No sound in flash,vlc,mpg123 after upgrade to 9.10rc from 9.04.

[Paul Cullum]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

KDE system sounds and applications like Amarok seem to work well.

Here is a grep of pulseaudio related entries in syslog.

pcullum@pcullum:/var/log$ grep pulseaudio /var/log/syslog
Oct 22 14:56:44 pcullum pulseaudio[3254]: core-util.c: Home directory /etc/timidity not ours.
Oct 22 14:56:44 pcullum pulseaudio[3254]: lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.
Oct 22 14:56:44 pcullum pulseaudio[3254]: main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock
Oct 22 15:27:36 pcullum pulseaudio[3283]: ratelimit.c: 6 events suppressed
Oct 22 15:43:26 pcullum pulseaudio[3283]: alsa-sink.c: ALSA woke us up to write new data to the device, but there was actually nothing to write!
Oct 22 15:43:26 pcullum pulseaudio[3283]: alsa-sink.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_hda_intel'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers.
Oct 22 15:43:26 pcullum pulseaudio[3283]: alsa-sink.c: We were woken up with POLLOUT set -- however a subsequent snd_pcm_avail() returned 0 or another value < min_avail.
Oct 23 08:28:31 pcullum pulseaudio[2981]: core-util.c: Home directory /etc/timidity not ours.
Oct 23 08:28:31 pcullum pulseaudio[2981]: lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.
Oct 23 08:28:31 pcullum pulseaudio[2981]: main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock
Oct 23 08:34:39 pcullum pulseaudio[3165]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy
Oct 23 08:34:39 pcullum pulseaudio[3165]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy
Oct 23 08:38:41 pcullum pulseaudio[3165]: ratelimit.c: 18 events suppressed
Oct 23 09:12:56 pcullum pulseaudio[3020]: core-util.c: Home directory /etc/timidity not ours.
Oct 23 09:12:56 pcullum pulseaudio[3020]: lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.
Oct 23 09:12:56 pcullum pulseaudio[3020]: main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock
Oct 23 09:15:25 pcullum pulseaudio[3346]: pid.c: Daemon already running.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: pcullum 3288 F.... knotify4
                      pcullum 3315 F.... pulseaudio
                      pcullum 3333 F.... kmix
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xff9f4000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1988'
   Components : 'HDA:11d41988,104381e1,00100400'
   Controls : 49
   Simple ctrls : 27
DKDisksMonitorLog: Monitoring activity from the disks daemon. Press Ctrl+C to cancel.
Date: Fri Oct 23 09:49:02 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=/dev/sda5
HotplugNewDevices:

HotplugNewMounts:

MachineType: System manufacturer System Product Name
Package: linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic 2.6.31-14.48
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=24508b30-a409-4a28-9c17-edcbb34a76d8 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.24
RfKill:

SourcePackage: linux
Symptom: storage
UdevMonitorLog:
 monitor will print the received events for:
 UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
WpaSupplicantLog:

XsessionErrors: (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:3351): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
dmi.bios.date: 07/03/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0901
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: P5B-VM
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev 1.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0901:bd07/03/2007:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rnP5B-VM:rvrRev1.xx:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: System Product Name
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

I probably should have put this in the first comment and not just the subject. The problem is that certain applications like flash and vlc do not have sound. I've tried checking various mixers to make sure that nothing is muted and that volume settings are okay.

I upgraded from Kubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 RC.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this with ia32-libs and nspluginwrapper, or are you using the
native 64-bit Flash 10 alpha from Adobe's web site?

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

mpg123 hangs when run and the following is written to syslog:
Oct 23 10:40:22 pcullum pulseaudio[3182]: alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0: Device or resource busy

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

I used amd64 flashplugin-installer package which downloads and installs the 64 bit flash from Adobe. Flash isn't the only affected application however.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Right, and in that case, please use:

sudo fuser -v /dev/dsp* /dev/mixer* /dev/audio* /dev/seq* /dev/snd/*

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Err, where is this flashplugin-installer? Do you mean the one in the
Ubuntu repository?

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

pcullum@pcullum:~$ sudo fuser -v /dev/dsp* /dev/mixer* /dev/audio* /dev/seq* /dev/snd/*
                     USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0: pcullum 3182 F.... pulseaudio
                     pcullum 3947 F.... knotify4
                     pcullum 3991 F.... kmix
                     pcullum 4050 F.... amarok
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: pcullum 4050 F...m amarok
/dev/snd/seq: timidity 3145 F.... timidity
/dev/snd/timer: pcullum 4050 f.... amarok

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is Phonon configured to use ALSA first or PulseAudio first?

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Also see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/447844/comments/4

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Timidity is known to not play nicely. Unless it's mission-critical,
you probably want to remove it -- or at least disable it in
/etc/default/timidity.

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

System Settings shows:
HDA Intel(AD198x Analog)
Playback/Recording through PulseAudio sound server
PulseAudio

Should I promote PulseAudio and try again? What about capture?

Should I even have PulseAudio? I don't remember picking it.

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

I deferred HDA Intel to the bottom of the device list in System Settings.

I now have no sound from the KDE applications either.(Amarok, etc..)

sudo fuser -v /dev/dsp* /dev/mixer* /dev/audio* /dev/seq* /dev/snd/*
                     USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0: pcullum 3176 F.... pulseaudio
                     pcullum 3204 F.... kmix
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: pcullum 3176 F...m pulseaudio

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

If you don't want PulseAudio installed, just purge it from your system.

If you want it, please check the mixer levels using KMix.

[Paul Cullum (paul-cullum)]

I removed PulseAudio and flash, vlc and mpg123 all seem to work now. It would appear to me that KDE (in Kubuntu) and PulseAudio don't play well together in 9.10 RC.

This is probably a duplicate of bug 447844 and/or bug 394999.

I had no problems prior to upgrading to 9.10 RC.

Thank you Daniel for your help.