Re: Sound Problems (Sound is Often Gone)
On Sunday 13 July 2008, you wrote:
> Hal Vaughan wrote:
> > I'm using Kubuntu, but not the latest version, the one before it
> > (Gutsy, I think) and KDE 3.5.8 and have been using OSS.
> >
> > Many times I start a program and I don't get sound output. Most of
> > the time I'm using either Amarok, Flash (from Firefox or
> > Konqueror), Kaffeine, and sometimes KMail (some message filters
> > trigger sounds for me). I'm not using any big games that take up
> > the full screen, but I have a few like PySol or one or two that
> > work under Wine.
> >
> > I may start one program, like Amarok, and play music in it, then
> > stop that music and run a game or try to watch something in Flash
> > and may not get sound -- or if I've been playing a game, then try
> > to run Amarok, I may have had sound for the game and not Amarok.
> >
> > It used to be that I could have Amarok playing music in the
> > background and play a game and I'd get the sounds from both, but
> > not anymore. At most one program can play sounds at a time (as
> > best I can tell, I haven't tried every combination of programs).
> >
> > Usually if I pull up the KDE control center and change from OSS
> > Sound to Autodetect, hit "Apply" to restart, then switch BACK to
> > OSS, and hit "Apply" again, I can get sound. Even with this,
> > though, there's a trick to it. If I've played a game and had
> > sounds with it, then I quite the program and start a song in Amarok
> > (which was in the background all the time, just not playing) I
> > won't get sound. I have to quite Amarok, then do the KDE Control
> > Center thing, THEN restart Amarok and it'll play.
> >
> > I don't know the sound system well, but it seems to me that there's
> > a problem with channels or resources not being freed up after they
> > should be released or some multiplexing that is not happening.
> >
> > I'm using a Soundblaster and nothing exotic. This worked fine
> > until I upgraded from Feisty Fawn to Gusty Gibbon. I just haven't
> > had time to worry about it until now, when I was playing a song in
> > Amarok, hit the "Next Song" button and got a message "Audio Output
> > Unavailable" I'm not sure about the rest of the message because I
> > can't make it come up every time and it goes away quickly enough I
> > haven't copied the whole thing, but it's something like "Device
> > unavailable." This has made it frustrating enough I just need to
> > get it fixed.
> >
> >
> > I know that puts it onto something Kubuntu did wrong, but overall,
> > I'd think that I should be able to use apt-get or dpkg-reconfigure
> > to either remove and reinstall the sound system or to reconfigure
> > it, but I'm not sure of all the packages that might be involved or
> > if there's an easier solution.
> >
> > Ideas, anyone?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> >
> > Hal
>
> Have you tried changing the Auto-suspend time?
>
> Control enter -> Sound and Multimedia -> Sound System -> General ->
> Auto-suspend
>
> I find that the default time is usually much too long for me. The
> effect of this is that, sometimes, you can change from one sound
> source to another and find that the new source doesn't work. But if
> you wait just long enough, the new sound source "magically" works.
It doesn't seem to make any difference.
Part of the problem isn't only programs working one after the other, but
also programs not sharing sound output, which I don't think the timeout
would effect.
Hal
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