[mythtv-users] *bump* remote frontend; ALSA not working

[Jason Koeninger]

On Jan 25, 2005, at 11:45 AM, Christopher Singley wrote:

> i did indeed have such problems initially, but i added the mythtv user 
> to the audio group, and i did "chmod 777 /dev/sound/dsp".  still, 
> though, no permutations of ALSA:xxx or /dev/xx/dsp are working.  the 
> mythtv user can aplay using the default ALSA device, without issue.

Gentoo keeps messing with my permissions so I'm running as root 
temporarily until I can figure out what devfs is doing to them.  In my 
opinion, it never hurts to try root just to rule out permission issues.

>
> i used the gentoo ebuild of mythtv-0.16, with both the alsa and oss 
> make-flags switched on.

I'm using Gentoo, but I'm not using the mythtv portage package.  When I 
attempted to compile with both OSS and ALSA flags, it compiled OSS only 
(ALSA devices produced an error).

>
> i am getting no errors inside mythtv on the on-screen display, but the 
> console output of mythfrontend is spitting out some errors.  it says 
> "Not in the running state, state=2".  Sometimes it also says, 
> "pthread_setschedparam: Operation not permitted".

I think myth complains about not being in the running state when the 
kernel scheduler runs something else.  The pthread error should go away 
if you make it SUID root.  Check the installation document for more 
information on security implications.

>
> would it perhaps help to recompile mythtv with ALSA support, but 
> without OSS?

I would definitely compile myth without OSS support before you go any 
further.  Here are a few of the oddball issues I've had with sound:

- Have to remove the snd-intel8x0 module and put it back after the 
system has booted.  Otherwise, I lose sound on every channel change 
(and get it back by cycling my amplifier through its input options (I'm 
using optical output only right now).

- Turning the volume up on the IEC 958 output in alsamixer kills my 
mythtv sound.  When I was attempting to use the normal line out instead 
of optical, I had to have IEC958 turned up to get any sound.

- Choppy audio attempting to use dmix in the .asoundrc file.  Probably 
something I messed up, but you might try moving your .asoundrc file out 
of the way for some testing.

Anyway, experiment a little and see what happens.  After some 
frustration finding the tv sound, I finally just fired up live tv, 
jumped out to a command prompt, and messed with alsamixer until I found 
it.  Try muting and turning down everything but Main and methodically 
go through each one looking.  If you have other sound card outputs, try 
them.  Wish I could give you something more exact, but I know very 
little about ALSA and how Myth interacts with it.

You might also check comments at the bottom of the documentation page 
for your ALSA driver on the ALSA site.

Good luck.

Best Regards,

Jason