Dsp

Sometimes you will have two applications trying to access your audio device. Here is an example screenshot of a user trying to run xmms, when something else is accessing the audio:

File:Dsp.jpg

the culprit can be discovered with lsof assuming your audio device is /dev/dsp like it is on BSD:

$ lsof | grep dsp
firefox-b 14905 frank    1w  VCHR       30,3        0t0     38 /dev/dsp0.0
firefox-b 14905 frank    1w  VCHR       30,3        0t0     38 /dev/dsp0.0
firefox-b 14905 frank    1w  VCHR       30,3        0t0     38 /dev/dsp0.0
firefox-b 14905 frank    1w  VCHR       30,3        0t0     38 /dev/dsp0.0

as you can see, one of the websites I am viewing with firefox has claimed access to my dsp first. I must now close that tab in firefox, and restart xmms, and all is well.