No sound with ALSA & Fluidsynth enabled (as normal user)

Janusz11 · 2014-10-04 08:24:33

Ahoy!

I'm using pure ALSA (no pulseaudio) and I have a problem that when I start Fluidsynth I have no sound anymore. Without starting Fluidsynth, everything is working just fine.

I can play sound with Fluidsynth enabled though when I add myself to the audio group. However, I didn't need to do that in the past. In fact, I have Fluidsynth up and running with ALSA on my laptop and everything works just fine and I remember reading in the wiki that the user is not supposed to be added to the audio group.

Here's some information:

aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: A2G [AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G], device 0: Multichannel [Multichannel]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: A2G [AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G], device 1: Digital [Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

cat /proc/asound/cards

 0 [A2G            ]: CMI8788 - AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G
                      C-Media Oxygen HD Audio at 0xc000, irq 17
 1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xfa080000 irq 17

aconnect -o

client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 16: 'AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G' [type=kernel]
    0 'AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G MIDI'

And here's how it looks like when I start Fluidsynth (including the error message I get):

USER@PROBLEM ~ % speaker-test -c 2

speaker-test 1.0.28

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 2048 to 16384
Period size range from 1024 to 1024
Using max buffer size 16384
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 1024
was set buffer_size = 16384
 0 - Front Left
 1 - Front Right
^CWrite error: -4,Interrupted system call
xrun_recovery failed: -4,Interrupted system call
Transfer failed: Interrupted system call

USER@PROBLEM ~ % sudo systemctl start fluidsynth.service
USER@PROBLEM ~ % sudo systemctl status fluidsynth.service
● fluidsynth.service - FluidSynth Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/fluidsynth.service; disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sat 2014-10-04 10:11:18 UTC; 6s ago
 Main PID: 1017 (fluidsynth)
   CGroup: /system.slice/fluidsynth.service
           └─1017 /usr/bin/fluidsynth -is -a alsa -m alsa_seq -r 48000 /usr/s...

Oct 04 10:11:19 PROBLEM fluidsynth[1017]: fluidsynth: warning: Requested...d
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.

USER@PROBLEM ~ % speaker-test -c 2                       

speaker-test 1.0.28

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:989:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to create IPC semaphore
Playback open error: -13,Permission denied

aconnect -o

client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 16: 'AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G' [type=kernel]
    0 'AuzenTech X-Meridian 2G MIDI'
client 128: 'FLUID Synth (1017)' [type=user]
    0 'Synth input port (1017:0)'

Any ideas?

Last edited by Janusz11 (2014-10-04 08:26:54)

ids1024 · 2014-10-04 17:47:40

Fluidsynth uses jack by default, and starts it if it isn't already running. Try "fluidsynth -a alsa" to use it with alsa instead.

Edit: If you haven't heard of jack, you should probably look into it.

Last edited by ids1024 (2014-10-04 17:49:42)

Janusz11 · 2014-10-04 21:12:21

Thanks. I've set Fluidsynth up the way it is described in the wiki (FluidSynth). If I'm not mistaken it is already started with the "-a alsa" option through the config file (SYNTHOPTS="-is -a alsa -m alsa_seq -r 48000" ).

Well, since adding the user to the audio group fixes the problem I'll do that now.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-10-04 08:24:33

No sound with ALSA & Fluidsynth enabled (as normal user)

#2 2014-10-04 17:47:40

Re: No sound with ALSA & Fluidsynth enabled (as normal user)

#3 2014-10-04 21:12:21

Re: No sound with ALSA & Fluidsynth enabled (as normal user)

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