Problem with audio playback! Sound gets constantly taken over / jammed

[Damiano]

Hi there.. i've been having this prob since i got onto Debian. I have some nasty and persistent audio issue stuck in here.. the problem is, i can't run particular apps at a time along with any other playback. Such apps are for instance Skype, Wine and Audacity. They tend to jamm any other playback temporarily and not to play simultaneously. Skype has been the most nasty thing ever. I keep gettings probs with either ALSA or PulseAudio, though they work differently, but still of no big advantage, either one crap or another. For example, with ALSA i can do anything with Skype but if i'm only to use Skype and not anything else, otherwise it may shut something off. Sequence also matters. If i firstly run skype and only then play something else it's alright. What important is... things CAN play together, but usually something screws up at startup of those nasty apps. I mean, sound gets muted only if i launch it while other playback is on, but later i can get them to work altogether. PulseAudio fixes that thing with Skype, but it brings another prob: i can't host the calls. It stutters badly. If someone else is hosting it's alright. As for Wine and Audacity - it doesn't work for them. For at least one reason: they both use only ALSA (in Debian), at least Wine for sure. Anyways, i'd like to get ALSA to work rather than Pulse. The latter still has some extra playback issues, for example, it tends to "swallow" some audio signals from the said skype, such as incoming messages notifications... now for little details:

0 [SB ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
HDA ATI SB at 0xfe8f4000 irq 16
1 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfeae8000 irq 19

null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
front:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=SB,DEV=0
HDA ATI SB, VT1708S Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=HDMI
HDA ATI HDMI, ATI HDMI
HDMI Audio Output

I dunno guys, i like Debian, and it's been the only prob so far and i'd like to fix it badly. It seems like not everyone got this prob, cause i've asked several people already and they don't seem to recognize it, at least they don't exclaim at once "Ah! Yeah, i know that thing!". In mean case... i'll just have to move back to Windows...

Using Debian 6.0.3 Squeeze / amd64

[Damiano]

well, if nobody has any clues, could you just tell me if that problem is any familiar to you or not? If not, i'll just consider it hardware/software incompatibilty issue, and that's it.

[lugoteehalt]

This sort of thing can be a bit difficult to resolve.

Pulse audio is a sound server, my simple minded idea of a sound server is something that allows many programs to put out thier sound through the loadspeakers at the same time.

Pulse audio is usually controlled using pavucontrol. This is a tricky bastard especially as it fiddles with 'alsamixer' so it is difficult to know where you stand.

Using Gnome? System>preferences>sound and fiddle about.

Your post is a bit unclear. An important thing is to specify the command that generates the output.

This is likely to be a bit of a toughie and you need to look at the manuals and the alsawiki and so on.

For God's sake don't go back to Windows, it is desperately dreary appart from anything else. You'll be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Best wishes.