Bug 148470 - KPDF grabs the audio device
Summary: KPDF grabs the audio device
Status: RESOLVED NOT A BUG
Alias: None
Product: kpdf
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Ubuntu Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Albert Astals Cid
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2007-08-03 01:06 UTC by Saurabh Asthana
Modified: 2008-02-05 22:17 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


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Description Saurabh Asthana 2007-08-03 01:06:48 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.5.7)
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages
OS:                Linux

This is more of a bug in Linux than in kpdf, since I should never even have to worry about any one application bogarting my sound card in a modern desktop operating system. Nevertheless: kpdf seems to be a prime offender in this regard. On many an occasion I find sound unable to function - mplayer craps out, Flash stops making noises, amarok refuses to play. Why? Why indeed:
graft@deneb:~$ lsof /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() tmpfs file system /dev/shm/var.run
      Output information may be incomplete.
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() tmpfs file system /dev/shm/var.lock
      Output information may be incomplete.
COMMAND   PID  USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE  NODE NAME
kpdf    31056 graft   57u   CHR  116,8      13810 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p

What exactly is kpdf doing using that audio device? I have no idea. As far as I can tell, kpdf doesn't even have any notifications.
Comment 1 Pino Toscano 2007-08-03 01:45:39 UTC
Right, we don't use any sound device.
Maybe you got some error message dialog that came with a sound notification?
Comment 2 Saurabh Asthana 2007-08-03 01:48:42 UTC
No, no error messages. I'm not sure why kpdf is opening that sound
device, but it definitely is blocking other applications from using it
until it is killed. I'm not sure why it would do this in a way that
isn't ALSA-friendly, like everything else on the system...

On 2 Aug 2007 23:45:40 -0000, Pino Toscano <toscano.pino@tiscali.it> wrote:
[bugs.kde.org quoted mail]
Comment 3 Pino Toscano 2007-08-03 01:53:38 UTC
Was that the first time this problem happened, or it happens more frequently?
Comment 4 Saurabh Asthana 2007-08-03 01:55:34 UTC
Happens quite often, at least on this system. I'm not sure if I've
noticed it on my other desktops.

On 2 Aug 2007 23:53:39 -0000, Pino Toscano <toscano.pino@tiscali.it> wrote:
[bugs.kde.org quoted mail]
Comment 5 Sune Vuorela 2007-08-06 14:40:06 UTC
A debian user has reported this as http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148470
Comment 6 Christian Henz 2007-08-07 20:29:25 UTC
Or rather as this? 
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=436050

I am the reporter of the Debian bug, and I have experienced this behaviour two or three times within several months.
Comment 7 Szymon Chachulski 2007-11-23 11:30:43 UTC
This happens quite regularly on my Ubuntu Gutsy. I currently have 7 instances of kpdf open and all of them grabbed /dev/pcm/pcmC0D0p 
$ kpdf -v
Qt: 3.3.7
KDE: 3.5.8
KPDF: 0.5.8
It happened to me before on Feisty.
Comment 8 Tobias Koenig 2008-02-05 19:53:15 UTC
Hej,

how did you open the kpdf instances? Where they opened by clicking on a PDF document in firefox?

Ciao,
Tobias
Comment 9 Johannes Schaub 2008-02-05 20:04:45 UTC
Hi there. I discovered that when you play something in firefox using flash (and then flash opens serveral sound device files), and then fork off a new process form firefox (lets say you open a pdf from firefox with kpdf), then firefox doesn't close its opened file-descriptors before calling exec*(kpdf) but after calling fork. 
that then means that after flash stopped playing stuff and closed the descriptor, it will remains being opened by the kpdf process.
This seems to be a bug in firefox. Someone should defer it to them.
Comment 10 Pino Toscano 2008-02-05 20:06:18 UTC
Firefox bug, then report the problem to the firefox developers.
Comment 11 Pino Toscano 2008-02-05 22:17:46 UTC
For sake of completeness, Firefox bug: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147659