"xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers." error

[AljoshaNL]

Binary package hint: amarok-xine

Hey,

I occasionally get the error message in the summary when i want to start up Amarok. I always use the xine engine. The strange thing is, that it says that xine could not initialize anything, however the xine-ui player works fine.

Reproduce:
- start amarok

Usually, a reboot helps.

[RJ Marsan (rjmarsan)]

a) can you give more info about what package/version you are using etc. ?
b) is this a xine or sound driver issue or amarok?

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

This would happen to me when I would *first* start amarok on Edgy. Version 1.4.4 and 1.4.3 but I have no idea how to reproduce it. If I close amarok and open it, it won't happen thought, only the first time I open amarok when I turn on my computer or restart X.

[ksoze (doctor-bangali)]

I am having the same problem here on Kunbuntu edgy. I have noticed that deleting ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/ removes the error.

[AljoshaNL (princimrahil)]

It had to do with my webcam. Because it has a microphone its driver
conflicts with my main sound board

On 4/12/07, ksoze <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> I am having the same problem here on Kunbuntu edgy. I have noticed that
> deleting ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/ removes the error.
>
> --
> "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers." error
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/68187
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Chereji Mihai (croncobaurul)]

I get this error whenever I try to use alsa or oss drivers. I use Ubuntu Fiesty but I had the same problem in Edgy. I now use pulseaudio but it's annoying that I can't use amarok in 5.1. Any help?

[Andreas Falk (adde-falk)]

Have the same problem as above using Edgy, Amarok 1.4.5 and Alsa.

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

I'm no longer having this error. Does the work around suggested by Ksoze help?

[Andreas Falk (adde-falk)]

Just tested it and I'm not having this problem any longer either.

[Kansei (clauretano)]

I am getting this error as well, and I can reproduce it.

Here's how it went (if it helps any): Was watching some vid on youtube. I closed that tab in firefox, then about 5 seconds later used the global play/pause hotkey in Amarok to resume playback of whatever I was listening to the night before. Immediately got the 'xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers' error, at which point Amarok stopped playback. I opened the app, hit the play button. No error this time, it just freaked, quickly cycling through all the songs in the playlist (using the random songs dynamic playlist so this was an infinite loop). Amarok after about 10 songs stops updating it's ui and won't respond to requests to exit the app. Killall amarokapp works ;)

Now I can relaunch Amarok over and over and whenever it loads, I get that error, whenever I click play I get that error. It isn't freaking out with the playlist and crashing anymore. VLC gives no error, but anything I play is just silence, though the interface _thinks_ it is playing something.

I'm on Hardy by the way.. here are some version numbers and such:

amarok 2:1.4.8-0ubuntu1
amarok-xine 2:1.4.8-0ubuntu1
vlc 0.8.6.release.d-0ubuntu3
alsa-base 1.0.15-3ubuntu1
libxine1 1.1.8-3ubuntu2

Let me know if there's any useful information I could scrape from logs or elsewhere.

[Bjorn Heesakkers (bjorn-wasda)]

Hey,

Just wanted to let you guys know that after I updated my Ubuntu Gutsy pc today ( 04-01-2008 ) with apt, I had this problem too. Note that I first installed Ubuntu and a few months after that installed the "kubuntu-desktop" package.

I fixed the problem through installing "libxine1-misc-plugins".

Workaround:
- Open a terminal window
- type: "sudo apt-get install libxine1-misc-plugins" ( without ) quotes
- when asked for your password, type the password you login with
- press enter
- wait until the installation is done and type exit and press enter.

Now it should work again.

Note that this bug occured after updating, so I think there might be some dependency problems in the Amarok package.

[Bjorn Heesakkers (bjorn-wasda)]

Addendum:

A solution may be to make libxine1-misc-plugins a dependency on the Amarok package. Another solution may be to edit the install-mp3 script that is installed to /usr/lib/amarok/install-mp3/ and edit that so that this plugin automatically get's installed too.

[Kieran Hogg (xerosis)]

Am getting this fairly frequently on Hardy now, not sure of the steps to reproduce but will keep trying.

[Danny Staple (danny-orionrobots)]

I see this sometimes for no apparent reason on Gutsy, and other sound based apps seem fine. I already have libxine1-misc-plugins installed. Are there any other potential causes?

[Kieran Hogg (xerosis)]

I think I narrowed this down to flash videos but since an update (not sure which) I haven't seen this anymore, can anyone confirm?

[Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg)]

Hi all,

I just had the same issue today in Kubuntu Hardy Heron pre-release version. I suspect that this is an old bug solely related to Amarok.

I found the solution for my problem at the following URL: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=102064

Edit the file ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/xine-config and

change:

 audio.device.alsa_default_device:default
 audio.device.alsa_front_device:default

to:

 audio.device.alsa_default_device:plughw:0,0
 audio.device.alsa_front_device:plughw:0,0

Edit the file ~/.kde/share/config/amarokrc and make sure the line "Output Plugin" is configured as follows:

[Xine-Engine]
 Output Plugin=alsa

Hope this helps someone out there.

Cheerio,

Mark

[Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg)]

If my previous workaround did not help, try the following solution:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=102064&page=4

So execute command "sudo apt-get install libxine-dev libxine1-dbg libxine1-misc-plugins"

[kiri (kirin2907)]

I have this error now everytime on starting Amarok.
Before it was working fine. But suddenly I get this error everytime I try to start Amarok. I have tried all the workarounds posted, including the ones in the Ubuntu forum but to no avail.

I am running Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 and Amarok 1.4.8.
In the settings Xine Engine is my only option, and the devices are alsa, oss, or file. All of them have the same error.

[barbed_saber (harryallington)]

I was having the same problem every time I opened amarok or tried to play a song and this
So execute command "sudo apt-get install libxine-dev libxine1-dbg libxine1-misc-plugins"
plus restart fixed it for me.

thanks.

[Eric Mill (konklone)]

I was having this problem, and without having to reboot, I closed all instances of Firefox, restarted Amarok, and it began playing songs normally.

The first commenter who said they could reproduce it was using Firefox, and after playing a Youtube vid. Maybe this has something to do with the Firefox flash plugin.

Recently, I've also been having problems sometimes playing more than the first 2 seconds of any flash video. Maybe it's related.

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

Installing /libxine-dev libxine1-dbg libxine1-misc-plugins/ and closing Firefox fixed the issue for me, will post more info if I can ever reproduce the bug again.

[Timo Stoll (tibo-fb)]

I am on Hardy and I can reproduce this bug just as Kansei described it. After logging out and logging in again playback acts normally until I watch a video on youtube with Firefox (Swiftweasel). This happens while using Gnome whereas it has actually not been reproducible during any KDE4 session so far.

amarok/amarok-xine
2:1.4.9
kubuntu-kde4-desktop
0.14
swiftweasel-athlon64
2.0.0.13
ubuntu-desktop
1.99

Audio device
nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio
uname -r
2.6.24-15-generic

[Timo Stoll (tibo-fb)]

There has just been an update to amarok/amarok-xine 1.4.9.1 which seems to at least diminish the problem for me - I still get the error regarding xine's disability to initialize any audio drivers but now playback will work correctly after simply closing the youtube tab in Swiftweasel. For now, I consider this new situation satisfactory.

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

I also just got this update, and it seems everything is now fixed in Hardy Heron Beta. Even with a flash player 9.0 tab open in my 64bit Firefox, I can still open Amarok without the previous error message. I think if a few others write in that its fixed, and you are able to get all error messages to go away Timo, we should mark this bug as fixed.
Can't rely on my results too much though, as I did both the package installs, and editing of .kde settings mentioned above.

[Eric Mill (konklone)]

Why is this satisfactory? It's not easy to identify an amarok xine
error with a Firefox tab with a Youtube video. This has to be fixed,
especially since one of Hardy's main goals is to stablize and unify
the sound architecture.

On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Timo Stoll <email address hidden> wrote:
> There has just been an update to amarok/amarok-xine 1.4.9.1 which seems
> to at least diminish the problem for me - I still get the error
> regarding xine's disability to initialize any audio drivers but now
> playback will work correctly after simply closing the youtube tab in
> Swiftweasel. For now, I consider this new situation satisfactory.
>
>
>
> --
> "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers." error
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/68187
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

I was saying that for me at least, the bug had been completely resolved at the time. After logging out, logging in, opening a tab with a flash movie, and opening Amarok, there was no error message at all.
Strangely the problem is back though, I should have waited before trying to say the issue had been resolved for me.
And I totally agree with you Eric, if there are still issues which have not been resolved as I naively assumed, this bug deserves at least the importance of Medium and a continuing open status.
Would you Eric, or anyone else happen to know if the Amarok dev team has been notified of this issue upstream, and if not, how we could contact them about it?

[N3um0rin (neumorin)]

Im having the same problem with hardy heron and ive tried everything everones suggested and i cant fix it..

Every time i open amarok or anything that plays music like totem or mplayer or anything even on firefox or opera i cant listen to any audio and it isnt going away..Ive posted a thread about this..actualy two threads about this in ubuntu forms and no ones has even said anything..please help...

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

You have absolutely no audio in any applications, N3um0rin? If so, could you give us a link to your threads or file another bug and file a link so we can help you, without getting too off-topic in this bug report? Your problem just seems to be more than the flash player - Amarok conflict we are having here.
Thanks a lot.

[N3um0rin (neumorin)]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=753575

there ya go theres also a screenshot of it in the thread =]

[N3um0rin (neumorin)]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=753596

other thread *

[Timo Stoll (tibo-fb)]

Eric, I wasn't suggesting to let that matter rest but only noting that this scenario was actually fine with me compared to the earlier one (even though it remains a bug without a doubt).

Has anyone of the other Hardy users observed a change concerning this issue after today's updates for xine-lib anyway ( http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/x/xine-lib/xine-lib_1.1.11.1-1ubuntu3/changelog )?

[Eric Mill (konklone)]

Sorry Timo, I didn't mean it to sound like I was leaping down your throat. I haven't yet had this problem since today's update, though I'm not confident enough in my understanding of how to reproduce it to say that it's "resolved" for sure.

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

I also have been unable to reproduce this bug for the last 2 days. I'm guessing the update Timo mentioned fixed things, but let's leave the bug open for awhile and see if anyone is still having issues.

[N3um0rin (neumorin)]

Well i couldent get it to go away but i had to change back to windows
because my new internet driver cd and software wouldent work with
kubuntu..belive me i tried and im hating windows very much right now..Its so
very...blocky and crashes alot..but yeah sorry to rant thanks for your
concern about the issue though =] Maybe in the future when ubuntu becomes
more compatable with windows cd's ill switch back =[ Yeah anyway! Thanks =]

On 4/14/08, Daniel Stiner <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> I also have been unable to reproduce this bug for the last 2 days. I'm
> guessing the update Timo mentioned fixed things, but let's leave the bug
> open for awhile and see if anyone is still having issues.
>
> --
> "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers." error
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/68187
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Source Package "amarok" in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: amarok-xine
>
> Hey,
>
> I occasionally get the error message in the summary when i want to start
> up Amarok. I always use the xine engine. The strange thing is, that it says
> that xine could not initialize anything, however the xine-ui player works
> fine.
>
> Reproduce:
> - start amarok
>
> Usually, a reboot helps.
>
>
>

[xcorex (xcorex)]

Same here,

Using Kubuntu 8.04 upgrated today! :/

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

xcorex, are you saying you still have this issue with xine? If you are still having this issue, even after updating to the lasted Amarok-xine (2:1.4.9.1-0ubuntu2), please write back here so we know this bug has not been fixed for everyone. Thanks.

[N3um0rin (neumorin)]

Ive already switched operating systems due to compatability problems with my
new internet adapter

On 4/16/08, Daniel Stiner <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> xcorex, are you saying you still have this issue with xine? If you are
> still having this issue, even after updating to the lasted Amarok-xine
> (2:1.4.9.1-0ubuntu2), please write back here so we know this bug has not
> been fixed for everyone. Thanks.
>
> --
> "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers." error
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/68187
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Source Package "amarok" in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: amarok-xine
>
> Hey,
>
> I occasionally get the error message in the summary when i want to start
> up Amarok. I always use the xine engine. The strange thing is, that it says
> that xine could not initialize anything, however the xine-ui player works
> fine.
>
> Reproduce:
> - start amarok
>
> Usually, a reboot helps.
>
>
>

[Praveen (ప్రవీణ్) Garlapati (గార్లపాటి) (praveengarlapati)]

I am on Hardy and I got this error today.
The symptoms looked pretty much the same. Was watching a video on YouTube, flash player.

The YouTube video was paused and I open an MP3 in Amarok and I get this error.
If its of any use Xine was open too. (Just the player nothing was playing)

[N3um0rin (neumorin)]

Well it does sound alot like it but i ended up going back to windows 2k (win
xp and vista can kiss my ....) Because of compatability issues with my
internet usb adaptor drivers ..I dont know what to tell you..When i had the
problem no one really tried to help me on the ubuntu website and it annoyed
me I think the person that posted right after i did know more about it then
me sorry i couldent help..

On 4/22/08, Praveen(ప్రవీణ్) Garlapati(గార్లపాటి) <
<email address hidden>> wrote:
>
> I am on Hardy and I got this error today.
> The symptoms looked pretty much the same. Was watching a video on YouTube,
> flash player.
>
> The YouTube video was paused and I open an MP3 in Amarok and I get this
> error.
> If its of any use Xine was open too. (Just the player nothing was playing)
>
> --
> "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers." error
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/68187
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Source Package "amarok" in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: amarok-xine
>
> Hey,
>
> I occasionally get the error message in the summary when i want to start
> up Amarok. I always use the xine engine. The strange thing is, that it says
> that xine could not initialize anything, however the xine-ui player works
> fine.
>
> Reproduce:
> - start amarok
>
> Usually, a reboot helps.
>
>
>

[Guillermo (darkelectric)]

Always happens when I'm trying to see a youtube video or any flash aplication that uses sounds...
If I pause Amarok, it crash.
:S
Cheers.

[Guillermo (darkelectric)]

Install
libflash-mozplugin
libflashsupport

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

Praveen and xcorex, are either of you still having issues after installing libflashsupport as Guillermo suggested?
The libflashsupport package Guillermo suggested sounds very promising (it provides support for PulseAudio in Adobe's Flash Player 9), but after some messing with settings to get a quasi-default Amarok install, I no longer get any errors, even with last.fm playing along in Firefox when I open Amarok up.
 I'm not sure why Guillermo suggested installing libflash-mozplugin though. It is a GNU alternative to Adobe's flash, but as far as I know, it does not work well with Flash 9 content.

[Guillermo (darkelectric)]

What?
Isn't it GNASH the alternative to Adobe Flash Player?
I installed the libflash-mozplugin library because my specific trouble was Firefox + Amarok in sites using flash, BTW this can be a temporally workaround meanwhile they fix the bug in Xine.

Whatever It was what worked for me, so it's only a suggest and I hope that some people able to solve by this way.
Cheers.

[Daniel Stiner (danstiner)]

Sorry to sound condescending Guillermo, I meant only to warn readers that GNASH doesn't deal well with flash content above version 7. (Youtube and similar sites usually work fine though, plus using open source solutions is considered preferable if feasible)

So that just leaves Praveen, who I'm guessing the libflashplayersupport will help, and N3um0rin who had some serious hardware issues, and now uses NT. (Wish I could help N3um0rin, but I probably know less than thou, and I have a tendency to confuse, as I just did to Guillermo, sorry)

[Guillermo (darkelectric)]

Don't need to apologize :P

[Paul Abrahams (abrahams)]

I'm running Hardy Heron and the problem of this message just popped up. I don't know what brought it on, but deleting the file ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/ made it go away.

[SilverFox (silverfox)]

I have the problem, that running a specific java based application which uses the audio device causes the error-message in Amarok. The difference is that it also causes an error message in Kaffeine. On the other hand when I first start Amarok or Kaffeine, the java-application does not work anymore:

-----------------------------------
Failed to prefetch: com.sun.media.PlaybackEngine@ce2187
Error: Unable to prefetch com.sun.media.PlaybackEngine@ce2187
-----------------------------------

I tried the above solution but changing the audio device from "default" to "plughw:0,0" did NOT solve the problem for me. It rather created the symptoms, my successors reported. Amarok crashes and proposes to send an e-mail to the Amarok developers.

[PurpleJesus (purplejesus)]

Executing the "sudo apt-get install libxine-dev libxine1-dbg libxine1-misc-plugins" as Barbed Saber suggested, worked for me in Hardy Heron.

Deleting my equiv directory of /usr/share/apps/amarok just caused Amarok to have some problems like no equalizer and unable to find some some other scripts so I restored that directory and all is good for now.

[chickendude (nipunn1313)]

I am running Hardy 8.04, have done all the stuff above, and here's my situation

When a tab with flash is open, I get this error in Amarok
When I close the tab, the error goes away, and things work fine.

[Alvaro (alvarobp)]

I installed the packages libxine-dev libxine1-dbg and libxine1-misc-plugins but it still didn't work.

I don't know why, deleting the directory ~/.xine worked for me.

[Axel Bojer (axelb)]

Hi!

I got this after an upgrade from the 2.6.24-18-generic to 2.6.24-19-generic kernel i Kubuntu 8.04 amd64.

I tried:
mv ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/xine-config ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/xine-config-old
sudo apt-get install libxine-dev libxine1-dbg libxine1-misc-plugins
mv .xine .xine-2.8.2008
mv ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/ ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok-2.8.2008
apt-get remove --purge amarok-xine xine-ui
apt-get install amarok-xine xine-ui
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

.. but all in vain

But then i discovered that some (9) packages were not upgraded by upgrade, so I installed them all manually.
The packages were:
mplayer linux-restricted-modules-generic bind9-host dnsutils
language-support-writing-en linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic wine

... and one more that popped in by apt-get upgrade by itself.

After that amarok, Kaffeine, kmix, youtube all worked again as they should. I suppose the culprit really was the linux-restricted-modules-generic-packages, but maybe some of the other actions helped too ...

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

I doubt this issue is caused by amarok. Its symptoms are eerily similar to the well known ALSA issue where one application greedily hogs *hw:* instead of using default (PulseAudio is configured to do so, for instance).

[Silvano (silvano-jorge)]

Hi all

I also have this error sometimes. Any configuration fix don't solve my problem, only rebooting.
The problem I have is that there is a java process taking all the xine-engine, if I kill that process the problem is fixed for a while.

I am trying now the solution of Guillermo, maybe that is my problem:

sudo aptitude install libflashsupport libflash-mozplugin

Se instalarán automáticamente los siguientes paquetes NUEVOS:
  libflash0c2
Se instalarán los siguiente paquetes NUEVOS:
  libflash-mozplugin libflash0c2 libflashsupport

[Myriam Schweingruber (myriam)]

Could some of the bug masters forward this bug to the MOTU who does the packaging? It's not an Amarok bug, but a missing dependency. I think it's easy to solve and pretty useless to discuss further about this dependency problem.

[Tremaine Lea (tremaine)]

I'm currently running Ibex (64 bit) and experiencing this problem.

Linux quad 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Thu Oct 30 04:12:22 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Already installed and current:

libxine-dev
libxine1-dbg
libxine1-misc-plugins
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.27-7-generic
libflash-mozplugin

The error occurs whether I have Firefox open or not.

Killing the pulseaudio demon and then restarting it 'pulseaudio &' seems to do the trick, but it's not pretty.

[Jason Harvey (jason-alioth)]

This bug affects me as well. Running Ibex 32

Linux jharvey-pc 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 19:33:20 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

Killing pulseaudio and restarting it does fix the problem.

[Alex Rapley (elmerstudd)]

I am also affected and I run Ibex 64, KDE 4.1. I do not get sound through Amarok or Firefox. I do get sound at logon and through Dragon Player. Would appreciate instructions for killing & restarting pulseaudio until a more permanent solution is found.

[Tremaine Lea (tremaine)]

@Alex Rapley :

Open a terminal window

# killall pulseaudio

# pulseaudio &

Then just close the terminal window.

[datakid (datakid)]

Tremaine Lea's solution didn't quite work for me - killall pulseaudio, sudo killall pulseaudio and sudo kill <pid> didin't work.

Sudo kill -9 <pid> did work, as did restarting pulseaudio return sound to amarok.

Annoying bug none the less, since it's obviously been around for a while.

running Ibex 32
Linux boxen 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 19:33:20 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[Tremaine Lea (tremaine)]

Yeah, I'm finding killing the process (at whichever run level) isn't a consistent fix, and using the /etc/init.d/pulseaudio script doesn't appear to have any effect whatsoever.

There are definite problems with pulseaudio it seems:

from /var/log/messages
Nov 22 10:21:03 quad pulseaudio[21577]: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
Nov 22 10:21:05 quad pulseaudio[21666]: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
Nov 22 10:28:58 quad pulseaudio[23615]: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
Nov 22 10:28:58 quad pulseaudio[23617]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Nov 22 10:28:58 quad pulseaudio[23617]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
Nov 22 10:28:58 quad pulseaudio[23617]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted

Not sure what's being denied access, as I'm in (as far as I can tell) the appropriate groups.

grep pulse /etc/group
audio:x:29:username,pulse
pulse:x:126:username
pulse-access:x:127:username
pulse-rt:x:128:username

[Andrew Davison (darkinnit)]

This bug affected me too. I tried all the solutions mentioned, including installing the extra xinelibs. I don't know if it is a bug with pulseaudio as I didn't seem to have pulseaudio installed and was still experiencing the error. I installed pulseaudio and started it, to see if it would help, and got the following error:

$ pulseaudio &
[1] 9456
$ W: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
W: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
W: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
E: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: Device or resource busy
E: module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device_id=0 sink_name=alsa_output.pci_10de_55c_sound_card_0_alsa_playback_0"): initialization failed.
ALSA lib control.c:909:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL front:0

Although pulseaudio was started. Opening Amarok at this stage, it did not display the error, but cascaded through the playlist on an infinite loop, not playing any of the tracks and had to be killed using killall.

In that error it says Device or resource busy. Is there any way to find which process is making it "busy"? Closing Firefox as suggested did not help.

I even tried
sudo dpkg-reconfigure amarok-engine-xine
thinking it might help, but no joy.

So far my only solution to this error is to restart the computer, no matter whether I have pulseaudio or not.

I am running Kubuntu 8.10 (although it occurred in 8.04 for me too)
"Amarok 1.4.10 (using KDE 3.5.10)" -- although the actual desktop is KDE 4.1
libxine things are 1.1.15
Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1)

I noticed Timo Stoll said he was using the nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio. Any chance this is only affecting nVidia chipsets? (Clutching at straws now, I know)

[Andrew Davison (darkinnit)]

Woops.

Turns out it was a Java application for me, (as GrayFox mentioned). Closing Vuze (aka Azureus), brought the sound back. I guess I'll be looking for the option to turn off sound notifications in Vuze then... (if that helps)

If anyone can point out how other people can find out which application is blocking the sound card, I'm sure it will help others here.

Looks like it's not just Firefox/Flash/Pulseaudio

[Xwang (xwang1976)]

I'm using kubuntu intrepid and I've found a way to reproduce the issue:
1) listen to an mp3 which lyrics is not found automatically
2) search for the lyrincs on the web clicking on the link in the lyrics tab and now kfmclient takes control of the sound device as the output of lsof | grep snd shows:

amarokapp 30239 andreak mem CHR 116,8 13617 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
amarokapp 30239 andreak 20u CHR 116,2 13195 /dev/snd/timer
amarokapp 30239 andreak 21u CHR 116,8 13617 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
amarokapp 30239 andreak 31u CHR 116,10 13660 /dev/snd/controlC0
kmix 30825 andreak 11u CHR 116,10 13660 /dev/snd/controlC0
sh 32527 andreak 20r CHR 116,2 13195 /dev/snd/timer
sh 32527 andreak 21u CHR 116,8 13617 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
sh 32527 andreak 31u CHR 116,10 13660 /dev/snd/controlC0
kfmclient 32528 andreak 20r CHR 116,2 13195 /dev/snd/timer
kfmclient 32528 andreak 21u CHR 116,8 13617 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
kfmclient 32528 andreak 31u CHR 116,10 13660 /dev/snd/controlC0

4) push the next button in amarok to listen to another music (if you let the playlist play, amarok continues to play without problems) and you will see the issue

Now if I kill the kfmclient, I can restart to listen to music again without any problem.
Why does kfmclient takes control of the sound card?
After point 3 (namely if kfmclient uses the sound card) if you close amarok and try to open another xine based program (kaffeine for example), you will not able to use it for the same problem till you kill the kfmclient process.

Can you test if the same happens to you?
Xwang

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

This bug is quite likely not a problem with Amarok 2, most of which has been completely rewritten. As such I am closing this bug as fixed. Amarok 2 packages can be found for both Intrepid (See kubuntu.org) as well as for Jaunty, where it will become the default music player for Kubuntu 9.04.

[Tremaine Lea (tremaine)]

Should this bug be closed while the error persists? "quite likely not" doesn't indicate to me that it isn't. If it's genuinely confirmed that the problem exists in something that is not Amarok, then a link to the correct bug would be useful so ongoing issues can be tagged to it with an indication that it impacts Amarok which apparently depends on it.

[Steve Stalcup (vorian)]

Tremaine,

Are you still experiencing this bug with 2.0.1.1?

[buntu_hugenewbie11 (dwozniak)]

I still have this bug in Hardy (LTS haha) with Amarok.
I am using Kubuntu could this be related to the pulse audio problems?

[JacobSteelsmith (jacobsteelsmith)]

I was using Amarok in Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.2 and have had this bug in the past. Today, the music stopped and Amarok started going through the playlist as if the songs were missing. I restarted Amarok and got the xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers.

So I followed the instructions for updating to Amarok 2, started it, and I now get a notification that says:

"The audio playback device HDA Intel (AD198x Analog) does not work. Falling back to ."

There is no sound from Amarok. I haven't searched for this bug yet, but I would wager it's the same issue, just manifesting itself differently. I haven't rebooted yet, which fixed the issue before, and will try restarting systems and logging out first before resorting to a reboot.

Just wanted to comment that it seems like the issue is still there with Amarok 2 and probably isn't a problem with Amarok, but more the audio.

[JacobSteelsmith (jacobsteelsmith)]

I was able to fix this by first killing npviewer.bin (after using lsof | grep pcm to find which process was holding onto the sound), then using sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart and then sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart. Restarting alsa-utils alone did not fix it. Thanks.

[Sulamita Garcia (sulamita-garcia)]

Amarok started to showing this bug some days ago, but only today I had time to try to fix it. No media applications was able to play sound. The only thing that worked was killing esd, so everything started working.

Now, according to my logs, the last thing related to xine that was upgraded was libxine1, version 1.1.11.1-1ubuntu3.2, and I always use Synaptic to manage updates . I'm using Ubuntu 8.04.2.

[prshah (priyasen-shah)]

I too have received this error. I have Ubuntu 8.10 on which I have installed Kubuntu (apt-get install kubuntu-desktop).

In my case, I find that sometimes (randomly) the pulseaudio dies. That's when I get this error. (Reproducible).

Starting pulseaudio with "pulseaudio &" clears this problem for me.