[pulseaudio-discuss] main.c: daemon startup failed.

[Ben Finney]

Sean McNamara <smcnam at gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 09:13 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> >     $ for i in $(seq 0 5) ; do dev="hw:$i" ; echo $dev ; aplay -v --device=$dev /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav ; done
> >     hw:0
> >     Playing WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
> >     aplay: set_params:918: Sample format non available
> Ah, it seems your hardware can't play s16le @ 48kHz. But that error
> does indicate that hw:0 exists. So try this when PA is not running:
> aplay -v --device=plug:hw:0 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav

Thanks. That produces noise (as promised by the sound file name).

=====
$ aplay -v --device=plug:hw:0 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav 
Playing WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
Plug PCM: Route conversion PCM (sformat=S16_BE)
  Transformation table:
    0 <- 0
    1 <- 0
Its setup is:
  stream       : PLAYBACK
  access       : RW_INTERLEAVED
  format       : S16_LE
  subformat    : STD
  channels     : 1
  rate         : 48000
  exact rate   : 48000 (48000/1)
  msbits       : 16
  buffer_size  : 16384
  period_size  : 4096
  period_time  : 85333
  tstamp_mode  : NONE
  period_step  : 1
  avail_min    : 4096
  start_threshold  : 16384
  stop_threshold   : 16384
  silence_threshold: 0
  silence_size : 0
  boundary     : 1073741824
Slave: Hardware PCM card 0 'SoundByLayout' device 0 subdevice 0
Its setup is:
  stream       : PLAYBACK
  access       : MMAP_INTERLEAVED
  format       : S16_BE
  subformat    : STD
  channels     : 2
  rate         : 48000
  exact rate   : 48000 (48000/1)
  msbits       : 16
  buffer_size  : 16384
  period_size  : 4096
  period_time  : 85333
  tstamp_mode  : NONE
  period_step  : 1
  avail_min    : 4096
  start_threshold  : 16384
  stop_threshold   : 16384
  silence_threshold: 0
  silence_size : 0
  boundary     : 1073741824
=====


Sean McNamara <smcnam at gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 09:15 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> > I: main.c: Dude, your kernel stinks! The chef's recommendation today is Linux with high-resolution timers enabled!
> The above line is pretty good advice. No hrtimers means you're
> likely to get dropouts. Very likely. Even if you resolve the
> problems keeping sound from nominally working, it will probably not
> be enjoyable for you, particularly when the system is under moderate
> CPU or cache load.

I'm just running the default kernel provided by Debian for my
architecture.

=====
$ uname -a
Linux lily 2.6.24-1-powerpc #1 Mon Feb 11 12:53:42 CET 2008 ppc GNU/Linux

$ aptitude show linux-image-powerpc | grep '^Version:'
Version: 2.6.24+13
=====

> But, the prior problem of getting sound at all still remains...

Hopefully we're now closer with the output shown earlier.

> What version of ALSA are you running?

=====
$ aptitude show alsa-base | grep '^Version:'
Version: 1.0.16-1
=====

> > D: alsa-util.c: Trying hw:0 as last resort...
> > E: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: No such device
> > E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-source" (argument: "device_id=0 source_name=alsa_input.pci_106b_3e_alsa_capture_0"): initialization failed.
> The source didn't open. The "E" indicates this is an unrecoverable
> error, IIRC... in other words, this is causing PA to exit.

> Can you use the "arecord" program on hw:0? Is there any reason for
> you to suspect that your hardware doesn't support sound input?

I don't have a microphone plugged in, but presumably the hardware
supports input because it has an input jack. However:

=====
$ arecord -v --device=plug:hw:0
arecord: main:564: audio open error: No such device
=====

> You haven't stated what chipset you're using yet, unless I've just
> missed it...

I'm not sure how to get that information; 'lspci' doesn't show it
(perhaps my audio hardware isn't on the PCI bus?).

It's an Apple Mac Mini; in a previous incarnation (using Debian
'etch') it was playing sound fine using ALSA. In this incarnation,
with no explicit configuration beyond installing the packages from
Debian, ALSA has loaded the module 'snd-aoa' and other modules with
names matching 'snd-aoa-*'.

> You should probably comment out module-x11-publish from
> /etc/pulse/default.pa. It's not as useful as it sounds, and
> depending on the circumstances, that X error alone could be causing
> the server to shut down.

Okay. Am I right in thinking that I will still get a functioning
PulseAudio client-server session in the absence of an X11 connection?

-- 
 \     "Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he |
  `\       is supposed to be doing at the moment."  -- Robert Benchley |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney