no sound

English Multimedia
1

hi

the issue here in KDE 4.6 is that I can not play more than one audio simultaneously, always only first ran app has sound.

ex if I play amarok first than vlc, I dont have sound in vlc, if I play youtube and than amarok/vlc I only have sound from youtube…

here is output of lsmod | grep snd

# lsmod | grep snd 
snd_pcm_oss            53391  0 
snd_mixer_oss          20225  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq                66675  0 
snd_seq_device          7770  1 snd_seq
snd_hda_codec_idt      70405  1 
snd_hda_intel          28773  2 
snd_hda_codec         108050  2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               7772  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm               104468  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer              26774  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd                    84374  14 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               8782  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          9569  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

the output of # cat /proc/asound/*

 # cat /proc/asound/*
cat: /proc/asound/card0: Is a directory
 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xfebfc000 irq 42
  2:        : timer
  3:  0- 1]: digital audio playback
  4:  0- 0]: digital audio playback
  5:  0- 0]: digital audio capture
  6:  0- 1]: hardware dependent
  7:  0- 0]: hardware dependent
  8:  0]   : control
  9:        : sequencer
00-01: HDA Codec 1
00-00: HDA Codec 0
cat: /proc/asound/Intel: Is a directory
 0 snd_hda_intel
cat: /proc/asound/oss: Is a directory
00-00: STAC92xx Analog : STAC92xx Analog : playback 1 : capture 1
00-01: STAC92xx Digital : STAC92xx Digital : playback 1
cat: /proc/asound/seq: Is a directory
G0: system timer : 1000.000us (10000000 ticks)
P0-0-0: PCM playback 0-0-0 : SLAVE
P0-0-1: PCM capture 0-0-1 : SLAVE
P0-1-0: PCM playback 0-1-0 : SLAVE
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.

thanks

2

You can run the following command to see who is using your sound devices.

lsof /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/snd/*

This command is part of the tests performed by my bash script I called start. You can download it here:

S.T.A.R.T. - SuSE Terminal Audio Reporting Tool - Version 1.11 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

3

The command proposed by jdmcdaniel3 is an excellent command to indicate what application is using your sound device. I recommend you run that command when sound is working and when it is not working, at various times, to better learn what it means. Note it is ’ /dev/snd/* ’ at the end, which is different from the earlier entries in that command.

Pulse audio provides the means for different applications to share audio with the same audio device, so if you are using openSUSE-11.4 with your KDE-4.6.0 then it should be possible to share the audio device amongst multiple applications. To that goal I find it useful to ensure each multimedia application has ‘pulse’ selected as its audio output device. Applications such as xine, vlc, xine … provide that audio output mode capability. Applications such as amarok may use the setting in the KDE desktop, in which case one needs to go to Kmenu > Configure Desktop > Multimedia > phonon and ensure that is properly tuned for pulse to share a single sound device amongst multiple applications.

And I find it useful to install the pulse audio volume control application ‘pavucontrol’. Then ensure that in the pavucontrol ‘output devices’ tab one has selected to show all devices, and in the ‘playback’ tab selected to show all streams. …

4

hi and thanks for usefull command it shows what makes card busy but I havent figured out why I can not play simultanius streams

5

hi and thanks for ur response, I followed ur advice and installed pavucontrol,checked that all apps has pulse audio slected and good thing is that I can now play vlc + youtube simultaneous but can not play amarok with anything else at the same time.
thats a good start any way.

6

hi and thanks for ur response, I followed ur advice and installed pavucontrol,checked that all apps has pulse audio slected and good thing is that I can now play vlc + youtube simultaneous but can not play amarok with anything else at the same time.
thats a good start any way.

Just to make sure its not a multimedia setup thing look at this:

MMCHECK - Version 2.35 - Check Your Multimedia in 16 Steps - Bash Script File - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

If its possible your multimedia is not configured properly, have a look at this:

My Multimedia Oneclick - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

7

Good to read you can play vlc and youtube (via firefox ? ) simultaneous. I was about to recommend phonon-backend-vlc packaged by packman but I suspect it not necessary. Can you check your KMENU > Configure Destkop > Multimedia > Phonon > Backend and tell us if you have xine or gstreamer selected ? (or vlc backend ? )

What I do is select ‘xine’ backend (or ‘vlc’ backend if you installed phonon-backend-vlc ) and I then also install xine-ui packaged by packman and then using xine > settings (right click on xine window to get) , with ‘master of the known universe’ permissions, I select ‘audio’ > ‘audio driver to use’ > pulseaudio.

That usually allows me to share audio well with the xine backend (one can do the same with vlc backend). I note amarok should use the same sound engine as firefox (youtube) so you should be able play both with pulse audio volume control (pavucontrol) in the pavucontrol ‘playback’ tab (ensure you select so SHOW all streams).