Intermittent Sound

[slvadcjelli42]

Hi everybody. Thanks again to everyone who helped me with my other mess... here's another one   :rolleyes:  

I have RHL8 with all the latest "errata" updates. Sometimes sound works and sometimes it doesn't. It never seems to work for everything (web pages, Gaim, flash files, kde/gnome sounds, etc). When it's NOT working at all and I try to restart the sound server I get the error message below.

(Sound Card Configuration:
Vendor: Intel Corp.
Model: 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio
Module: i810_audio)

"Informational- artsmessage

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (Device or resource busy)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device."

Any ideas?   :confused:    :confused:    :confused:

[TheQuirk]

Something is using your sound driver and not letting everything else from using it.

$ fuser -k /dev/dsp

I think.

[slvadcjelli42]

I read the man page on that before trying to use it and thought "wow that's exactly what I need, what a useful tool." But when I try to use it it says "bash: fuser: command not found"! Is there something I don't have installed?

Oh, and for now the sound is working ok... if I can get at fuser I should be able to find out what is triggering the problem...

[sime]

Humm,

wild guess is it an on board sound card?

Later

[slvadcjelli42]

Haha, yes, Sime, you are right. I assumed all the hardware would be fully compatible (and I'm still pretty much thinking that) since RH 8 came preinstalled. This doesn't seem to be a hardware problem, at least. At least it's ok for now...

[sime]

Hey Dirk,

still havin' fun then    

Ok while thing are working get up a root shell and try these.

cat /proc/ioports
cat /proc/iomem

They will give you details on bits and bobs also
play with ...

cat /proc/interrupts
cat /proc/devices
cat /proc/cpuinfo

You can obtain quite a lot of system information with these. Have a nose around the /proc dir you will find some familar things such as uptime and stat and other things.

As far as the sound problem goes I had something similar with a motherboard with onboard sound (SIS 7012 PCI Audio Accelerator) and found that the manufacurer had a BIOS upgrade that fixed the problem, it to was intermitent which as TheQuirk pointed out is systematic of something nicking the interrupt the sound system is using. Check and see if anything is sharing the interrupt. May be worth seeing if there is a BIOS upgrade available from the manufacturer.

Later

Sime

[slvadcjelli42]

Ok, thanks!! It's not working right now       so I can't get that information in particular but I'm looking through it anyway, I guess I'll hold onto it and compare later... So, if I find that when it isn't working something else is using the interrupt ordinarily assigned to the sound device, I could just.. um... reassign it?? I barely understand what I'm saying myself, so I have no idea if what I'm saying makes sense...I notice that number 11 in this one looks a little strange. does that look at all troublesome?

cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0
  0:     989336          XT-PIC  timer
  1:      13325          XT-PIC  keyboard
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
  9:          0          XT-PIC  ehci-hcd
 10:          0          XT-PIC  ehci-hcd, usb-uhci
 11:     176680          XT-PIC  usb-uhci, usb-uhci, usb-uhci, eth0, Intel ICH2
 12:    1017440          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
 14:      64256          XT-PIC  ide0
 15:      33771          XT-PIC  ide1
NMI:          0
ERR:          0


Thanks again!

(Edit: Oh, and I doubt there're any BIOS updates or anything right now, although i guess I'll look into it anyway; I just got this computer a few days ago...)

[ July 26, 2003: Message edited by: Dirk Gently ]

[mobrien_12]

I've had onboard i810 audio running on some of my boxes for a couple years now, with no problems.

First make sure these modules are loaded
(use /sbin/lsmod)

i810_audio          
ac97_codec          
soundcore            

Then go into console mode (init 3) and try to play something from there using a program like splay or mpg123 or ogg123

If everything works then, the problem is with the sound daemon (arts or esound) and we can work from there.

[ July 26, 2003: Message edited by: M. O'Brien ]

[ July 26, 2003: Message edited by: M. O'Brien ]

[slvadcjelli42]

Ok, let's see... all of those modules are there, and I don't have mpg123 but I DO have ogg123, so I guess I'll try that. First I'll need to get a file to test it with, though... i'm assuming something like an mp3 or a ".wav" with work with that? I don't have any right now since I just got this thing... I guess I'll download some random sound file      
As for that other stuff, the only differences when it's working are that in /proc/cpuinfo there are three extra "flags": ss ht tm, and in /proc/interrupts some of the values in the CPU0 column are different. I accidently messed up the "not working" text file, though, so I can't say exactly what the value differences are    :rolleyes:  
I should be upgrading to RH9 soon, do you think that might fix the problem? On the other hand, I might just go ahead and get an actual sound card, I've never been a big fan of this "onboard" stuff. Ah, and one last thing; could this sound problem be causing problems in programs that use sound, such as those games "Tux Racer" and "Chromium"? I don't actual care about using them, but it bothers me that they don't work right (Tux Racer crashes on startup and Chromium is realllly suttery). I mean, is that necessarily a video problem? Thanks again!

[ July 27, 2003: Message edited by: Dirk Gently ]

[TuxLinux]

Hey here are thigs to try:

1. First try to reboot linux. It sometimes happens when your sound server gets stuck. Because a program has terminated  without freeing  things up.

2. See if your permissions are set correctly


3. Run the sndconfig (in Redhat9 you can get it with using the menu) or use it in the terminal type "setup" and you will see  options. In earlier versions you could run sndconfig in the terminal on its own.

 If that does not help, I am sure you will have one of the friendly people here try to help you.

[TuxLinux]

Also, some sound cards under linux will not have MIDI support at all  or direct support.  on some sound cards you can actually use kmidi (think it is thimidy??) and it will stil lwork on those cards. Since you  are able to get any sound at all. Likely it is some other problem.

[slvadcjelli42]

Thanks for the advice... it's not working now so I guess I'll reboot, but I hope I won't have to do that on a regular basis (it seems to take a while).

Uh oh, what did I do now? I was just trying to get the samba client working correctly so I could see shared files on the windows computer (I just set up a network between the two) and somehow ended up snooping around in /dev... then i tried to go "into" /dev/hda... I was informed that that was not a directory... so instead I say "cat /dev/hda"... wow, looks like something out of the Matrix. It's been going on for about 5 minutes now, I hope I'm not getting myself in over my head Still going... I guess I'll try to close it

[slvadcjelli42]

Okay, that was weird. I can't run sngconfig for some reason, it seems non-existant. That wouldn't happen to be the "Soundcard Detection" system setting thing, would it? (i've tried that). I'll reboot now, but It's probably going to come back after a little while.

[sime]

Hi Dirk,

Sndstat may or may not work, it's changed over the years.

It's one of those ones you would expect to find in /proc along with the other bits and bobs I mentioned earlier but actually appears in /dev

cat /dev/sndstat

The shell version does not work on my 7.2 box but that's probably because the sound is up the duff and I couldn't care less as that particular box is a web server.

Just out of interest does the MB have on board LAN as well?

Some info about sndstat can be found here http://www.oreilly.de/catalog/multilinux/excerpt/ch14-04.htm

Have fun

Sime

[slvadcjelli42]

(Rebooted) Yes, LAN is onboard, too, but I've never had any problems with that on any computer,  for some reason... always had problems if sound or video was onboard though. hm...
Well, I didn't get the error message but sound is still not working... except in the "KDE Control Module Sound Server" settings! I can test a sound there and it plays this weird bubbly techno stuff... no sound anywhere else though.

"The device /dev/sndstat/ [. . .] is much like the files found in the /proc filesystem (and arguably should be found there)."    
Aw, man... "/dev/sndstat: No such device" what's up with that?

HEY! It works! I forced the "aRts soundserver" to restart by turning a setting off/on and then pressing apply... now other sounds work. who knows how long it'll last, though    

(Sorry for the rambling nature of this post, I was writing it as I did all that stuff)