Re: [Denemo-devel] New problems: no playback, nonresponsive windows

[Richard Shann]

On Wed, 2017-02-01 at 11:41 -0600, Rodney M. Bates wrote:
> With recent versions of denemo, including the .deb files and a local build on
> my system of a .tar.gz, I am now seeing two new problems.  Neither occurred
> with the old version that my distribution (mint 18) has in its package repos.
> 
> 1) Playback now doesn't play anything.  The cursor in the display window 
> advances
>     through two whole rests and to the third note, then stops.  No sound is 
> heard.
> 
> 2) After attempting playback, some windows sometimes will not come to the top,
>     won't take the focus, and won't respond to some other mouse events.  This
>     includes windows not displayed by denemo, e.g., command line windows, and
>     clicks in window borders, which presumably should be handled by the window
>     manager.

If I stop Denemo in gdb I often find it is presenting me with an image
of the things on the desktop behind it - so I see things like terminals
etc, but they are quite unresponsive, being behind the window which has
frozen open. So make sure Denemo is iconized.


>   Killing denemo gets things working better, but not entirely, e.g.,
>     this email composing window will not come on top of my media player 
> window,
>     although I can drag it sideways out from under.

that does sound very strange I can't imagine the Gtk library making
calls which persist in having an effect on your window manager, let
alone other programs once the process is gone.

> 
> When I start denemo at the command line, I see this:
> 
> 
> address@hidden:~/music/scores$ denemo
> Denemo - WARNING : Failed to add font dir /usr/share/denemo/fonts.
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Loading preference file: 
> /home/rodney/.denemo-2.0.21/denemorc
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Audio driver is 'portaudio'
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Initializing Fluidsynth
> fluidsynth: warning: Failed to pin the sample data to RAM; swapping is 
> possible.
> Denemo - MESSAGE : The default fluidsynth soundfont has been loaded
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Initializing PortAudio backend
> ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1029:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
> ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
> ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
> ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
> ALSA lib pcm_route.c:867:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
> ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1029:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
> Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
> Cannot connect to server request channel
> jack server is not running or cannot be started
> JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for 4294967295, 
> skipping unlock
> JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for 4294967295, 
> skipping unlock
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Opening output device 'ALSA: HDA ATI SB: ALC888 Analog 
> (hw:0,0)'
> Expression 'parameters->channelCount <= maxChans' failed in 
> 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 1514
> Expression 'ValidateParameters( outputParameters, hostApi, 
> StreamDirection_Out )' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 
> 2825
> Denemo - WARNING : Couldn't open output stream
> Denemo - WARNING : Initializing audio backend 'portaudio' failed, falling 
> back to dummy
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Initializing dummy audio backend

This message is why you have no output audio, portmidi has failed to
open the audio. At one time I used to get this the first time I ran
Denemo after compiling it (a quite remarkable thing that! I could then
run it as often as I liked and didn't get that failure again, but a
recompile would provoke it once more). Since moving on to Debian 8 (or
before?) that hasn't happened.


> Denemo - MESSAGE : MIDI driver is 'portmidi'
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Initializing PortMidi backend
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Opening input device 'ALSA: Midi Through Port-0'
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Opening output device 'ALSA: Midi Through Port-0'
> Denemo - MESSAGE : Denemo version 2.0.21
> Denemo - WARNING : Action SetGrace not created yet

these messages suggest that Denemo is picking up an older copy of the
Default.commands file from your ~/.denemo-2.0.21/actions directory. Do
they disappear if you start Denemo with that directory absent (take care
- it will create a new .denemo-2.0.21 directory when you do that, which
you may wish to remove before re-instating your customised one).

Richard