mplayer no sound from script

[G.M.]

Hi,

I cannot manage to get mplayer output sound when running inside a script.

I have a script:
-rwxr-xr-x ~/Softs/alarm.sh

Which contains:
#!/bin/bash
mplayer ~/.sounds/alarm.ogg -loop 3

1. If I run the script with:
. ~/Softs/alarm.sh
I can hear the sound.

2. If I run the script with:
~/Softs/alarm.sh
I hear nothing but the output of mplyer is normal, the same as when it play a sound correctly.

I've read millions of forums, tried millions of options of mplayer (DISPLAY=:0.0 mplayer, -vo null, -ao pulse, -volume, -af, -softvol/-softvolmax, -really-quiet...), still no luck

I've tried with/without the begining shebang in the script, no more luck.

I've also tried other players, like aplayer (same problem) and play (no problem).

Does anyone have an idea if this is a bug and/or where does this difference in behaviour comes from???

[G.M. (sexxxenator)]

Strangely, if I use "play" in my script rather than mplayer and start it with:
~/Softs/alarm.sh &
Then I have no sound until I type fg...
There MUST be some system-wide audio thing I do not understand.

[G.M. (sexxxenator)]

Still more strangely, if I use "play" in my script, which makes it work, but then call the script from cron, it does not work again.
[BTW, mplayer never works in cron since it does not work in a script]

[G.M. (sexxxenator)]

I'm now wondering if that could be a bug in pulse, since the output of mplayer shows that it believes it plays the sound correctly, whereas there's no sound in the speaker...

[G.M. (sexxxenator)]

While shutting down my computer, and particularly when closing FF, I realized that sounds do indeed play!!

Could it be that flash (I always have jango.com opened in a tab) is blocking sound from mplayer/pulse ???

How could I resolve that ?