1.8.1 crashes on startup when external soundcard is not on

[cslos77]

I have an external soundcard which I can turn on and off. With 1.8.0 having this card off when starting up panda only produced a warning message, but since upgrading to 1.8.1 panda actually crashes on startup if this soundcard is not on.

:audio(error): OpenALAudioManager: alcOpenDevice(NULL): ALC couldn't open device
:audio(error): OpenALAudioManager: No open device or context

Other users in the forums (without an external sound card) have complained about getting this crash randomly on startup, though for me it's always tied to the soundcard being on or off:

http://www.panda3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15898

panda 1.8.1
Edirol UA-101 (soundcard)

Windows XP sp3
Intel Core2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz
2GB RAM
Sapphire Radeon X1550

This is the basic launch code:

import direct.directbase.DirectStart
import sys
from direct.showbase.DirectObject import DirectObject
from direct.actor.Actor import ActorNode
from panda3d.core import NodePath, Vec3
from panda3d.rocket import *
base.accept("escape", sys.exit)
base.disableMouse()
base.oobe()
run()

[rdb (rdb)]

The version of OpenAL was upgraded to 1.15.1 in 1.8.1. This should not have happened, and I will downgrade to the previous working version or the upcoming 1.8.2 bugfix release.

[ellie (et1234567)]

Please note this also seems to happen with just one regular soundcard and another application having exclusive audio access to the card. If I open my Digital Audio Workstation program with ASIO exclusive audio access drivers and then try to run my Panda3D game, it will crash horribly with the error given above.

The expected behavior of course would be, start up with no working audio (audio is quiet).

This also affects running Panda3D regularly with no exclusive audio access applications when you run it in fast succession, because sometimes the old instance will confuse the new one and somehow manage to make it not get audio access - in which case it crashes again with this error.

[rdb (rdb)]

I'd like to see more outputs of "notify-level-audio debug" under these various conditions (particularly when it *fails*).