[alsa-devel] ALSA Problem - Broken Pipe

[Kristin Low]

I don't get any kernel warning/error messages from what I can tell. I
checked /var/log/messages and dmesg (hopefully that's where I'm supposed to
look). The only messages I get are from selecting ALSA output: "[00000351]
alsa audio output error: write failed (Broken pipe)" or if I select
pulseaudio: "pulseaudio[5593]: module-alsa-sink.c: Got POLLERR from ALSA".
These usually happen near the beginning of a sound, but also may not come up
for several minutes.

When I say OSS works, I mean that when I set Sound Events and Music and
Movies in my Sound Preferences (setting the default setting for programs),
sound works fine (I just don't get simultaneous sounds, which I believe is
normal because of OSS). Also, if I set Amarok or VLC to use OSS and not ALSA
or pulseaudio, my sound works. However, if I run VLC with the aoss wrapper,
I get the same error messages as above. Totem and Rhythmbox don't work
either.

Thanks so much for looking at this for me.

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Takashi Iwai <tiwai at suse.de> wrote:

> At Wed, 9 Jul 2008 20:31:19 -0400,
> Kristin Low wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> >
> > I apologize if this isn't the right place to ask for help, but no one who
> > I've asked knows how to help and I'm somewhat new to Linux.
> >
> > I'm running Ubuntu Hardy Heron and haven't changed any config files
> > (practically a fresh install) however ALSA does not work properly and I
> > assume that because of this, Pulseaudio doesn't work either (it breaks
> when
> > ALSA does). Playing a song, I can hear the song for a random length of
> time
> > and then it cuts out. If I run VLC from a terminal, it claims "alsa
> output
> > error: write error (broken pipe)" as the cause and continues to write
> that
> > over the screen until I force VLC to quit. If I restart the song again,
> the
> > same thing occurs. Pulseaudio cuts out and says it gets a POLLERR from
> ALSA.
> > When I login, only part of the login sounds play and are cut just the
> same
> > as any songs or audio files I try. It seems like my sound card is
> detected
> > fine, and OSS works when I select to use it instead. It's on a laptop, a
> > Toshiba Satellite a70.
>
> Do you have any kernel error/warning messages?
> Also, do you mean "OSS works" that OSS emulation works?
>
>
> Takashi
>