Missing /dev/dsp?

[MarkC]

I am new to Linux and I'm setting up a steaming server to feed live and recorded audio to Shoutcast servers and I need a little help with a problem. I've been trying to use KhdRecord to capture some audio, but it keeps giving me an error message about not finding /dev/dsp. I checked, the directory is there, but it's apparently empty. What's up?

I have playback through other programs, but I can't record anything. If I need to use another recorder, it needs to be able to record direct to MP3 so the file can be accessed on the fly, sort of like using a DVR. I've done this in XP, but I'm having a tough time getting this to work in Linux.

[alunt2003]

On my system(Gentoo) /dev/dsp is a sym link to /dev/sound/dsp.

Are you using Alsa or Oss?Maybe the app is looking for one and your using another?

Do you need anything like the microphone unmuted? You tried unmuting everything in your mixer?

Which distro are you using?

Which sound modules have you loaded (command lsmod)

[Ted Merrill]

I found the following on my system (Debian bleeding edge "unstable" distribution, which i update regularly).
/dev/dsp was not automatically being created; and once created, disappeared on next reboot.
The best fix i found was to (as root) type the command "udevtrigger" which created /dev/dsp for me.
(Do "man udevtrigger" to see what it does).
This is supposed to be done automatically by the udev init script but perhaps there is some race condition so that the sound device is not visible at that time?
To make this a permanent fix i created the file /etc/rc5.d/S99myfix
containing the following:
------
#!/bin/sh
udevtrigger
-------
and don't forget to make it executable:
chmod +x /etc/rc5.d/S99myfix
As far as i can see, it is harmless to run udevtrigger at any time...
-Ted Merrill

[Ted Merrill]

Oh yow... my fix using "udevtrigger" really did work, but now it doesn't work... sigh.

[Ted Merrill]

Ok, the following created /dev/dsp this time:
modprobe snd-pcm-oss
you could also do for good measure:
modprobe snd-mixer-oss

[bwil150n]

Ok, the following created /dev/dsp this time:
modprobe snd-pcm-oss
you could also do for good measure:
modprobe snd-mixer-oss

This was spot on for me with Fedora 11. It also led me to the file /etc/modprobe.d/dist-oss.conf which explains...

# OSS Sound Support
# This has been disabled in F11 onwards because it can interfere with the
# PulseAudio sound service (a legacy OSS application can prevent PulseAudio
# applications from playing sound by preventing PulseAudio from (re-)opening
# the sound device). To re-enable support, uncomment the following line:
#
install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm && /sbin/modprobe snd-pcm-oss && /sbin/modprobe snd-seq-device && /sbin/modprobe snd-seq-oss

I have not tried this yet, but adding the snd modules did add the missing /dev/dsp device