ALSA problems

Question

I noticed that flash suddenly stopped working in Firefox, and then ended up tracking down the reason to ALSA, but I'm not really sure why it's not functioning properly.  Here's what I'm getting:
Output of 'ls -l /dev/snd':
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 0 2007-01-31 17:09 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 32 2007-01-31 17:08 controlC1
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 24 2007-01-31 17:09 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 16 2007-01-31 17:09 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 25 2007-01-31 17:08 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 26 2007-01-31 17:08 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 27 2007-01-31 17:08 pcmC0D3c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 20 2007-01-31 17:08 pcmC0D4p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 56 2007-01-31 17:08 pcmC1D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 48 2007-01-31 17:08 pcmC1D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 1 2007-01-31 17:09 seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 33 2007-01-31 17:08 timer
and "lsmod|grep '^snd'":
snd_seq_oss 29440 0
snd_seq_midi_event 6528 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 47056 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 6796 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 38944 0
snd_mixer_oss 14464 2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_intel8x0 28828 1
snd_intel8x0m 14476 0
snd_ac97_codec 91940 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m
snd_ac97_bus 2432 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 68612 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 18948 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 44004 10 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc 7816 3 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_pcm
So everything looks good there as far as I can tell, but here's the output I get from the terminal when Firefox is running:
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function
snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:391:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat
returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1070:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer
returned error: No such device
ALSA lib conf.c:3968:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such device
ALSA lib pcm.c:2143:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
Also, when I shut down X I'm getting something similar:
waiting for X server to shut down ALSA lib confmisc.c:670:(snd_func_card_driver$
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver retur$
ALSA lib confmisc.c:391:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned e$
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1070:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned er$
ALSA lib conf.c:3968:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such device
ALSA lib pcm.c:2143:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
Any ideas? I should also qualify this with the statement that mpd is still playing music just fine, and I'm just not getting anything from web browsers.  Everything HAD worked for a few months now up until today though.  Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Bump. I have the same issue... works as root but not as normal user.
Any ideas?
edit!
Nevermind, it worked. The wiki page meant I had to log out of X for changes to take effect, I just created a new xterm session.
In any case, this helped me figure out I'm not crazy, for anyone else who is having problems with sanity and alsa:
2121 [0] ~ $ strace -eopen alsamixer
open("/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/lib/libncurses.so.5", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/usr/lib/libasound.so.2", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/lib/libm.so.6", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/lib/libdl.so.2", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/lib/libpthread.so.0", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/lib/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf", O_RDONLY) = 3
open("/dev/snd/controlC0", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/aloadC0", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device
Process 20831 detached
2122 [0] ~ $ ll /dev/snd/
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 0 Feb 26 13:03 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 24 Feb 26 13:03 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 16 Feb 26 13:03 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 25 Feb 26 13:03 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 1 Feb 26 13:03 seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 33 Feb 26 13:03 timer
2123 [0] ~ $ grep audio /etc/group
audio::92:<my user>
So I knew I should be permissioned, after that. Flipped to VT, hit cmus, and bam! it worked
/print
Last edited by print (2007-02-27 06:30:00)