Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- wiki:troubleshooting_exclusive_sound_card_access [2009/09/20 10:32] – created raboof
+++ wiki:troubleshooting_exclusive_sound_card_access [2013/06/02 13:45] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 If some application accesses the sound card though one of the lower audio layers (see [[audio layers overview]]), the sound card might become inaccessible and other applications might fail to open the sound card, or even hang.
+===== Finding out which application is holding your sound card =====
 ==== OSS ====
@@ Line 5: / Line 7: @@
 You can see which applications are using OSS (or the ALSA OSS Emulation layer) with:
-<pre>
+  $ sudo fuser /dev/dsp*
-$ sudo fuser /dev/dsp*
-</pre>
 ==== ALSA ====
@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 You can see which applications are using ALSA with:
-<pre>
+  $ sudo fuser /dev/snd/pcm*
-$ sudo fuser /dev/snd/pcm*
-</pre>
+===== Resolving the problem =====
+==== Stopping the application holding the card ====
+In most cases you can simply close or kill the application that is using your sound card.
+=== PulseAudio ===
+If [[apps:all:PulseAudio]] is holding your sound card, you can stop it with 'pulseaudio -k'.
+=== TiMiDity++ ===
+Some distributions start [[apps:all:timidity]] on startup. It can generally be stopped with 'sudo /etc/init.d/timidity stop'
+==== Using Dmix ====
+[[apps:all:ALSA]] has a [[http://alsa.opensrc.org/DmixPlugin|Dmix plugin]] that allows multiple applications to use the sound card.
+Using [[http://alsa.opensrc.org/DmixPlugin|Dmix]] is not recommended for audio work, as it might increase latencies and reduce quality because of resampling.
+==== Using a sound server ====
+For audio work, use [[apps:all:JACK]].
+For desktop audio, you might want to consider [[apps:all:PulseAudio]] or use the [[http://alsa.opensrc.org/DmixPlugin|Dmix plugin]] mentioned above.