Apple X11 menu + XMMS = no sound

[JBoivin]

Here's a strange one:

I'm in Apple's X11. In xterm, I type the usual "xmms &". XMMS opens, everything's fine, let's rock!

I added XMMS to X11's Applications menu ("/sw/bin/xmms"). It opens XMMS, but when I try to play something, I get this error code (translated from French):

Impossible to open the audio

Please check that:
1. You selected the correct output plugin
2. No other program uses the sound card
3. Your sound card is correctly configured

What's wrong? Have I missed something?

Thanks for the help

[bluehz]

I had a similar problem earlier this week. My problem turned out to be a copy of xmms and related in two places - one in /usr/local that I had installed manually and one in /sw/bin that I had installed with fink. After determining that the Fink version was more current - I deleted all in /usr/local and it solved my problem with xmms. It now works beautifully!

[sao]

JBoivin,

I also have the same set-up in the Applications menu in Apple's X11:

xmms ------>/sw/bin/xmms

and it works very fine.

But before starting xmms from the Applications menu,

I always do in xterm:

esd &


Cheers...

[JBoivin]

Sao

It works fine, thanks! Seems I should add esd to my .xinitrc...

But why esd is started automatically when I start XMMS form xterm but not from the Applications menu?

Thanks again

[bluehz]

There is some oddity going on with that Applications menu - because like I said I did have the exact same problem. As a matter of fact I was originally launching xmms using the terminal and open-x11 xmms. That would work fine. Even after I removed my duplicate copy of xmms in /usr/local/ the first few times I launched xmms from the Application menu it would still give that same error msg. Now for some reason it is working fine. I am actually starting to use xmms full-time now for my listening over iTunes. Itunes is nice but it has a LOT of baggage and can be sluggish on my aging G4/400.

[JBoivin]

That's why I want to use XMMS. I have an old beige G3 and iTunes can take up to 30-50% of the CPU! XMMS is quite less demanding.

What's bad though, is the new way iTunes 3 organise your mp3: they are all in subfolders for artists and then albums; it's then a pain to retrieve them to build XMMS playlists! I guess I'll have to live with that!

[bluehz]

Seems to me I have a shell script somewhere that would go through a hierarchy of folders and create and xmms playlist from it. I personally have not used it much for local MP3's - but I do listen to streaming NPR everyday with it - much more reliable than iTunes and RealPlayer.

also note

My xmms was playing fine after launching from Applications menu. Trying it this afternoon (was still left open) and it is generating the error dialog now. Something odd going on with the Application menu and xmms.