Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide

[bixejo]

00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI bridge (rev a1) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=07, subordinate=07, sec-latency=64
Memory behind bridge: f2100000-f21fffff
Capabilities: <access denied>

Is that the only device listed by lspci -v??? That's not actually an audio device, but a "PCI bridge". Audio devices are named in that very way just in the place where you see "PCI bridge" in your quoted text.

See my previous post in this thread to see what kind of output you should look for. If your terminal scrolls too many lines for you to be able to see all devices, you may try the following:

yourlogin@yourhost:~$ lspci -v | less

Then you may freely scroll up and down (q to quit from "less".)

[kriukov]

If that fixes your issues, looks like your problem's something to do with groups. Normally, permissions of files under /dev/snd/ allow owner and group to read and write from/to them. Did you check whether your user(s) name(s) is(are) included in the group "audio"? If not, that may explain why you need to apply permissions to "everybody" in the way you do with chmod.

You may check what users are included in the group "audio" by typing in a terminal (I include my own output):

To include users you may edit file /etc/group and include at the end of the line starting by "audio" the users names you want to allow access to audio devices, separated by commas just like in the example. You may also try to use the GUI tool you may find in "System --> Administration --> Users and Groups" (albeit I don't see the group "audio" in my system... *shrug*). After that, all those users will be able to use sound devices without need to chmod files.

I think I found a better solution (don't know, but it worked immediately without rebooting). After googling the error "/dev/dsp: device or resource busy", which seems to be a very popular search, I disabled software sound mixing (ESD). Everything was fine then.

[bixejo]

I think I found a better solution (don't know, but it worked immediately without rebooting). After googling the error "/dev/dsp: device or resource busy", which seems to be a very popular search, I disabled software sound mixing (ESD). Everything was fine then.

If that worked fine for you, that's not only a better solution, but the best one

Note, however, that if you disable ESD you may get odd crashes in Nautilus (the default Gnome file browser) if you navigate for some time through folders with many audio files (mp3, wav, etc.) From some point on, Nautilus just refuses to show the content of any folder saying "Too many open files." This usually happens with Gutsy. If you don't get this problem, just forget about this. But if you do so, you may disable audio files preview in Nautilus to avoid this: Edit --> Preferences --> Go to "Preview" tab, and there disable previews for audio files.

[litothegreat]

Not much help, but I just can tell you that I've got also a ICH8 chipset family audio card, and alsa-1.0.15 works great for me.

My audio devices, as reported by lscpi -v are:


The second device listed is the modem audio output, I believe, but not sure at all.

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Unknown device 0560
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 22
Memory at f3400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
thats wat it says for me. and i didnt see n e support for me. but im planning on just going along with the process and see if it works. if i do fallow the instructions and it isnt supported will n e harm be done to my system?

[kriukov]

If that worked fine for you, that's not only a better solution, but the best one

Note, however, that if you disable ESD you may get odd crashes in Nautilus (the default Gnome file browser) if you navigate for some time through folders with many audio files (mp3, wav, etc.) From some point on, Nautilus just refuses to show the content of any folder saying "Too many open files." This usually happens with Gutsy. If you don't get this problem, just forget about this. But if you do so, you may disable audio files preview in Nautilus to avoid this: Edit --> Preferences --> Go to "Preview" tab, and there disable previews for audio files.

I hope it is going to work. Due to some reason Gizmo, which I use to make voice calls, uses /dev/dsp, which is, AFAIK, related to OSS, and this error has apparently nothing to do with ALSA (restarting ALSA did no good). I don't understand what ESD is for, and I don't know if I can have more than one application use sound now. I checked Nautilus by opening a directory with a very big number of sound files (~1000), didn't notice any errors; I have sound files preview always disabled (don't understand the purpose of this anyway). I use Dapper with Nautilus 2.14.3.

[bixejo]

[...]
thats wat it says for me. and i didnt see n e support for me. but im planning on just going along with the process and see if it works. if i do fallow the instructions and it isnt supported will n e harm be done to my system?

Go ahead and good luck! You may also consider slight variations on the instructions. For example, I had to install compiling the driver source code, and I tried first with the last driver release as suggested (alsa-1.0.16 was the last one at that point.) That one didn't work, but 1.0.15 did (unexplainable.)

[bixejo]

I hope it is going to work. Due to some reason Gizmo, which I use to make voice calls, uses /dev/dsp, which is, AFAIK, related to OSS, and this error has apparently nothing to do with ALSA [...]

Did you also install the package alsa-oss? It's the ALSA wrapper for OSS applications. Maybe you should if you use old OSS applications on ALSA driver.

[...] and I don't know if I can have more than one application use sound now. [...]

That can be very easily checked, so go ahead

[...] I checked Nautilus by opening a directory with a very big number of sound files (~1000), didn't notice any errors; I have sound files preview always disabled (don't understand the purpose of this anyway). I use Dapper with Nautilus 2.14.3.

Well, if you already have sound files preview disabled, you obviously won't get the bug (I don't know either what's the purpose of sound files previews.)

[monkeymind90]

oops, grabbed the wrong one.
"00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP65 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 30cf
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
Memory at f2480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

" This is the only audio device listed, and it still has the access denied thing.

[kriukov]

Did you also install the package alsa-oss? It's the ALSA wrapper for OSS applications. Maybe you should if you use old OSS applications on ALSA driver.

I did install alsa-oss but didn't figure out its purpose for now, so I uninstalled it. Will it help much in my case?

That can be very easily checked, so go ahead

No. I cannot play more than one application simultaneously, nor more than one stream by the same application (like two sound files in VLC at a time).

[bixejo]

oops, grabbed the wrong one.
"00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP65 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 30cf
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
Memory at f2480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

" This is the only audio device listed, and it still has the access denied thing.

Ok, I see. Looks like your video hw is not fully supported. Don't worry about the access denied thing, I also get it in my lspci list and all work fine in my laptop. Anyhow, I'm by no means an expert in these issues, so maybe you should ask some other wiser guy.