[FIXED]No Audio when trying new Mplayer

[breakerfall]

Hi... I have been able to use Mplayer 1.0 pre3 just fine but recently I wanted to upgrade to pre5. I download and compile it and bam - it won't play audio with a video clip. I'm given the error message "Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound".

I've seen other people with the same error message, but nobody in the same circumstances. Either they don't have alsa working properly and can't access alsa sound at all, or they can't access it at all. But I can run mplayer as root and it works fine.

This is pretty frustrating. I ran >mplayer -ao help and ALSA is listed there. I ran mplayer as root and audio worked, but I'm not sure what's causing the problem at all. A small while ago, I made the switch from devfs to udev - could that be an issue? If so, how do I fix it?

Thanks.

[Tarball]

Sounds like a permissons issue! I suspect normal users don't have permission to read/write to audio devices.

IIRC (corrections welcome) check the permissions in /etc/security/console.perms search for audio.

[breakerfall]

Well, my first thought was that it could be a permissions problem, but I don't see how - considering XMMS uses AlSA and all other sound works fine in usermode and I had sound working fine with the older version of Mplayer.

I checked that file you mentioned and searching for audio, came across:

[Tarball]

Has something else got the sound device open already?

Does your sound card do hardware mixing?

[breakerfall]

Nothing else takes the sound, it has hardware mixing capabilities (creative audigy) and like I said, it worked fine with the older version and also with the new version when running through SU / Root.

That's why I have to believe it may have something to do with the change to udev, although, being honest, I'm not well read-up in the area of udev.

[Tarball]

[breakerfall]

Yip... I can get sounds in all applications using my regular username, which belongs to the audio group. I use the XMMS ALSA plugin and don't use any other kind of sound server (except occasionally JACK).

So, for clarification... I can playback audio fine, I only have this problem when I compile the new version of Mplayer.

Here's an idea: do you know if the build in portage actually configures and enables the GUI for mplayer? If so, then I'll give the release in portage a try and see if I still get the same problem.

[Tarball]

I don't mean to ask stupid questions but is it using the correct USE flags?

what do you get if you type

[breakerfall]

Sorry, I should have made it clear from the beginning... I didn't emerge mplayer. I downloaded and compiled it from source, just as I did with the older version 1.0 pre3.

Maybe I should try the version held in portage. Do you know if the GUI is enabled in the portage release?

[Tarball]

Yeah, I think the GUI is enabled in portage (if you have the GTK use flag set).

I emerged mplayer-1_0-pre5-r3 (IIRC) last night and I had no problems. I am also using ALSA with a SB Live 5.1 and UDEV.

It's worth doing the previous emerge command I stated cos there are helluva lot of USE flags that affect Mplayer!!!

[Roptaty]

What is the contents of your ~/.mplayer/config? What is the ao variable set to? Earlier releases of mplayer used alsa1x, but the current version uses alsa.

Does mplayer -ao alsa your-videofile give you any sound?
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[breakerfall]

Hmmm... I ran the command gmplayer -ao alsa and now I hear sound, however I have another error message which flashes constantly, making the video un-watchable:

[riksta]

In my version of mplayer i managed to finally get the sound working, i had to replace