Arch Linux

vinceb

Member

From: Indianapolis, IN

Registered: 2011-03-08

Posts: 37

[SOLVED] knotify4 is locking sound card (ALSA only & ICE1724)

Just today 7/8/11 I did a pacman -Syu after using reflector to get the latest/fastest mirrors. After the KDE upgrade, everything is working correctly again.

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When my system boots up, I hear the standard startup sound after logging into KDE. If I try to use "speaker-test" or upon trying to play in MPD or anything else I get a

"ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Playback open error: -16,Device or resource busy"

error. I thought the default device was getting confused (as per the wiki page on ALSA), so I blacklisted the HDA Intel to be rid of the HDMI on my ATI video card. The onboard sound is disabled in the BIOS. I do not want to use the onboard sound as the Beyerdynamic headphones I have cannot be driven effectively by the onboard Realtek. So, in other words, I am not using surround sound of any sort, just simple stereo. When I do "aplay -l" the only device listed is the Terratec card, so it should work. I have tried various custom .asoundrc files and the suggestions in the Configuration and Troubleshooting sections in the Wiki.

What I don't understand is why the KDE system sounds work on login and logout. I have not been able to find topics that relate to this exact problem. I have deleted my .asoundrc and cleared the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf file as the ALSA instructions claim they should work with most systems.

(Edited subject to better explain problem) -Vince

Last edited by vinceb (2011-07-08 20:27:49)

vinceb

Member

From: Indianapolis, IN

Registered: 2011-03-08

Posts: 37

Re: [SOLVED] knotify4 is locking sound card (ALSA only & ICE1724)

Upon futher investigation, apparently knotify4 is tying up my card for some reason, which makes sense as my KDE system sounds work. I believe a recent upgrade to something caused this, but I am not positive which one as it's been a couple weeks since I even used the sound. I know that dmix is supposed to be automatic now and should not require further configuration in a ~/.asoundrc file. I am still stumped - the suggestions I tried from searches were from earlier ALSA versions and thus far havn't worked. I need an ALSA expert!