Audacity: /dev/dsp is an invalid device

[Calum]

hello.
when i go into file > preferences in audacity and try to change anything, i get this:

"Error - invalid playback device" whenever i try to change anything and then click OK to exit.
the playback device is set to /dev/dsp which is the only valid playback device on my system.

this stops me from changing any of the other prefs, specifically bitrates etc.

i googled for this but only found people saying "don't change the preferences", which is no help to me.

Any ideas?

thanks in advance...

[Void Main]

Just curious if you are using the one off of my site or a different one? If a different one which version? I presume you actually have a valid /dev/dsp device and permissions on it are such that you car read/write to it?

[Tux]

Does it not like ALSA?

[Calum]

i don't have alsa installed. it's not the one off your site.

i installed it from source i think, and when i look at the "about" screen, it tells me the version is 1.0.0.

Code: Select all

calum@claudia:~$ ls -l /dev/dsp
crwxrwxrwx    1 root     sys       14,   3 Jul 18  1994 /dev/dsp

and i changed the permissions of /dev/dsp to this before because in slack you don't get proper permissions on /dev/dsp by default, so i'm out of ideas. also, /dev/dsp definitely works with everything else, plus it works fine with audacity, which is why i am confused that i get this message. audacity plays back fine even when i set the playback thing to /dev/dsp...

[Void Main]

Hmmm, you surely don't need execute permissions on /dev/dsp. I think the problem is you are using 1.0. Upgrade to 1.2 and I think your problem will go away. I used the older RPM off of CCRMA and mine crashed just playing a WAV file, let alone trying to change preferences. I created the 1.2 RPM in my repo and it works flawlessly for me. You can get the 1.2 souce from sourceforge (that's where I got it).

[Calum]

there's a 1.2? thanks i will try that!