Allegro can't play sound with ALSA

[Damian Yerrick]

Ubuntu 9.04, liballegro-4.2 version 2:4.2.2-2ubuntu1

I install and run allegro-examples and choose digitest. But instead of sound, I got this:

Error initialising sound
ALSA: snd_pcm_hw_params_set_format(pcm_handle, hwparams, format) : Invalid argument

This page suggests that pulseaudio doesn't like the unsigned (U16) samples that Allegro's mixer produces.
http://<email address hidden>/msg00421.html

Upstream recently released Allegro 4.2.3, which works around this.
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: liballegro4.2 2:4.2.2-2ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: allegro4.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-15-generic i686

[Damian Yerrick (tepples)]

I just realized it might be hardware-dependent; in that case, it might be relevant to point out that I'm trying it on an ASUS Eee PC 900.

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

This seems to be http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/133 and AFAICS is not hardware-dependent. It breaks sound on every Allegro-using application on Ubuntu, with the default settings (i.e. PulseAudio enabled). Would be great to have this fixed before Lucid is out.

[Mikael Carlsson (luxwarp)]

I got this error to.

Really bad that i dident see this bug before i started to digg after an answer xD. Looking for about 2h now, and here it is the answer. Anyone knows if it is working on karmic yet?

[Mikael Carlsson (luxwarp)]

did now try to download and install allegro manualy, now the sounds works perfectly:D

[Reynaldo Matos Hortensi (lasanhadeberinjela)]

Hi stampe,
how do you do the installation? I'm trying to install liballegro, but the game overgod doesn't accept my installation as your dependencie.
Thanx.
Reynaldo

[Daniel Hollocher (chogydan)]

Hey folks, can you test the allegro4.2 package that you can find here: https://launchpad.net/~chogydan/+archive/gnome-session/

I trivially updated the package to 4.2.3

If that works, then this can be converted into a "please update" bug maybe. Or maybe someone needs to open up a please update bug. Thanks!

[Reynaldo Matos Hortensi (lasanhadeberinjela)]

I have installed the packages from https://launchpad.net/~chogydan/+archive/gnome-session/ but allegro-examples neither overgod has successful initialized sound.
Have I forgot something?
thanx
Reynaldo

[Daniel Hollocher (chogydan)]

yeah, I got that too, but it is a different bug. Can you open a new bug report? The error initializing sound is about the sound card not being supported at all. I think the other error is about not getting MIDI support. I tried to google it, but couldn't find anything.

[Daniel Hollocher (chogydan)]

for reference, here is a bug about overgod: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=474314

[Reynaldo Matos Hortensi (lasanhadeberinjela)]

I found something related: http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/133

[Damian Yerrick (tepples)]

Reynaldo: Marius already mentioned that ticket. But just for kicks, I tried this today:

1. Upgrade my Larmic machine to Lucid
2. Add ppa:chogydan/gnome-session to my software sources
3. sudo apt-get upgrade
4. sudo apt-get install allegro-demo
5. all-demo

The error changed to "No supported synth type found". So I guess it still isn't fixed.

[Daniel Hollocher (chogydan)]

Hey Damian, the bug of failed initialization is actually fixed, but things like all-demo and overgod try to use MIDI, which is also not working either. That's a different bug.

I suggest you work on this bug report [1] for that, as this bug report should be marked fix released as soon as the debian package propagates.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/overgod/+bug/311833

[Reynaldo Matos Hortensi (lasanhadeberinjela)]

Hi,
overgod its working on Debian Squeeze (debbugs #462810), but isn't working on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.
When that fix wll be released?

[Daniel Hollocher (chogydan)]

@Reynaldo, have you tried Maverick? My understanding is that fixes like this will always just go into the next release.

[Reynaldo Matos Hortensi (lasanhadeberinjela)]

I have tried to apply the patch but it returns:
reynaldo@cerbero:~/Documentos/Builds/allegro4.2-4.2.2$ patch -p0 < patch.diff
patching file allegro4.2-4.2.2/debian/changelog
Hunk #1 FAILED at 1.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file allegro4.2-4.2.2/debian/changelog.rej
patching file allegro4.2-4.2.2/debian/patches/series
patching file allegro4.2-4.2.2/debian/patches/070_alsa_signed.diff

Anybody knows how to apply that? Please.

Daniel Hollocher, why?

[Daniel Hollocher (chogydan)]

@Reynaldo: I believe I still have a lucid package in my ppa which includes the fix. I don't know why it isn't working for you, but I thnk you can ignore failures against the changelog. It is just the changelog

[PasNox (pasnox)]

Bug still present in ubuntu/kubuntu 10.10.

[Reynaldo Matos Hortensi (lasanhadeberinjela)]

@Daniel that fix worked for me on overgod (problem: lacks a module and a simbolic link): http://<email address hidden>/msg2616709.html

sudo modprobe snd_virmidi
cd /dev/snd && sudo ln -s midiC2D0 midiC0D0