Arch Linux

Drogobo

Member

Registered: 2022-07-03

Posts: 13

aplay does not work as root.

I am trying to listen to my hard drive (for research purposes) and I can't. I literally can't find anyone who has the same error as I do. This is the error I get
aplay: main:867: audio open error: Host is down
I think this means an audio server is not running for root, but I don't know how to do that.

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ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,692

Re: aplay does not work as root.

So, you are trying to use the raw data on your drive as an audio file? 
Care to share the command you used to try this?

Are we trying to do this on a drive that is mounted?

I just tried this command:

dd if="/home/ewaller/Music/Thomas Dolby/Thomas Dolby - 03 - Hot Sauce.wav" | aplay

and it worked just fine.

You might try something like

sudo dd if=/dev/sda | aplay

This streams the disk data (as root) to aplay (as user)
I'll not be trying that.  Best of luck.

Last edited by ewaller (2022-07-16 14:59:51)

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