Ok, I have the next problem.
1) Open System Settings and select Multimedia.
2) Xine backend is selected, but I test with GStreamer too.
3) Select HDA Intel (VT1708B Analog)
4) Press "Test" button and the test sound sounds .

But, when I open Amarok and I it's playing music the previous "Test" button don't works. If I play "Test" button and next press "Play" Amarok music don't sound but works like is playing music.

The same problem with Kaffeine and, obviously Kaffeine and Amarok can't work at the same time. If Phonon can only handle one application I think that Arts was a better solution .


My environment is the next:

openSUSE 11.1
Using KDE 4.3.1 (KDE 4.3.1) "release 169"

Amarok
Version 2.2-GIT

Kaffeine
Version 1.0-pre2

There have always been problems when different applications attempt to address the sound system at the same time. This is the problem that PulseAudio sets out to address. However, that is still in the early stages, and while it works on some systems, it doesn't on others.

Perhaps you need to do some googling to see how to get the best out of alsa.

No, this is a Phonon problem, I can see a movie with smplayer (using ALSA) and listening music with Amarok (using Phonon Xine Engine).

In don't have this kind of problem in previous KDE 4 versions.

Ignacio Serantes wrote:No, this is a Phonon problem, I can see a movie with smplayer (using ALSA) and listening music with Amarok (using Phonon Xine Engine).

In don't have this kind of problem in previous KDE 4 versions.

To continue with annew's suggestion, do you have pulseaudio installed? I had your problem with PA installed, but once I removed it the problem disappeared. Personally, the first thing I do on any freshly installed system is to purge PA since it causes more problem than it's worth.

No, I don't have pulseaudio because I have a lot of problems with it so I removed long time ago.

I only have installed libpulse0 for rpm dependency.

Kryten2X4B wrote:Personally, the first thing I do on any freshly installed system is to purge PA since it causes more problem than it's worth.

That seems to be true on some systems, but certainly not on all. And like most of the 'nuke it' solutions, doesn't nothing to help improve the future development

annew wrote:That seems to be true on some systems, but certainly not on all. And like most of the 'nuke it' solutions, doesn't nothing to help improve the future development

I think the problem most people see is that PulseAudio doesn't really solve anything (that your average user cares about, anyways), but introduces a lot of complexity (and bugs).
Add to the fact that audio in linux worked mostly okay before PulseAudio was introduced (I have a quote from the CEO of LGP on this :-P), and you can see why most people don't understand they should use it/help it.

Well, I'm not really interested in Pulseaudio, actually I'm really confusing about linux sound because there are several interconected subsystems: oss, alsa, jack, pulseaudio, evince, arts, phonon, gstreamer and probably more.

I don't care if Pulseaudio is the eight world wonder or not , I don't use it and I don't will use it. I'm only interested in investigate if Phonon lock problem only occurs in my system, so I must try to solve for my own, or I must write a bug report.

I would guess that there is something wrong with your global ALSA configuration.

Do you have an asoundrc anywhere?

Well, as I write before, there is no problem in run two applications at the same time using ALSA. Even, I can use one Phonon application and several alsa applications at the same time but I can't use two Phonon applications at the same time.

I sorry if my English is not clear I'm spanish so I try doing better:

Several alsa aplications: YES
Several alsa applications and one Phonon aplication: YES
Two or more Phonon applications: NO, only the first running works.

What is your default selected output in the Phonon configuration?

I'm not sure what are you asking about. If your question is about engine, xine is selected.

I your question is about configuration files, I deleted ~./config/kde.org/Phonon-Xine.xine.conf and libphonon.conf and new files was created with default values.

If is about xine configuration, alsa is selected in .xine/config.

I have to devices, HDA Intel (VT1708B Analog) and HDA Intel (VT1708B Digital) and Analog is preferred device.

If I don't answer your question, please, tell me where I can obtain this information.

It was about the device, but it doesn't make me any wiser ...

When the device is locked, what does this output?

Code: Select all

lsof /dev/dsp*

annew wrote:That seems to be true on some systems, but certainly not on all. And like most of the 'nuke it' solutions, doesn't nothing to help improve the future development

Maybe not all, but personally I have yet to run across a computer with PA enabled that doesn't show some weird behavior or the other. No, I need to qualify that: A computer running KDE. It does seem to work better with Gnome, but I don't use Gnome enough to be able to tell if it's generic or not.

But of course you're right that nuking it doesn't help improving it in the long run. Then again, in my case keeping it around just for that wouldn't help either. I just don't know enough about how the Linux audio-subsystems work and how they interact to be of much help. I'd need an extraordinary amount of help from the devs to give even a miniscule amount of information.