-control: mixer attach /dev/mixer error: No such file or directory".

The % in the terminal message starts at 99% and goes down as the messages are printed.  This message is printed everytime the error dialog box is redrawn

The error does not appear when using mplayer.

I am using dmix in my .asoundrc and alsa support is loaded with the kernel as modules.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Start gmplayer either through terminal or a launcher
2.Open a video (either from the command line or from within the program)
3.Hit play, and the bug appears.

Actual Results:  
A dialog box stating, "alsa-control: mixer attach /dev/mixer error: No such file
or directory", appears.  This box appears rapidly and repeatably.  Also if
gmplayer is launched from the command line the following is printed repeatably:
"ALSA lib control.c:654:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL /dev/mixer0 87%
alsa-control: mixer attach /dev/mixer error: No such file or directory".

The video still plays and so does the audio, although it is not viewable due to
the constant message boxes.

Expected Results:  
No error messages whatsoever should be produced.

I am using dmix in my .asoundrc. Running mplayer does not produce this error,
even when its dmixed.  Using oss output in gmplayer does not produce this error.

emerge info:

Portage 2.0.50-r9 (default-x86-2004.0, gcc-3.3.3, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r0, 2.6.7
-gentoo-r11)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.7-gentoo-r11 i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2000+
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r3
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.2
/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache prelink sandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org/ http://adelie.polymtl.ca/ http://csoci
ety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/gentoo/ http://gentoo.seren.com/gentoo http://gentoo.
chem.wisc.edu/gentoo/ http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo/ http://gentoo.mirrors.p
air.com/ http://gentoo.ccccom.com http://ftp-mirror.internap.com/pub/gentoo/ htt
p://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo http://gentoo.netnitco.net http://mirror.tucdemonic.o
rg/gentoo/ http://mirrors.acm.cs.rpi.edu/gentoo/ http://lug.mtu.edu/gentoo/ http
://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo http://gentoo.llarian.net/ http://gentoo.
binarycompass.org http://gentoo.mirrored.ca/ http://mirror.datapipe.net/gentoo h
ttp://mirror.datapipe.net/gentoo http://gentoo.eliteitminds.com http://www.gigal
oad.org/gentoo.org/"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""
SYNC="rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="3dnow X alsa apm arts avi berkdb cdr crypt cups divx4linux encode esd fooma
ticdb gdbm gif gpm gtk gtk2 imlib java jpeg ldap libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx mo
tif mozilla mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png ppds
 python quicktime readline sdl slang spell ssl svga tcltk tcpd truetype x86 xine
rama xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib"

[Comment 1 Chris White (RETIRED) 2004-07-27 20:55:36 UTC]

Can you please use systrace (emerge -pv systrace if you don't have it)
and attach a log with the output of it?

[Comment 2 Matthew Lane 2004-07-27 23:58:53 UTC]

Created attachment 36303 [details]
gzipped gmplayer.log generated using strace attached to the pid of gmplayer.

I ran strace, played a video file, then closed gmplayer.

[Comment 3 David Grant 2004-07-28 01:48:25 UTC]

Just want to confirm I've seen this too.  Finally downgraded to pre4.

[Comment 4 STefan 2004-07-28 04:43:54 UTC]

Same problem here, mplayer doesn't work with alsa and procudes the same messages.
Xmms works fine with alsa-plugin

[Comment 5 Chris White (RETIRED) 2004-07-28 14:03:11 UTC]

I setup dmix and all to test this, and confirmed.

I asked upstream about it, and they pointed me to a mailing list patch
which works beautifully.  That patch is now in cvs and ready.

The problem is that the gui mplayer version is always trying to use oss
and not the pure alsa drivers.  This patch adresses that issue.  Thanks
for reporting!