Sound only works properly after reset

[vincentv]

The computer is a home computer, so several family members use it, logging in and out of their own sessions. Here is what happens.

 

When the machine, running Mdk10.0, is switched on, or rebooted, and the first person logs in, the sound works perfectly. You can use any player (realplayer 10, mplayer, totem, xmms, ..) in any order, and the sound plays without a problem.

 

If the first person logs out, and a second person logs in (including the person who just logged out), only realplayer10 works (realplayer 8 sometimes worked) . Any other sound app will load the first sound fragment and just freeze - leaving the sound fragment repeating endlessly untill the app is terminated.

 

A consequence of this, is that when the second person logs in, KDE startup fails as the sound system starts and the sytem notifications kick in. To stop this from happening, I have disabled the sound system in each person's KDE set up, and yet, even with the sound sytem disabled, the sound still works perfectly for the first user and only realplayer10 works for the second user!

 

What I have done so far:

 

-Read every forum topic I could find!

-Tried a completely different sound card (I have a sound blaster)

-Tried using Gnome

-Reconfigured using Alsa config

-Reconfigured using Mandrake Control Centre

-Reconfigured manually

-Tried using an older kernel (2.6.7mdk? and 2.4.? multimedia)

-Ensured the system is completely up-to date with the latest patches, bug fixes and kernel for Mdk10.

-Recomplied the kernel, removing all OSS modules and leaving only ALSA.

-Checked that the owners and permissions of the sound devices (/dev/snd, /dev/sound) seem correct. after each new log-in

-Checked that alsa is running (it must be, since realplayer works and there is no other sound sytem).

-Checked the .xsessionerrors file for clues: The only one I get is that, if kmix is left on the sytem tray there is a message saying that alsamix could not be found. If I try running kmix from a teminal I get the same message the first time, but it runs the second time. I don't know if this is relavent, or a 'red herring'.

-Checked /var/log/messages for clues: no obvious ones.

-Run the non working apps (eg Totem) from a terminal to check for error messages, but there were none, they just froze after the first sound fragemt was loaded.

 

None of this made any difference.

 

Now my son has Mdk10 on his PC and has no such problem, I have Mdk10 on my PC at work and have no such problem. The sound sytem started 'going a bit funny' in Mdk9.2 - is it some setting / script that was not upgraded properly? Is it something to do with the older Asus board in the PC - but why, then, does it work perfectly after a reboot?

 

I've been trying to sort this out for months now, it became personal: me vs the PC, I will beat this! ... but now I have to concede that I have run out of ideas.

[devries]

It does sound (pun intended) like some config/script problem. Since you have been looking for months and found no solution what to edit or change I doubt anyone here can help you much.

 

My advice (I don't see it listed): reinstall.

[vincentv]

It does sound (pun intended) like some config/script problem. Since you have been looking for months and found no solution what to edit or change I doubt anyone here can help you much.

 

It seems to me that 'something' must be started in the reboot sequence which makes everything work; then that 'something' is stopped when exiting a session but not re-started when starting a new session.

 

What that 'something' is; thats the question: probably somethng daft like a file permission (msec?).

 

My advice (I don't see it listed): reinstall.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

That might be the answer, but as its only a nuiisance and not a major problem I'll probably wait until I get round to installing 10.1 (realplayer is fine for most things, if not: reboot)

 

Thanks anyway

[aRTee]

It's really strange that realplayer can still make some sounds - this indicates that it's not a permission problem of the devices.

 

It could be something to do with some soundserver not shutting down and somehow blocking the device.

 

Try

cat /boot/vmlinuz > /dev/dsp

(make sure you have your hand on the volume control knob - this sounds awful! - alternatively, cat [some .wav file] instead)

 

If that works fine, check which soundserver is running and blocking the device - and kill it.

Your friends are:

ps

and

kill

man ps

and

man kill

to find out more -

ps -ef

gives you quite a full list of all things running;

ps -ef | grep defunct

will filter for any defunct process, and

ps -ef | grep arts

will filter for all process lines with 'arts' in them.

kill [pid]

kills the process with process id [pid] (this is the number that you get with the ps command)...

[pmpatrick]

See if different sound modules are loading when it's working compared to when it hangs up. I had this intermittent problem with mdk10.0. Most of the time the OSS driver would load(es1371) but sometimes the alsa driver and usb sound modules would load and screw things up. To determine which modules are loaded, open a console, su to root and run:

 

# lsmod

 

Run it with the sound working and with the sound screwed up and see if different sound modules are loading.