xmms - problem - how to fix?

[Nathan Kinkade]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 07:09:21AM +1100, Gautam Gopalakrishnan wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2004 at 02:24:30PM +0200, Alex Zivenko wrote:
> > Hi!
> > I have some problem with my xmms mm player. When I'm treing to
> > listen some mp3's it gives me aN error, that I don't know how to
> > fix. I have KDE 3.1 if you need this info ^) So here it is:
> > bash-2.05b$ xmms
> > /dev/dsp: Device busy
> > /dev/dsp: Device busy
> > /* with OSS driver */
> > 
> > ** WARNING **: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp):
> > Device busy
> > 
> > ** WARNING **: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp):
> > Device busy
> > 
> > ** WARNING **: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp):
> > Device busy /dev/dsp: Device busy
> 
> 
> I have the same error sometimes when I use mpg123 or mplayer. I don't
> have kde or any sound daemon like arts or esound. fstat does not help
> too. I just have to wait for sometime for the device to be available
> again, maybe a minute. Any ideas, welcome
> 
> Gautam

I have also been having this problem on 5.1-RELEASE.  I posted about
this a month or two ago and found that a couple other people were having
the same problem, but nobody seemed to have a solution.  My system
exhibits this problem with either xmms or mp3blaster and it is seemingly
random.  Again, `fstat | grep dsp' reveals nothing.  I am using blackbox
and have no sound daemon of any sort.  However, I am recently of the
opinion that it may be a memory related issue.  I have 256MB of RAM, but
my machine is always hovering on being out of physical memory and
usually dips into swap.  I can consistently resolve the problem by
closing, say, Mozilla Firebird to free up some memory.  I then relaunch
Firebird and am fine for while.  Then, after a time, the problem comes
back and I can either continually press the play button until it decides
to play, or I can close some application.  I have no idea whether this
is actually some interesting issue relating to swap/memory and the sound
device or just a co-incidence.  In any case it seems to work.  This is
an awful workaround, but I don't know what else to do at the moment.

Nathan
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