Re: Recent alsa midi problem

[Roy Pluschke <rjplus@shaw.ca>]

On July 7, 2004 19:14, Erik Steffl wrote:
> Silvan wrote:
> > On Wednesday 07 July 2004 12:47 pm, Roy Pluschke wrote:
> >>After a recent dist-upgrade on my "sid" system midi has stopped working.
> >>
> >>
> >>Which leads me to believe that snd-emu10k1 and snd-emu10k1-synth have
> >> been loaded correctly.
>
>    is it anything similar to my problem? my email to debian-user is not
> in archives (http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/07/threads.html)
> yet (archives are up to 2004/07/04, my email is from 2004/07/05 :-) so
> here the quote.
>
> Subject: modprobe -v snd-seq-oss freezes (sb live! kernel 2.6.5)
>
> >   alsa used to work on my system, I didn't change anything I think might
> > be related and suddenly the modprobe -v snd-seq-oss freezes.
> >
> >   system:
> >
> >   debian unstable
> >   kernel 2.6.5 (with alsa)
> >
> >   I did not change kernel or modules (I checked and there are no
> > new/changed files under /lib/modules/2.6.5) yet suddenly (after reboot)
> > the oss sequencer cannot be loaded. There are no (related) messages in
> > /var/log/syslog.
> >
> >   jojda:/home/erik# modprobe -v snd-seq-oss
> > insmod /lib/modules/2.6.5/kernel/sound/core/seq/snd-seq.ko
> > insmod /lib/modules/2.6.5/kernel/sound/core/seq/snd-seq-midi-event.ko
> > insmod /lib/modules/2.6.5/kernel/sound/core/seq/oss/snd-seq-oss.ko
> >
> >   and the modprobe does not exit, it just sits there. udev creates
> > devices (see below) but there are not usable, e.g.:
> >
> > jojda:/var/log# sfxload /data/music/soundfont/creative/8MBGMSFX.SF2
> > /dev/sequencer: No such device
> >

I am using 2.6.3 at the moment and while my symptoms are somewhat different I 
believe the problems are related.  Using sfxload for a sound font I would get 
the /dev/sequencer: No such device message and sometimes the command would 
just hang.  My modules always seemed to load correctly though.

I have found a somewhat unsatisfactory solution -- If I boot into my windows 
partition and use the soundblaster utility to reset to factory defaults all 
is fine again when booting back into linux.  It appears that alsa can 
occasionally screw up the synth portion of the sound card to the point that 
even a cold reboot doesn't solve the problem.  I have no idea how I would 
have recovered without a windows partition still hanging around.  I may just 
revert to a 2.4 kernel with low latency patches and a 0.9 alsa -- this 
combination worked for me for the longest time without any problems.

R.J.P.