Arch Linux

esd uses 100 % cpu :( but no crashes, though :)

esd had two bugs:
- the 100% CPU bug when clients disconnect with an EOF character
- esddsp failing to close filedescriptors, causing esound to run out of filedescriptors in a while, causing hanging applications

esd-0.2.37-2 has fixes for these applied and should work out.

I will check it tonight and report then! Thanks for your time!

Same problem here, Gnome hangs until esd is reloaded. Sometimes, more restarts in few minutes are needed.
The problem still be there after the esd-*-2 update, today.

I even tryed to create a new account, but when I set up gnome to stard esd, it freeze.

The esddsp failing to close fd it's actually a good explaination for that bug, but since it's not fixed with the esd-*-2 update, it's the wrong one or it hasn't been correctly fixed.

everything just works perfect here as far as i can see.

Sorry for my delay.

I just can confirm what Giacomo Rizzo said.
Still won´t work for me and gnome continous to hang when esd autostart is enabled.
(On all my platforms...)

Works fine here with all latest packages on freshly installed system.

No fix in sight?

Is someone working on this? I can't find the Gnome esd group...

I installed yesterday Frugalware and find something interesting.
When i set the DPI from the X-Server (usr/share/gdm/default.conf) to 100
and enable ESD autostart, gnome hangs again! Maybe this fact has something
to do with our current bug here? (Currently don´t got an Archsystem around,
coz i need to work with my PCs and not wait until a fix...)

I cannot put my finger on the problem, but there is definitively something spooky with gdm. I chatted with the gnome guys on the GimpNet and they suggested installing something called pulse-audio, but I cannot get that to start. Reading the wiki on esd i am told to run fuser and grep the ps auxw.

I get the following msg:

]# fuser /dev/snd/*
/dev/snd/controlC0: 5668
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: 5620m

# ps auxw|grep 5668
borje4 5668 0.0 0.5 28756 12100 ? S 09:53 0:00 /opt/gnome/libexec/mixer_applet2 --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Mi
root 5745 0.0 0.0 3932 768 pts/0 R+ 10:01 0:00 grep 5668

But I am not skilled enough to decipher the msg. I have to join Linus Torvalds in the opinion that gnome is not very user friendly as to fine tuning - hehe.

Regards,

linfan

sorry, i meant there is something spooky with esd.

me

Hm, recently with ESD autostart anabled I noticed Gnome hangs during start, but not always. So I guess I can confirm this bug.
Did you try Gnome 2.18 from Testing?

yes, I run gnome 2.18 on all my three computers, amd64, p4 and p2 - all 32 bits - and the same problem everywhere.

linfan

Hehe, I am ashamed of myself. Did a reinstall recently and forgot to add esd to the daemons in rc.conf.

Seems all is well now. But will keep monitoring the situation.

Linfan

Yes, have the same problem sometimes. I'm not having esd in the daemons list, but sometimes when I log out and try to log in as a different user this happends (gnome hangs, even after a ctrl+alt+backspace I can't log in anymore...)

seems esd is blocking the sound device and refuses to start until the sound device is released. I can't reproduce this one because I have a soundblaster live with hardware channel mixing.

I also tried Gnome 2.18 still the same...

confirm

It not just freeze the sound device, it will freeze the whole system/kernel.

If you change the TTY after the freeze (sometimes it´s possible) and you try to do something in terminal, the whole system freezes

I also have soundblaster emu10k1 on all puters and the only disadvantage I now experience after adding esd to rc.conf is that esd freezes when i switch user. I usually do /etc/rc.d/esd restart - sound then works patially but no logout sound from gnome.

But I can live with that. After all linux is a server running loopback, not a workstation. Having many users on one and the same machine is prolly not what linux is all about.

Linfan

This is a really severe problem, sometimes esd (and so the gnome panel) crashes without logging out/in or changing user, it's difficult to work if you have to restart esd from the console all 30 minutes...

I also have the same problem. I'm using an HP DV8000 laptop, nVidia card, "integrated" sound card (no hardware mixing). I can't get Gnome to start when I check the ESD button. I tried putting ESD in a DAEMONS=() and it made no difference. When I enable sound, I get it's startup sound when I login again, but then X is locked up after drawing the background and desktop icons. It waits forever there.

Can someone help? Do I need to test anything? This install is a FRESH install (just did it last night, 4/10).

I forgot to post update in my case:
My problem was caused by gnome-schedule applet not ESD, so ignore all my confirmation.
Sorry for confusion.

offtopic: I couldn't even imagine that one applet can prevent the whole DE from loading. Damn Gnome devs!

do you have dbus running? you need to download hal and dbus. It is enough to only have hal in rc.conf.
You can also try to add this line to .xinitrc in your home directory, if you don't run gdm, which you also can add to rc.conf:

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session

This is what I have concerning gnome in my /etc/rc.conf:

DAEMONS=(... fam hal alsa esd ...)

If you want gdm, add gdm also to rc.conf.

Regards,

linfan

The problem with gnome-panel hanging up the whole gnome startup process is because gnome-session starts all apps in sequence. Most applets on gnome-panel are run in-process, which means that they will get started together with the gnome-panel process, which blocks until all applets have backgrounded also on initial startup.

About the dbus-launch thing: it's bad to start gnome like that, gnome-session spawns a session bus for you. Spawning dbus like this will make it ignore things like the session manager, keyring socket, etc. This will cause evolution to prompt for a password all the time, since it can't do lookups in the keyring when it's launched from keyboard hotkeys.

I'll check in another patch that fixes some issue with a do/while loop and a variable that isn't set. The bugreport upstream states that esd won't compile without it, which isn't the case here, but it could fix this problem.
If this one doesn't fix the issue, I think alsa-lib could be problematic here. I've read several ubuntu bugreports, where they fixed this issue simply by providing a different soundserver. Their bugreports were talking about invalid IOCTLs, which is located inside alsa-lib (probably dmix that plays up here? explains why I don't get it with a real soundcard)

Well, I hadn't been using dbus-launch because the Wiki I followed said it was for "old" (previous to 2.14, I think) Gnome. BUT following linfan's post above, I DID get sound and it DOESN'T lock up. Here is what I did:

1) Took "dbus" out of the DAEMONS=() line in /etc/rc.conf.
2) Moved the "alsa" text to AFTER "... fam, hal, ..." (but this may have made NO difference.
3) Changed "exec gnome-session" to "exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session" in ~/.xinitrc
4) I then went to System -> Preferences -> Sound and made sure all options were "Auto" (that had that option) and Device was HDA Intel (Alsa Mixer) on the first tab. Then on the second tab I enabled ESD and System Sounds.

The system is working fine and there are no lockups!

As for it being bad to start Gnome with dbus-launch, I'm all for changing it and doing it the right way if the rest of the stuff works. But it seems that doesn't work as of now. Maybe the problem is with Alsa, I don't know. I'll try to help any way I can. Anything you want me to test?

Oh, I also added "esd" to the DAEMONS=() line. But....

WRONG! It doesn't work. I just logged out of one user and on to another -- lockup! Oh well.

in that case you can always as root run /etc/rc.d/esd restart - if you do it before you log in it should play system sounds. I usually run both /etc/rc.d/alsa restart and /etc/rc.d/esd restart, when over at my friends and we switch users. I just accepted this inconvenience. I am mostly alone by myself at home and don't have any need to switch users.

linfan

I tried to compile the patched new abs esd package, but doesn't still fix the problem

Is this fixed with the latest alsa-lib and esd packages?

No, for me it's not fixed with the latest patch. Here are the details:

Enabled SYSTEM SOUNDS for a user that did not have them enabled.
Logged out and back in.
Go startup sound, then system lockup.

I DO NOT have "esd" in my DAEMONS=() line. Should I for this test? I'd be glad to try out a few things if I can understand what you want me to do.

I should also note that I have just performed a system upgrade. Friday I got new "alsamixer" package update(s), and this morning I got new gnome packa updates -- including "gnome-alsamixer".

I have a DV-8000 laptop, Intel HDA soundcard (and an option for "CONEXANT..." sound device -- I;ve tried both and neither work). I can hear sound just fine when playing WAV, MP3, etc. I just don't have system sounds -- a.k.a. esd/mixer abilities any more. I haven't had them since moving to Arch about a month ago. I came from Ubuntu and DID have that ability, but Arch is a little more "cutting edge" I believe, so this may be why.

Heck, I may have things configured wrong. I haven't messed with any sound config files like "asound.state" or "esd.conf" or anything. Maybe I need to? I really don't know what to change, though.

As posted above, running /etc/rc.d/esd stop (and start) from a termina (CTRL+ALT+F1) will usually get the locked-up login to play at least the startup sound, but then it locks up again and doesn't ever come back -- always forcing me to kill X and half the time forcing me to restart the laptop.

What soundcards do you guys have? Is it all snd-hda-intel? I still can't reproduce this with my SBLive (snd-emu10k1). The new version of esound makes a bit more extensive use of Alsa, so I guess it triggers something rotten in your audio driver.
Starting esd from daemons is not something I would recommend, I only use that feature for diskless terminals here where esd should run on the terminal machine to let my terminal server send sound to it.

Is this of any use?

[mrunion@plunkerbunkey ~]$ lsmod | grep '^snd'
snd_seq_oss 29184 0
snd_seq_midi_event 6528 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 46928 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 6796 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 39072 0
snd_mixer_oss 14464 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_hda_intel 231960 1
snd_pcm 68740 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer 19204 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 43876 10 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc 7944 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

Except for the one user run only, all works OK here now :)

1) As to you Matt. You could check with alsaconf how many sound devices (cards) alsa detects and you could go for one of them and blacklist the other in /etc/rc.conf.

2) Also check your /etc/modprobe.conf that there is no reference to sound. Alsa doesn't like that.

3) as user you can also run amixer to see if all is working. If no error msgs then run
amixer set PCM 100 unmute
amiser set Master 100 unmute

4) then launch alsamixer and set your levels. Hit 'm' to unmute when you go from pillar to pillar. Exit with Esc

5) become root and run alsactl store if all went ok thus far

6) If you don't want to reboot, type as su or root: /etc/rc.d/alsa restart and /etc/rc.d/esd restart

7) becom user and log into Gnome.

Of course you also can check that your sound module is loaded. To check do lsmod to enable type modprobe snd-foo (foo is the name of your sound card).

Regards

Linfan

OK, this is a long one, but here goes. I followed the suggestions above and the reslts are below....

(NOTE! I have followed the Wiki and tried these things before. I went through them again to confirm it wasn't still an issue. It should be noted that I CAN hear sound -- XMMS plays, videos, etc. I just can't enable system sounds without a problem.)

RESULTS----------------------------------------

1) As to you Matt. You could check with alsaconf how many sound devices (cards) alsa detects and you could go for one of them and blacklist the other in /etc/rc.conf.

RESULT> hda-intel (ICH7 Family) was only sound card found. There was an option to probe legacy stuff, but I didn't use that.


2) Also check your /etc/modprobe.conf that there is no reference to sound. Alsa doesn't
like that.

RESULT> this file is empty, except for some comments about the file


3) as user you can also run amixer to see if all is working. If no error msgs then run

amixer set PCM 100 unmute
amiser set Master 100 unmute

RESULT> running amixer gives:

Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 30
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 16 [53%] [-22.50dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 16 [53%] [-22.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 255
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 207 [81%] [-9.60dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 207 [81%] [-9.60dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Bypass',0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 30
Front Left: Capture 26 [87%] [4.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Capture 26 [87%] [4.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Capture 0 - 14
Front Left: Capture 10 [71%] [15.00dB] [on]
Front Right: Capture 10 [71%] [15.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'ExtMic',0
Capabilities: cswitch cswitch-joined cswitch-exclusive
Capture exclusive group: 0
Capture channels: Mono
Mono: Capture [on]

running "amixer set pcm 100 unmute" gives:
amixer: Unable to find simple control 'pcm',0

running "amixer set Master 100 unmute" gives:
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 30
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 30 [100%] [-1.50dB] [on]
Front Right: Playback 30 [100%] [-1.50dB] [on]


4) then launch alsamixer and set your levels. Hit 'm' to unmute when you go from pillar
to pillar. Exit with Esc

RESULT> All OK

5) become root and run alsactl store if all went ok thus far

RESULT> All OK

6) If you don't want to reboot, type as su or root: /etc/rc.d/alsa restart and
/etc/rc.d/esd restart 7) becom user and log into Gnome.

RESULT> All OK

Of course you also can check that your sound module is loaded. To check do lsmod to
enable type modprobe snd-foo (foo is the name of your sound card).

RESULT> Drivers loaded.

ok! good. as I can see you also seem to be running oss. I don't have alsa-oss installed at all, so I cannot give any advice on the alsa oss emulation. I just have alsa-lib and alsa-utils.

In gnome I presume that you have started the sound server and the system sounds in System:Preferences:Sound.

You could also try to play around a bit with gnome-alsamixer and see if it makes any difference.

Good luck!

linfan

Starting the sound in Gnome's System:Preferences:Sound is what's causing the crash. Should I just remove alsa-oss completely? I was under the impression I needed that as well for some apps to have sound.

Also, tried the gnome-alsamixer and it didn't help much.

Thanks for all the help, by the way!

I really dunno, but please check on the Alsa home page if your sound card is supported. If it is, you do not need oss, which by the way is considered deprecated.

linfan

The problem was not fixed, on my laptop, with kernel 2.6.21.1, new esd and Alsa, and the "options" into /etc/modprobe.conf.

Sigh.

and status with the latest esd 0.2.38-1 ?

Yes :(

[alt-os@shamash ~]$ pacman -Qv kernel26 esd
Root : /
DBPath : var/lib/pacman/
CacheDir : var/cache/pacman/pkg/
Targets : kernel26 esd
kernel26 2.6.21.1-8
esd 0.2.38-1
[alt-os@shamash ~]$

It was not fixed for me as well. This is just an FYI.

Still no gnome sound when switching users unless esd daemon is manually restarted.

linfan

esd 0.2.38-2 has been built without alsa support. As this bug appears to be a lockup inside alsa, which blocks libesound, disabling alsa support for now. Use OSS emulation if you really want to use ESD.

Ok!

Could you please instruct how that is to be accomplished?

1) Can I get welcome sound etc. in gnome with only alsa?
2) Should I modprobe some alsa-oss or what?

Linfan

1) I don't get welcome sound in Gnome with ALSA only and no ESD running.
2) If I understand it right - you should just install alsa-oss and ESD will pick it up automatically. (anyway alsa drivers will be used, but via emulated OSS API)

I did nothing and gnome welcome sound and esdplay still works - lol. But I have snd-pcm-oss, snd-seq-oss and snd-mixer-oss as those are needed for some midi apps.But i did not modprobe oss.

Regards,

linfan

Everything is gone ok by just upgrading esd. I had already the alsa-oss package :)

... but the flash plugins give no more sound output -.- I tryed to switch a few configurations, but still no sound... sigh...

What flashplugins - could you give an example? I am curious ;)

Linfan

Do you have libflashsupport installed?

I can confirm that:

1) Putting ESD in the DAEMONS=() line and going to System -> Preferences -> Sound and enabling ESD and System sounds will now allow system sounds to play without locking up the machine and needing esd constantly restarted from a terminal (Ctl + Atl + F1) to keep the machine going.
2) Flash sounds DO NOT play.

I have alsa-oss installed. If I stop esd in a temrinal, then Flash sounds will play. with esd running, flash sound is dead -- as well as Audacity.

I do not know:

1) What/where libflashsupport is, and
2) Enough to keep troubleshooting the OSS/Alsa thing with ESD running/not running. How do you get sound from Audacity with ESD running and ALSA-OSS installed. Note, I tried "aoss audacity" from a terminal and still not sound.

Oh, and THANK YOU to everyone! This is going in the right direction now!!!

Thanx,
Matt

libflashsupport adds additional libraries support to Flash plugin. It allows to use OSS.

Seems either dmix doesn't work correctly when using OSS emulation. Not going to fix this: either don't use esound or buy a decent soundcard with hardware mixing.

Get new hardware is not a fix. Particularly when I can't change my laptop's sound card.

Why was alsa disabled in esd in the first place?

Recompiling it with --enable-alsa fixes it for me.

Thanks to nesl247 on the forums for pointing this out.

It seems to be the "auto-spawn" option that brings to problems.

The problem was introduced with esd-0.2.37, that switched by default the auto-spawn configure option to 0. Moving it back to 1, everything now seems to work.

None of the above mentioned tricks worked here, when switching users - neither recompilationa with --enable-alsa nor auto-spawn 1.

Linfan

A new proposed solution come from bugzilla.gnome... http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=431711#c20

Interesting - hope this patch will be applied - or can I do it myself? Maybe this suggestion should go to the alsa maintainer as well.

Linfan

Did the patching manually by editing /src/esound.

Did not fix esound from reloading when switching users.