Client Sound Issue...

Hi!
Just got the SL Linux client working on a fresh install of CentOS 4.4, and immediately I was impressed with its response and ease of install. I also noticed that apparently the client also has sound capability now. I was under the impression that that was a "future" addition... Up until recently, I'd been a Fedora enthusiast, but ran into sooo many problems getting the Nvidia binary driver, VMWare, SL client and Wine working in FC5 and 6, so following the advice of our Linux guru at work, wiped the FC6 off my machine and installed CentOS 4.4.. All of the above items which drove me nuts in FC5/6 installed w/o any issues on CentOS. Anyway, why I'm posting is this: I got the Linux client working last night JUST before the little network hiccup occurred. On my first login using the client, I got all the sounds/streaming music that I would expect to hear from the Windows client in my home, but after logging off, and waiting out the network problem, upon relogging, I found that the sound/streaming audio no longer worked. XMMS and several other sound-based programs still work fine, just not the SL client. In fact, the sound toggle on the bottom of the screen will not go to the on-position, just snaps back to off. I've disabled/reenabled the sound setup in configuration several times, with no change... What should I be looking for to fix this??

Tas

If it's only the streaming sound not working, try moving to a different parcel and listen to the stream there. If other sounds (menu clicks, footsteps etc.) don't work as well, try fiddling with the sound debug variables inside the ./secondlife script:

#export LL_BAD_ESD=x
#export LL_BAD_OSS=x
#export LL_BAD_ALSA=x

Try removing the "#" on each of the lines and check back on sound again. Hope it helps.

Thanks, Zi.. Will check those values.. Actually I'd originally thought it was only the streaming audio, but I don't hear any sounds at all.. Funny thing, the first time I fired the newly installed Linux client up, I arrived at my home, and heard all the sounds I'd expect to hear, plus I also heard my streaming station.. Then I closed the client down, and went about doing some further config on the nvidia driver, and when I tried to log back in, we were in the middle of the "Texas" outage.. When I finally got back in, I discovered no sound at all, and the sound control on the bottom of the screen would snap back to off when trying to turn on... Will check those config values out...

Thanks
Tas

I've noticed a problem with ESD. As IIRC the ESD driver is now preferred, if the ESD daemon isn't already started, SL starts it up for itself. However, if you terminate SL, the ESD daemon it started sticks around. I'm not sure why, but the SL-started ESD is run in such a way that the SL client can't seem to reconnect to it when run again. Thus, no more sound.

One workaround is to "killall esd", run SL, and repeat until sound works.

Another one is if you're using Gnome, open the Sound preference thingy, and tell it to enable software mixing. Gnome will then start esd itself, in such a way that re-running SL won't screw up.

I'm running FC6 btw. Is anyone else having this problem on, say, debian/ubuntu? A mysterious ALSA capable version of ESD turned up in Fedora, and it may be a bug in the ALSA support. Who knows.

Thanks everybody for the advice.. Not sure what changed, but I tried getting back in the Linux client, and wonder-of-wonders, now it works... Since, in my experience, something that stops working then magically starts working again, WILL stop working again..... bet on it!! So I started poking around looking at the items mentioned in the tips in this thread.. First off, I did'nt have any "esd" running.. Tried the "killall esd" and nada.. Also, I am running Gnome, but I can't find any Sound pref "thingie" in CentOS.. I know the thing you're talking about in FC, but it doesnt seem to exist in CentOS... So for now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed... Since I'd been a Windows client user up until just recently, and I'm impressed with the Linux client... After a bit more use, I'd go so far to say that I'd call it beta vs alpha...

Thanks again,
Tas

My own experiences with sould issues under linux all stem from not having software mixing set up correclty (or at all). So if SL was the first thing I started that used sound, or I started after the soundserver has timed out and killed itself from lack of use, I got sound, otherwise I got silence. I am still uning ARTS with KDE which is probably asking for trouble, even the KDE project is abandoning ARTS next major release I believe.

RHEL4 and thus CentOS 4 are based on FC3. There's not a lot of difference really. I was purposely vague because I know the UI has been rearranged a lot between FC3 and FC6. But in Gnome there should be a sound preferences applet with a checkmark for "Start ESD" or "Enable Software Mixing" or something. FC3 is going back a ways for me...

If you're running KDE I can't help you.