KDE sound notifications gone (SOLVED)

Message

etk · Post by **etk** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 11:24 pm

I've only found two threads on this in the forum, but since one of these contained part of my problem, I'll reply here.

I pulled down KDE 3.3.0 and ran into this exact same problem - no sound at all. After modifying ~/.kde/share/config to

[StartProgress]
Arts Init=true
KNotify Init=true
Use Arts=true

(Arts Init and Use Arts were for whatever reason false on mine), I believe this was what started allowing me to play WAV files within KDE. However .ogg files were still not working. I managed to get aplay to "play" ogg files, but they were screeching garbled noise.

I attempted to work around using aplay/play/etc to as an external player, but ogg files still would not work despite having all my used flags +oggvorbis. When trying to find a simple ogg player, I found /usr/bin/ogg123 had been installed previously due to vorbis-tools. However ogg123 itself would not play ogg files. It complained about a missing FLAC library. With an etcat -u, I found that there was a -flac use flag forr vorbis-tools which I had not set myself (and the package did not use by default).

So I edited /etc/make.conf USE=flac (and of course, others) and re-emerged vorbis-tools - which also brought down the package flac. Once installed, KDE 3.3 now plays ogg sounds without reverting to an "external player" or any of that other business.

Hope that helps someone!

Tom

msubzwari · Post by **msubzwari** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 5:15 pm

Thanks Tom
Your solution definately helped me as I was facing exactly the same problem and your proposed solution worked fine for me as well.

Cheers
Mazhar

shredz · Post by **shredz** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 11:59 am

Well with me arts says it can't load any ogg file I throw at it. Wav's work fine, xmms works fine, aplay works fine on wav's, ogg123 works fine on ogg files, but artsplay foo.ogg will not move.

FNX · Post by **FNX** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 1:58 pm

I had the same arts problem and (i think) i got over this by emerging the version 1.1.5. Now i see that arts plays something audible, but my notifications are not yet restored. I seem have a problem with knotify.

The message i get:

knotify: symbol lookup error: /usr/kde/3.3/lib/kde3/plugins/styles/kthemestyle.so: undefined symbol: _ZN7KPixmapD2Ev
ERROR: Communication problem with knotify, it probably crashed.

i searched through the threads but nearly all is on arts or external problems

any clues?

mrsteven · Post by **mrsteven** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 9:37 am

Ateo wrote:Open ~/.kde/share/config/knotifyrc and make sure it has the following:
Code: Select all
[StartProgress]
Arts Init=true
KNotify Init=true
Use Arts=true
If they are set to false, change them to true.

Thank you! I had the same problem: arts got broken somehow, I re-emerged it but knotify didn't work anymore. Then I tried your solution and now it works again.

@FNX: Do you use any special theme? Try to use another one.

shredz · Post by **shredz** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 9:59 am

etk wrote: I pulled down KDE 3.3.0 and ran into this exact same problem - no sound at all. After modifying ~/.kde/share/config/knotifyrc to
Code: Select all
[StartProgress] 
 Arts Init=true 
 KNotify Init=true 
 Use Arts=true
(Arts Init and Use Arts were for whatever reason false on mine), I believe this was what started allowing me to play WAV files within KDE. However .ogg files were still not working. I managed to get aplay to "play" ogg files, but they were screeching garbled noise.

Well after modifying that config file it works perfectly again here as well. Thanks a bunch

Flandry · Post by **Flandry** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:59 am

So i updated kde this week, hoping that i would magically get sound back, and still no luck (originally lost it in the "upgrade" to KDE 3.3). I followed the ALSA guide (unmuting Master and PCM), and can't get any sound no matter what i do.

Does anyone have anything else to suggest? Maybe it's simply a mute somewhere else - maybe a new one added with KDE 3.3? Something easy, i'm just overlooking. I hope so!

shredz · Post by **shredz** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:20 pm

Try playing an mp3 in xmms, if that shows activity on playing, the problem is volume, otherwise it's somewhere else...

Flandry · Post by **Flandry** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:32 pm

The XMMS visualizer shows the expected activity. Just no sound. I fiddled around with the Kmix applet, turning on/off all the outputs, and nothing. Aggravating.

kottlettstanze · Post by **kottlettstanze** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:38 pm

Try to play a sound using aplay, perhaps you'll get an error message. (You might want to suspend arts first, using "artsshell suspend").

Flandry · Post by **Flandry** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:09 pm

I have to admit that i have no idea what the "correct" state is supposed to be, but i typed

Code: Select all

artsshell suspend

at the shell prompt and was told

Code: Select all

sound server was already suspended

.

After fiddling around with aplay i finally got

Code: Select all

Playing WAVE '/mnt/data/Media/Sounds/alive.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 11000 Hz, Mono
aplay: pcm_write:1115: write error: Input/output error

after a little while.

Interesting. What are the possibilities?

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:14 pm

srlinuxx wrote:Try to start artsd at the commandline and see what it says.

i've had this problem too. i've upgraded to 3.3.2, and my knotifyrc file looks like its supposed to:

Code: Select all

[StartProgress]
Arts Init=true
KNotify Init=true
Use Arts=true

so i tried running artsd at the command line:

Code: Select all

# artsd
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1172:(snd_pcm_hw_open) open /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p failed: Device or resource busy
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device: default can't be opened for playback (Device or resource busy)

interestingly, its no problem to play a test sound using KDE Control Center > Sound & Multimedia > Sound System > General > Test Sound.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:24 pm

etk wrote:When trying to find a simple ogg player, I found /usr/bin/ogg123 had been installed previously due to vorbis-tools. However ogg123 itself would not play ogg files. It complained about a missing FLAC library. With an etcat -u, I found that there was a -flac use flag forr vorbis-tools which I had not set myself (and the package did not use by default).

So I edited /etc/make.conf USE=flac (and of course, others) and re-emerged vorbis-tools - which also brought down the package flac. Once installed, KDE 3.3 now plays ogg sounds without reverting to an "external player" or any of that other business.

am i correct in assuming that you had been using KDE 3.3.0? FWIW, this doesn't seem to be applicable to my case, where i started off with an installation of 3.3.1 and upgraded to 3.3.2. according to portage, i already have flac-1.1.1 installed as a dependency of either 3.3.1 or 3.3.2.

Flandry · Post by **Flandry** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:41 pm

Well, since my last post i emerged 3.3.2, and today i was fiddling around outside of KDE to see if audio worked there. I looked through all the options from amixer and discovered that two entries i hadn't seen before were there... and one called DAC (Digital-Analog Converter) was set to level 0. So... i raise the level and... voila!

I guess this control was added or defaulted to 0 sometime in the updates i installed in the last few months. I have also fiddled with permissions and other stuff, but this was an obviously necessary adjustment. So there may have been more involved. But i'm just glad to have my audio back in linux!

shredz · Post by **shredz** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:56 pm

lol I suggested volume a few posts higher... it's good to see how I waste my time helping people here

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:03 pm

shredz wrote:lol I suggested volume a few posts higher... it's good to see how I waste my time helping people here

well, volume only works as a solution if your volume controls are mis-set. so it seems that there is more than one problem in this thread.

one problem that remains: in my case, audio files play just fine. the problem is that the associations of audio files with the KDE system sounds has been lost. does anyone know how to set the sounds back to their defaults without having to edit the entire list by hand?

duozmo · Post by **duozmo** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 10:12 am

At first I tried etk's solution of adding the 'flac' use flag, but it turns out that didn't have any noticeable effect on my system (no essential packages used it). So I went with the knotifyrc file modification, which worked.

shredz · Post by **shredz** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:18 am

Making that knotifyrc read-only might stop this error occuring if the kde people don't fix it.

Ijo · Post by **Ijo** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:15 pm

Today I found a similar problem that some people was describing here, however in my case the solution was so simple that you can't imagine. Please don't kill me, as this kind of things sometimes happens.

In my case:
- Sounds worked perfect in ALL applications.
- I was running openbox and so didn't use events sounds.
- Today I moved to KDE and wanted to test sound, but failed with:

------------------------------------------
Unable to start the sound server to
retrieve possible sound I/O methods,

only automatic detection enabled.
------------------------------------------

So, I read lots of threads in the forum, up until finding that It was really simple, next time I'll read carefully the error message

.

Code: Select all

emerge arts

that's it.

PD: Btw, I've never needed to do it before, in other laptops, pc's. As soon as I emerged kde then arts was installed. Maybe it's because this one is AMD64...

Inssomniak · Post by **Inssomniak** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:32 pm

I have no system notifications, and I use an external player ogg123 to play my system notifications. worked great, until I did emerge -uvD --newuse world. (amd64 unstable)

then they quit, sound works fully otherwise

problem lies somewhere in knotify, other options in knotify dont seem to work either (pop up window on event, etc)

duozmo · Post by **duozmo** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 11:39 pm

Ijo, although it's great that re-emerging arts worked for you, it's hard to imagine that's going to be the solution in the general case. I think what happened to you is probably something in arts broke, or it somehow got uninstalled, and re-emerging it fixed it. (Or perhaps re-emerging it fixed the config file issue that's discussed here.) Anyway, I would recommend people try changing the 1 little config file before they try re-emerging arts (which may not even help.)

jhfry · Post by **jhfry** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:25 pm

Pojo, just to let you know, I agree that reemerging is not a elegant solution... however what ljo pointed out is that on AMD64 systems it doesn't appear that arts is emerged with x.org and kde... but must be manually emerged, or perhaps a USE flag must be set to trigger a dependancy on it...

I was having the same problem he described and that was exactly the solution... install arts!

duozmo · Post by **duozmo** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:49 pm

Ok, good call - I missed the note about it being AMD64

I just wanted to help sort out the various pieces of advice here for any new folks that might come along... also, that is a rather weird issue.

Inssomniak · Post by **Inssomniak** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 2:48 am

http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79029

chetan13 · Post by **chetan13** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:43 pm

From the above bug

------- Additional Comment #6 From Rohan McGovern 2005-01-26 16:34 PST -------

(by the way, the 'breakage' of knotify is not just restricted to sound notifications. I don't even use knotify for sound notifications, I noticed the breakage because the knotify object disappears from DCOP, which sure as heck should not be caused by not building Arts support.)

i am using kde-3.4-beta1 without arts. even though sound notifications don't work with an external player, others like displaying message box does work.

chetan

KDE sound notifications gone (SOLVED)

My solution

Re: My solution

Still no sound

Re: My solution

Weird

What about us NON arts users

No sounds? Not using arts?