/dev/dsp: Device busy

[Cordula's Web]

> > > /dev/dsp: Device busy
> > esd is the culprit.
> But esd is not running...  I checked it with ps.  

I'm having the same problem with mpg123, which uses esd:

$ ps ax|grep esd
$ mpg123 somefile.mp3
/dev/dsp: Device busy
audio: Device busy
$ ps ax|grep esd
11041  ??  Ss     0:00.14 esd -terminate -nobeeps -as 2 -spawnfd 5
$ kill 11041
$ ps ax|grep esd
$ mpg123 somefile.mp3

This happens every time. It's definitively esd that doesn't let
go of /dev/dsp, and for some reason, can't accept connections
on its unix socket /tmp/.esd/socket. It's perhaps related to
permissions (who starts esd)? I dunno exactly.

I'm using a brute-force work-around here:

#!/bin/sh
# playmp3.sh -- brute force mpg123 (Bug: /dev/dsp: Device busy)
until (mpg123 "$1")
do
  sleep 1;
done

Ugly, but better than nothing.

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