Sorry to read of your problem. Without know the specifics of your set up , it is incredibly difficult to offer a specific suggestion. Please apply the recommendations for multimedia from here: Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide
… also , note the speaker test you applied is not very representative. Typically one type of speaker test might fail, and another work.
Note the error you saw stated “device or resource busy”. What does that suggest to you? It suggests to me some other device is using your audio device and it is not sharing this. Did you have Amarok open when doing the test? If so, close Amarok.
If not (ie Amarok and all other media players were closed) then try this:
su -c 'rcalsasound restart'
and enter root password when prompted for a password and then restart your mixer, and try all of these one at a time, until you get one to work:
Try each of the following in a terminal, first as a regular user and then with root permissions:
first:
speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav
second, try again:
speaker-test -c2 -l5 -twav
third:
speaker-test -c2 -D hw:0,0 -t wav -l3
fourth, this next command has a volume meter at the bottom of its output with a changing number of #'s and %'s to show volume levels so run this command and tell me if the number of #'s and %'s are changing:
Well this might me worth noting - when I did ‘rcalsasound restart’ KDE gave me a popup message saying
KDE detected that one or more internal sound devices were removed.
Do you want KDE to permanently forget about these devices?
This is the list of devices KDE thinks can be removed:
Capture: HDA Intel (ALC888 Analog)
Output: HDA Intel (ALC888 Analog)
Output: HDA Intel (ALC888 Digital)
The ALC888 Analog worked for me when I tested it in the KDE Control Module.
The third speaker test you said also worked for me (as a normal user and root)
Glad to read you had some success. Does this mean your sound is now working ok in other players ? (for example, after a reboot BEFORE you try to play sound in Amarok, try other players 1st).
Well, KDE makes sounds when I log in or out now, but I still cant get any media players except amarok to play sounds.
I tried playing Gangs of New York with Kaffeine, which worked 3 days ago, but there was no sound.
For applications that use your desktop’s audio configuration (which may have been modified after the update to libxine1 or to any gstreamer updates), you likely need to exit X windows and restart to have it applied to those applications.
I understand this is frustrating, and I understand its a major source of irritation to have to type and retype painful details about a problem, but when you type “still didn’t work”, given there were a couple of people providing advice in this thread, I have NO IDEA as to what does not work. Nor do I know who that is intended for . “still” may mean something to you, but as someone who wants to see this working on your PC it means nothing to me. My most sincere apologies if that reads to be too blunt. It is not intended to be.
For applications that use your desktop’s audio configuration (which may have been modified after the update to libxine1 or to any gstreamer updates), you likely need to exit X windows and restart to have it applied to those applications.
And said that didn’t work.
I tried to run the queries in that thread you posted, but none of them outputted anything except the last one (which you already posted).
Did you attempt everything associated with this quote of mine:
… ie … after a reboot, try to play something with smplayer BEFORE launching firefox and BEFORE starting Amarok. Does that work ? Do the same for vlc BEFORE launching Amarok, and BEFORE starting firefox.
From what I can see, your gstreamer apps are an inapporpriate SuSE-GmbH / packman mix. That should be fixed.
At this stage I am trying to determine if your problem is due to inappropriate applications, or inappropriate desktop configuration, or a simple problem due to one device (such as Amarok) seizing the audio device and refusing to share it.
Did you attempt everything associated with this quote of mine:
… ie … after a reboot, try to play something with smplayer BEFORE launching firefox and BEFORE starting Amarok. Does that work ? Do the same for vlc BEFORE launching Amarok, and BEFORE starting firefox.
I reattempted it and it wouldn’t play any sound.
edit: This is what vlc reported when I was trying to play a movie, maybe it could help
froid@linux-630u:~> vlc
VLC media player 1.1.4 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
[0x6090c0] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
Blocked: call to sigaction(17, 0x7fb4f0389ab0, 0x7fb4f0389b50)
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to rand()
Warning: call to rand()
Warning: call to rand()
Warning: call to rand()
Warning: call to rand()
(7846): Trying to open ksycoca from "/var/tmp/kdecache-froid/ksycoca4"
Blocked: call to putenv("LANGUAGE=")
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to sigaction(13, 0x7fb4f0386120, (nil))
Blocked: call to setlocale(1, "C")
Blocked: call to setlocale(1, "en_US.UTF-8")
Blocked: call to setlocale(1, "C")
/usr/bin/xdg-screensaver: line 543: dcop: command not found
(7846): Trying to open ksycoca from "/var/tmp/kdecache-froid/ksycoca4"
Blocked: call to putenv("LANGUAGE=")
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to sigaction(13, 0x7fb4f0386120, (nil))
Blocked: call to setlocale(1, "C")
Blocked: call to setlocale(1, "en_US.UTF-8")
Blocked: call to setlocale(1, "C")
/usr/bin/xdg-screensaver: line 543: dcop: command not found
What is ksycoca ? What version of KDE do you have installed ? Also, disable your screensaver for the tests.
What is the output of running the following after a fresh reboot (to check the list of open files accessing your audio device) ? When smplayer running ? When vlc running ? When xine running ? When amarok playing sound ?
lsof /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/snd/*
note at the end that is /dev/snd/* (which is different than the other list of open file locations)
Well oldcpu, I finally got VLC to work by quitting amarok, going into the audio menu, and changing “Output Module” to “ALSA audio output”, “Device” to “HDA Intel: ALC888 Analog(hw:0,0)” and checking on “Use S/PDIF When Available”
