restart alsa in F8

[fakie_flip]

All I found for restarting alsa does not work in F8. I also tried restarting pulseaudio, and that did not work as well. Here's what I get from doing so.

[chris@localhost ~]$ pulseaudio -k
W: polkit.c: Failed to show grant dialog: Unable to lookup exe for caller
W: polkit.c: PolicyKit responded with 'auth_admin_keep_always'
N: main.c: Called SUID root and real-time/high-priority scheduling was requested in the configuration. However, we lack the necessary priviliges:
N: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt' and PolicyKit refuse to grant us priviliges. Dropping SUID again.
N: main.c: For enabling real-time scheduling please acquire the appropriate PolicyKit priviliges, or become a member of 'pulse-rt', or increase the RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this user.
[chris@localhost ~]$ pulseaudio 
W: polkit.c: Failed to show grant dialog: Unable to lookup exe for caller
W: polkit.c: PolicyKit responded with 'auth_admin_keep_always'
N: main.c: Called SUID root and real-time/high-priority scheduling was requested in the configuration. However, we lack the necessary priviliges:
N: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt' and PolicyKit refuse to grant us priviliges. Dropping SUID again.
N: main.c: For enabling real-time scheduling please acquire the appropriate PolicyKit priviliges, or become a member of 'pulse-rt', or increase the RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this user.
W: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
W: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
ALSA lib conf.c:3949:(snd_config_expand) Unknown parameters 0
ALSA lib pcm.c:2145:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM surround71:0
E: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: Device or resource busy
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device_id=0 sink_name=alsa_output.pci_10de_59_sound_card_0_alsa_playback_0"): initialization failed.
W: alsa-util.c: Device (null) doesn't support 44100 Hz, changed to 48000 Hz.
ALSA lib control.c:909:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL front:0

I wonder when Fedora is not going to be so buggy, so that I don't spend over half my time fixing things with no luck.

[hellork]

I see the grant dialog still doesn't work. And pulseaudio is supposed to be managed automatically by ConsoleKit and avahi-daemon (if they are running). Why are you trying to restart it manually?

One thing you can do is get rid of the PolicyKit messages and gain real-time priority. As an added bonus, when I did this my (or possibly because of the new kernel update through yum) desktop sounds started working. Now it makes the little beeps and noises when I open and close windows.

As user, I ran

$ apropos PolicyKit
PolicyKit            (8)  - Centralized policy management
PolicyKit           (rpm) - Toolkit for privilege control
PolicyKit-gnome     (rpm) - GNOME dialogs for PolicyKit
PolicyKit.conf [PolicyKit] (5)  - PolicyKit configuration file
polkit-config-file-validate (1)  - Validate a PolicyKit configuration file
polkit-grant         (1)  - manage PolicyKit privilege grants
polkit-list-actions  (1)  - List registered PolicyKit actions
polkit-policy-file-validate (1)  - Validate a PolicyKit policy file

$ polkit-list-actions|grep pulse
org.pulseaudio.acquire-high-priority
org.pulseaudio.acquire-real-time

$ polkit-grant --gain org.pulseaudio.acquire-high-priority
$ polkit-grant --gain org.pulseaudio.acquire-real-time

I tried manually running the dialog. Nothing useful happened:

$ rf PolicyKit-gnome
PolicyKit-gnome           /usr/libexec/polkit-gnome-manager

$ /usr/libexec/polkit-gnome-manager
(polkit-gnome-manager:7062): PolicyKitGnome-DEBUG: Starting PolicyKit GNOME session daemon version 0.6
(polkit-gnome-manager:7062): PolicyKitGnome-DEBUG: Setting kill timer to 30 seconds.
(polkit-gnome-manager:7062): PolicyKitGnome-DEBUG: Exiting because of kill timer.

Now that the policyKit messages are gone, a new error is generated.

$ pulseaudio -k
process 7028: dbus_shutdown() called but connections were still live. This probably means the application did not drop all its references to bus connections.
  D-Bus not built with -rdynamic so unable to print a backtrace
Aborted
$ pulseaudio -D
process 7020: dbus_shutdown() called but connections were still live. This probably means the application did not drop all its references to bus connections.
  D-Bus not built with -rdynamic so unable to print a backtrace
Aborted

Seems dbus wants to be re-started manually, in other words log out.

[fakie_flip]

[chris@localhost ~]$ polkit-grant --gain org.pulseaudio.acquire-high-priority
Attempting to gain the privilege for org.pulseaudio.acquire-high-priority.
Authentication as an administrative user is required.
Password: 
Keep this privilege for the session or always? [no/session/always]?
session
Successfully gained the privilege for org.pulseaudio.acquire-high-priority.
[chris@localhost ~]$ polkit-grant --gain org.pulseaudio.acquire-real-time
Attempting to gain the privilege for org.pulseaudio.acquire-real-time.
Authentication as an administrative user is required.
Password: 
Keep this privilege for the session or always? [no/session/always]?
session
Successfully gained the privilege for org.pulseaudio.acquire-real-time.
[chris@localhost ~]$ pulseaudio -k
process 8106: dbus_shutdown() called but connections were still live. This probably means the application did not drop all its references to bus connections.
  D-Bus not built with -rdynamic so unable to print a backtrace
Aborted
[chris@localhost ~]$

My problem is not exactly the same as yours. I do have system sounds. I have all sounds except for Quake 4 and nobody can hear me talking on Skype. What does the above mean? Should I install alsa-plugins-pulseaudio again sense removing it did not solve the problem?

[hellork]

You do not need to reinstall. Your sound is working as intended. You do not have a microphone properly configured in /etc/pulse/default.pa (hal is not very bright at figuring these things out on its own).

In Gnome, go to the menu System->Preferences->Hardware->Sound and choose your microphone device under Audio Conferencing. Click the test button and speak clearly into the microphone.

If the above doesn't work, you'll have to do some editing. Possibly uncomment the line by removing the # sign:

load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0

The 1,0 might need to be changed to whatever device and card your microphone is hooked to.
$ aplay -l|grep card
card 0: V8237 [VIA 8237], device 0: VIA 8237 [VIA 8237]
card 0: V8237 [VIA 8237], device 1: VIA 8237 [VIA 8237]
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 0: emu10k1 [ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback]
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 2: emu10k1 efx [Multichannel Capture/PT Playback]
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 3: emu10k1 [Multichannel Playback]

On my system, I use:
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 0: emu10k1 [ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback]

Card 1 Device 0 from above translates to hw:1,0 so the default is fine. But for some reason hw:1,0 didn't work and I got a flash of intuition and tried plughw:1,0 instead and that worked. No clue why, and I could be recommending the wrong thing. I have smoked a few sound cards so don't try this at home, kids.

[fakie_flip]

Originally Posted by hellork

You do not need to reinstall. Your sound is working as intended. You do not have a microphone properly configured in /etc/pulse/default.pa (hal is not very bright at figuring these things out on its own).

In Gnome, go to the menu System->Preferences->Hardware->Sound and choose your microphone device under Audio Conferencing. Click the test button and speak clearly into the microphone.

If the above doesn't work, you'll have to do some editing. Possibly uncomment the line by removing the # sign:

load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0

The 1,0 might need to be changed to whatever device and card your microphone is hooked to.
$ aplay -l|grep card
card 0: V8237 [VIA 8237], device 0: VIA 8237 [VIA 8237]
card 0: V8237 [VIA 8237], device 1: VIA 8237 [VIA 8237]
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 0: emu10k1 [ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback]
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 2: emu10k1 efx [Multichannel Capture/PT Playback]
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 3: emu10k1 [Multichannel Playback]

On my system, I use:
card 1: Live [SBLive! Value [CT4871]], device 0: emu10k1 [ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback]

Card 1 Device 0 from above translates to hw:1,0 so the default is fine. But for some reason hw:1,0 didn't work and I got a flash of intuition and tried plughw:1,0 instead and that worked. No clue why, and I could be recommending the wrong thing. I have smoked a few sound cards so don't try this at home, kids.

I have attached a picture of the system preferences hardware sound window with my available choices. By default, Alsa is chosen under audio conferencing. My sound card displays in the choices twice, once with a dash something. I don't know what to do here. I've tried Alsa and my sound card device name (the one without the dash). How do I know if it's working? I can hear myself through my speakers using both of them, and so could I when I was using Skype, but nobody else could hear me. I don't know why alsa shows two cards. They are both named the same and really I have one.

[root@localhost ~]# aplay -l|grep card
card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK804]
card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 2: Intel ICH - IEC958 [NVidia CK804 - IEC958]
[root@localhost ~]#

Any ideas about this confusion? Do you see any obvious problems here? Is anything going to improve in F9 or just more bugs?

[Hlingler]

FWIW, I was having all kinds of problems with PulseAudio and getting sound to work properly. I just found a solution:

yum remove pulseaudio*
logout
login

Alsa and sound are now restored and working just fine.

V

[hellork]

There is no problem with your setup. It is just going to take a while for apps like skype to be updated.

Direct access to alsa and exclusive usage of sound devices is ill advised for user space applications like skype and they need to be re-written to give up some of this exclusive control.

I don't use skype but you might be able to configure it to use something like OSS and then run it with padsp.

http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup

http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup#Skype

Although Skype is an Alsa application, for some reason, it doesn't seem to like the "pulse" device. The work-around, is not to use the "default" sound device. Rather to use a specific hardware device, and use pasuspender to momentarily suspend pulseaudio. Here are the steps

Note: These steps were tested on Fedora8 with Skype ver 2.0 beta

* Launch Skype, right click on its tray icon, and click "options"
* Click "sound devices" category
* For the Sound out, Sound in, and Ringing devices, change the default device to the first plughw device (The exact name depends on your hardware)
* Click apply
* Click close
* Right click on Skype's tray icon, and click Quit
* Now launch skype whether from the run dialog or from a shell using the command "pasuspender skype". This momentarily suspends pulseaudio, and starts skype
* Enjoy

If for some reason you want or need Skype to go through PulseAudio, there is a OSS version of Skype 1.4 (intended for Solaris and FreeBSD's Linux emulation) that can be downloaded from

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/

from the link "Static-OSS". This version will route audio through PulseAudio when started as "padsp skype".

[fakie_flip]

Originally Posted by Hlingler

FWIW, I was having all kinds of problems with PulseAudio and getting sound to work properly. I just found a solution:

yum remove pulseaudio*
logout
login

Alsa and sound are now restored and working just fine.

V

I thought of that once, but the same thing happened again. Not only does it want to remove pulseaudio packages but also other important packages that I use.

[chris@localhost GraphMonkey-1.7-src]$ su -c "yum remove pulseaudio*"
Password: 
Loading "priorities" plugin
Setting up Remove Process
75 packages excluded due to repository priority protections
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package pulseaudio-module-x11.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package pulseaudio-libs.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0()(64bit) for package: pavucontrol
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0()(64bit) for package: gstreamer-plugins-pulse
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0()(64bit) for package: xine-lib-extras
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0()(64bit) for package: libflashsupport
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0()(64bit) for package: mplayer
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0(PULSE_0)(64bit) for package: xine-lib-extras
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0(PULSE_0)(64bit) for package: mplayer
--> Processing Dependency: pulseaudio-lib >= 0.9.7-0.10 for package: pavucontrol
---> Package pulseaudio-utils.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package pulseaudio.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package pulseaudio-libs.i386 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
--> Processing Dependency: libpulse.so.0 for package: libflashsupport
---> Package pulseaudio-libs-glib2.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package pulseaudio-module-gconf.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package pulseaudio-esound-compat.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package pulseaudio-core-libs.x86_64 0:0.9.8-5.fc8 set to be erased
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mplayer.x86_64 0:1.0-0.90.rc2.lvn8 set to be erased
--> Processing Dependency: mplayer = 1.0-0.90.rc2.lvn8 for package: mencoder
---> Package pavucontrol.x86_64 0:0.9.5-0.4.svn20070925.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package libflashsupport.x86_64 0:000-0.1.svn20070904 set to be erased
---> Package gstreamer-plugins-pulse.x86_64 0:0.9.5-0.4.svn20070924.fc8 set to be erased
---> Package libflashsupport.i386 0:000-0.1.svn20070904 set to be erased
---> Package xine-lib-extras.x86_64 0:1.1.11-1.fc8 set to be erased
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mencoder.x86_64 0:1.0-0.90.rc2.lvn8 set to be erased
--> Processing Dependency: mencoder for package: mjpegtools
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mjpegtools.x86_64 0:1.9.0-0.4.rc2.lvn8 set to be erased
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================
 Package                 Arch       Version          Repository        Size 
=============================================================================
Removing:
 pulseaudio              x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed         996 k
 pulseaudio-core-libs    x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed         401 k
 pulseaudio-esound-compat  x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed         3.2 k
 pulseaudio-libs         x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed         304 k
 pulseaudio-libs         i386       0.9.8-5.fc8      installed         336 k
 pulseaudio-libs-glib2   x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed          14 k
 pulseaudio-module-gconf  x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed          18 k
 pulseaudio-module-x11   x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed          42 k
 pulseaudio-utils        x86_64     0.9.8-5.fc8      installed         243 k
Removing for dependencies:
 gstreamer-plugins-pulse  x86_64     0.9.5-0.4.svn20070924.fc8  installed          87 k
 libflashsupport         x86_64     000-0.1.svn20070904  installed          13 k
 libflashsupport         i386       000-0.1.svn20070904  installed          11 k
 mencoder                x86_64     1.0-0.90.rc2.lvn8  installed         6.2 M
 mjpegtools              x86_64     1.9.0-0.4.rc2.lvn8  installed         1.4 M
 mplayer                 x86_64     1.0-0.90.rc2.lvn8  installed         8.2 M
 pavucontrol             x86_64     0.9.5-0.4.svn20070925.fc8  installed         186 k
 xine-lib-extras         x86_64     1.1.11-1.fc8     installed         212 k

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install      0 Package(s)         
Update       0 Package(s)         
Remove      17 Package(s)         

Is this ok [y/N]:

[fakie_flip]

Originally Posted by hellork

There is no problem with your setup. It is just going to take a while for apps like skype to be updated.

Note: These steps were tested on Fedora8 with Skype ver 2.0 beta

Direct access to alsa and exclusive usage of sound devices is ill advised for user space applications like skype and they need to be re-written to give up some of this exclusive control.

I don't use skype but you might be able to configure it to use something like OSS and then run it with padsp.

http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup

http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup#Skype

It did work for Skype 2 beta. However it does not work for Skype 2 stable release. I don't have the beta anymore or the rpm, so I can downgrade.