[PlanetCCRMA] "system" audio troubles

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Wed, 2005-11-02 at 15:59 -0500, Peter Lutek wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
> >On 11/1/05, Peter Lutek <plutek at infinity.net> wrote:
> >>Playing WAVE 'sound-sample.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate
> >>44100 Hz, Stereo
> >>Warning: rate is not accurate (requested = 44100Hz, got = 48000Hz)
> >>         please, try the plug plugin (-Dplug:default)
> >>aplay: pcm_write:1171: write error: Input/output error
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >In my experience this happens on systems where a given sound chip has
> >a fixed sample rate. -Dplug tells alsa to do a smaple rate conversion
> >in software I beleive.
> >
> >  
> >
> >>(that looks like it's trying to use the intel chip, with the 48k s.r.)
> >>then, when i do this:
> >>
> >>aplay -Dplug:default sound-sample.wav
> >>
> >>i get this:
> >>
> >>Playing WAVE 'sound-sample.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate
> >>44100 Hz, Stereo
> >>
> >>but the process never finishes (that line just sits there, and i have to
> >>ctrl-c the process) and i have no sound actually output from the multiface.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >In my experience the #1 reason this happens to me is that some other
> >software has grabbed the sound chip. Check that other sound daemons
> >aren't running and that no other Alsa apps are busy, stuck, crashed,
> >etc.
> >
> >  
> >
> thanks, mark!
> ok, i appear to have the multiface functioning as the default card now.
> 
> my (very simple!) .asoundrc is:
> 
>  pcm.hdsp {
>     type hw
>     card 1
> }
> ctl.hdsp {
>     type hw
>     card 1
> }
> pcm.!default {
>     type plug
>     slave.pcm hdsp
> }
> 
> and "aplay sound-sample.wav" works without having to designate the plug 
> method on the comand line.
> 
> unfortunately, i still have no sound from firefox (checking various 
> flash sites, and video.google.com - the flash and video plays fine, but 
> with no audio). any suggestions of where to go from here?

I'm having the same problem but I have no solution. Firefox uses OSS and
scans for the cards as /dev/dsp*, in my case it selects the _second_
soundcard, presumably because it does not like the first which is the
one connected to speakers. 

What I did to try to find out what's going on is to start firexof like
this:
  strace firefox &>log

That will trace all system calls that the firefox executable does. If
you then edit "log" and search for things like /dev/dsp you'll see what
it's trying to do. 

-- Fernando