xpdf blocks sounds

["Nishita Desai" <nish.des@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I have been having this problem lately: I cannot get any sound to play
whenever I have some pdfs open.
Here's the output of 'lsof |grep snd'

nishita@ff9:~$ lsof |grep snd
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() ext3 file system /dev/.static/dev Output
information may be incomplete.
mixer_app 2960 nishita 38u CHR 116,0 5411 /dev/snd/controlC0
xpdf.bin 12356 nishita 79r CHR 116,33 5261 /dev/snd/timer
xpdf.bin 12356 nishita 80u CHR 116,16 5391 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
xpdf.bin 12356 nishita 81u CHR 116,0 5411 /dev/snd/controlC0
xpdf.bin 22504 nishita 79r CHR 116,33 5261 /dev/snd/timer
xpdf.bin 22504 nishita 80u CHR 116,16 5391 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
xpdf.bin 22504 nishita 81u CHR 116,0 5411 /dev/snd/controlC0

I can get the sound back by closing all the pdf files and restarting
the relevant application, but that is exteremly inconvenient. Is there
any way I can refuse to let xpdf use the sound device? (I can't
imagine what use it is of to xpdf anyway!)

Thanks,
Nishita