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Re: snd_pcm_open failed: Device or resource busy

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Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com> writes:

> On Mon, 29 Jun 2015 11:26:23 -0400, Haines Brown wrote:
>> I fiddled to get Skype going yesterday, and in the process broke
>> Audacious' ability to send sound to my sound card when playing a CD. I
>> get a general popup: "Failed to open audio output." and an ALSA error
>> popup: "snd_pcm_open failed: Device or resource busy."
>> 
>> However, if I do $ pulseaudio --kill, I get sound from Audacious, and so
>> there is some kind of conflict with ALSA.

>> I'd like to be able to listen to CD disks without killing pulseaudio.
>
> In short, this is because only one process at any given time can have 
> your audio device open. Bytes sent to the device becomes amplitudes in 
> your speaker. Two or more processes sending unrelated bytes would only 
> cause bad noise.

The only reason I ran pulseaudio was because I wanted to Skype one
person. I understand pulseaudio can't be running at the same time as
ALSA. I now reinstall pulseaudio and Audacious works OK (and Alsaplayer
still does not work0.

> The solution, if you want to be able to user more than one program giving 
> sound at the same time is to use some kind of mixer software (sound 
> server).

Rather than use more than one sound program at once, I need only to
switch back and forth between them. Currently, pavucontrol, Playback,
shows ALSA/audacious playing the CD. Pavucontrol shows that my sound
card is the output device. The Skype, Options, cannot produce a test
sound.

To switch back and forth, perhaps I could do:
  $ /etc/init.d/pulseaudio --kill / --start  and do  
  $ /etc/init.d/alsa-utils stop / restart

but my sense is I will not recover ALSA sound until I actually purge
pulseaudio. Should the above commands work? (can't test now because I
need to get to work). 

> If you don't want to kill pulseaudio to play CD you should use some 
> software that speaks to pulseaudio instead of the soundcard directly to 
> play your CD. You could also use some software that instructs the CD to 
> send audio by an analog cable between the CD drive and your sound card.

I really would like to avoid pulseaudio altogether. I may install it and
Skype just on a laptop with which I never play CDs.

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Thread

snd_pcm_open failed: Device or resource busy Haines Brown <haines@engels.histomat.net> - 2015-06-29 11:26 -0400
  Re: snd_pcm_open failed: Device or resource busy Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com> - 2015-06-30 05:42 +0000
    Re: snd_pcm_open failed: Device or resource busy Haines Brown <haines@engels.histomat.net> - 2015-06-30 08:31 -0400

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