[gentoo-user] Regular user unable to use sound/alsa after upgrade

[Walter Dnes]

With the latest Flash vulnerability, I ran an update, which pulled in
Flash and a few other items.  I also upgraded from linux-3.16.5-gentoo to
linux-3.17.7-gentoo, with the usual "make oldconfig" routine, and set
CPU_FLAGS_X86="mmx mmxext sse sse2 sse3 ssse3" as indicated by
cpuinfo2cpuflags-x86.

  After rebooting, regular user (both waltdnes and user2)  could no
longer play audio, but root could.  I have a lilo menu that has 2
entries "Production", and "Experimental".  A new kernel is always
"Experimental" until I run it for a while without problems.  I reverted
to "Production" (3.16.5) but that didn't help.  Before everybody jumps
in with the standard response, yes I am a member of group "audio".

[d531][root][~] grep audio /etc/group*
/etc/group:audio:x:18:waltdnes,user2
/etc/group-:audio:x:18:waltdnes,user2

  Audio has worked for years on this system before the problem.  I took
a better look at the error messages, and had a "WTF" moment.  mpg123
(and mplayer and FLASH) appears to be looking for some libraries in
/var/tmp/portage/ as regular user, but root works fine.  Why would a
regular user app look there, when root appears to work fine?  Here are
the error messages for mpg123

ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/conf.c:4259:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/conf.c:4259:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/conf.c:4259:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/conf.c:4738:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.28/work/alsa-lib-1.0.28/src/pcm/pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default

[/var/tmp/portage/media-sound/mpg123-1.18.1/work/mpg123-1.18.1/src/output/alsa.c:170] error: cannot open device default

[/var/tmp/portage/media-sound/mpg123-1.18.1/work/mpg123-1.18.1/src/audio.c:630] error: failed to open audio device

[/var/tmp/portage/media-sound/mpg123-1.18.1/work/mpg123-1.18.1/src/audio.c:180] error: Unable to find a working output module in this list: alsa

[/var/tmp/portage/media-sound/mpg123-1.18.1/work/mpg123-1.18.1/src/audio.c:532] error: Failed to open audio output module

[/var/tmp/portage/media-sound/mpg123-1.18.1/work/mpg123-1.18.1/src/mpg123.c:913] error: Failed to initialize output, goodbye.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications