ALSA refuses to play sound, need help desperately, please!

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

I have the ESS 1869 on my laptop (that a lot of posts on this forum involve) - it's a Compaq Armada 1700;
the thing is I've been working on trying to get the sound to work for the past days, and after reading through
this forum for clues, I've come to a point where everything loads as it should, no warning messages, but still:

NO SOUND!

The relevant config files (and output data)

/etc/conf.d/alsasound

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

Oh, here's the output of lsmod:

Vortex375 · Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 4:45 pm Post subject:

When you try to play a file in XMMS for example, does it tell you it cannot open the audio device or does it start playing and you can't hear anything?

If it looks like it plays but you are unable to hear anything then you might want to post the output of "amixer". Sometimes you just have to unmute an unsignificant control in alsamixer. Did you try playing around with all the availabe controls?

By the way I just looked at my oss_mix and it looks just like yours:

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

XMMS gets stuck on 00:00

both through the ALSA-plugin and the OSS,

OSS uses /dev/dsp

and

ALSA uses Audio device: hw0:0, which is

"ESS AudioDrive ES1869: ESS AudioDrive ES1869 (hw:0,0)
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Vortex375 · Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:03 pm Post subject:

I really don't have a clue. You could try starting XMMS from a console and see if it outputs some kind of error message. If you are unlucky you could probably try another player. Mplayer is usually quite talkative when run with the -v flag. :wink:

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

Output of amixer:

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

Ok, I've finally got XMMS to not just "freeze" upon playing a song, but despite the sound-meters are obviously moving, the sound is dead quiet (really frustrating!)

The thing is, I can clearly hear the speakers "click", when the sound-module is loaded, but the darned thing won't play!

:/
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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml

Used that guide from the start, step-by-step, and now everything works!
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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

mpg123 worked for one song, then I got extatic, and started XMMS, and nothing played (it just stops at 00:00),
bewildered, I ran mpg123 again, and it starts to "play", but no sound.

*shrieks out in frustration*
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Vortex375 · Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 10:48 pm Post subject:

Maybe your Desktop Environment has a mixer application that messed up the mixer settings.

Which output plugin is selected in XMMS? If alsa is not working try OSS, or another available one.

So far, your problem really sounds strange. It's not usual for something to work at first and then stop working all of a sudden, at least that's what I've experienced so far.

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

That's it, the kernel-drivers are out the door, I'm going to try with alsa-driver instead.
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PMT · Apprentice Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Posts: 212

Mayhaps artsd or esd is commandeering your sound card? The former is more likely than the latter...

I've had this problem with shitty sound cards that don't like sharing hardware before, though...I'll let you know if I recall how to fix it.

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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

I don't use KDE, so I doubt it.
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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

killall udevd
udevstart
alsamixer (and unmute the Master-channel)

Seems to half-solve the issue, I can now play mp3:s through OSS-emulated mpg123, BUT (and this is rather hilarious) XMMS can't play it, XMMS still acts like the total party-pooper and refuses to play, neither through the OSS-driver, nor the ALSA-driver.
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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

This is what alsaplayer says:

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

*scratches his head*

I have two consoles open, both logged in as root, in one when I type: mpg123 /home/fisk/chans.mp3 I can listen to music, fine and well - in the other (after switching off the first), nothing happens!

I am so utterly confused.

---

I'm getting crazy at this... now I can't play mp3:s again, despite being root, and despite first killing udev

*cries*
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Vortex375 · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 11:29 am Post subject:

Do a "cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/info". At the bottom you should see something like

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

Seems like this shall remain a mystery unsolved.
I've turned everywhere, and all I've managed to get within my grasps are the sympathetic utterings: "Oh, sounds unusual, can't help you".

The harsh, but perhaps true, advice I've received is that the ESS1869 is an old sound card, and probably isn't worth my time any way.

It's a pity, in Windows it worked like a charm.

Is this it, do I have to turn to the dark side to be able to listen to music on my laptop? :/
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Old School · Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 7:08 am Post subject:

If you have the MAD MPEG Decoder plugin on XMMS, disable it and see what happens.
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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

Hahaha, this is hilarious!

I can play music now...

BUT!

Only if I start X, XMMS, and press "play" on a song [which doesn't really play the song], and then (ie. in a console) run mpg123 and play a song!

Hooray for the miracles of silly software!
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fisk · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 63

WTF?!

Now it played in XMMS directly, but when I pressed STOP, and PLAY again, it stopped working...

(oh, and the mixer seems not to work

)

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in ALSAMIXER I have TWO (2) PCM

One that does precisely nothing, and the other PCM1, that affects volume... however, I can't choose the other in XMMS
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