[pulseaudio-discuss] Sound works, still returns error "alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device"

[Lennart Poettering]

On Tue, 05.05.09 19:51, Saeed Abbassi (saeed144 at gmail.com) wrote:

> Dear List members,
> 
> I have 2.6.25-14.fc9.i686; gnome.

Which version of PA?

Why are you using F9? F10 has been out for quite some time.

> aplay plays well, I hear through headphone.
> When I run a Java applicaiton which uses sound system, it says
> *** PULSEAUDIO: Unable to connect: Connection refused

That means PA is not reachable, usually because it is not running.

> grep pulseaudio /var/log/messages
> Apr 30 12:38:50 system pulseaudio[2551]: sink-input.c: Failed to create sink
> input: too many inputs per sink.

Some (presumably broken) application seems to create a lot of streams
to PulseAudio. PA will eventually refuse any further connections for
security reasons.

> *pulseaudio[2551]: module-alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0:
> Device or resource busy*

Some other application seems to have blocked access to the audio
device to the effect that PA cannot use it anymore.

> [user1 at system modprobe.d]$ getfacl /dev/snd/*
> all the same
> # file: dev/snd/controlC0
> # owner: root
> # group: root
> user::rw-
> group::rw-
> mask::rw-
> other::---

This looks like borkage with ConsoleKit which would normally add the
user that is active on the current console to the ACL of all devices.

> 
> pulseaudio -vvv
> W: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
> W: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
> 
> E: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: No such file or
> directory

ALSA is not particularly thruthful about error codes. This might
actually be a permission error, although on the first glance it does
not seem so.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/           GnuPG 0x1A015CC4