sound (.wav and audio cd) won't work

[telenux]

MINT LMDE, Gnome3, *not a clean install* -> updated/upgraded system, tried VLC 2.0.1 and MPlayer ver. 0.9.9.2
I have noticed a lot of older posts in forums about sound not working. I googled and read past Mint forum posts but also ones in Debian forums or sites.

I'm mostly looking at either Mint Debian or straight Debian references but the problem has occurred with all distributions. I wonder why this isn't a larger topic.

I have noticed that audio CDs and certain audio files are often part of the topic.

But, I haven't found a solution yet. I tried searching through the forum here for similar discussions but didn't have much luck.

I am wondering a few things.

1) how do you determine the device path
2) music media players sometimes have listings for multiple paths and one can choose any - why?
3) one audio player may behave differently than another, making things even more complicated.

I am currently testing an audio CD with VLC and Gnome MPlayer.

Here's the findings when trying either of these:
VLC - 2.0.1
VLC - Open Disc - (Disc Selection - change default to 'Audio CD) Audio CD - Disc Device -> many choices...for e.g. cdrom4 or sr0 -> I can choose either but I get *scratchy sound*

Gnome MPlayer - 0.9.9.2
Gnome MPlayer - 1) Open - Audio Disc - 'I select the first track..' -> error msg: "CD Track /sr0/Track%201.wav - "failed to open Track 1.wav device"
2) Disc - Open Audio CD - *nothing happens*

Is there a log someplace I can locate to see what's happening behind the scenes?

Does anyone have any ideas?

If I go to my Windows 7 partition, the sound plays fine. There's no scatchy, distorted sound.
If I go to my Debian partition, I have similar issues with MPlayer but not VLC. It will play in VLC eventually with selecting certain settings. I have a language CD that is using .wav files as well but it won't play at all in either.

I googled but not finding any solutions. Anyone want to try?

[äxl]

1) how do you determine the device path

Look at the output of lshal for your drive. In the line block.device is your assigned path. Mine says:

Code: Select all

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_TSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH'
  block.device = '/dev/sr0'  (string)

2) music media players sometimes have listings for multiple paths and one can choose any - why?

For when you have different drives ...?

Is there a log someplace I can locate to see what's happening behind the scenes?

VLC and mplayer both have own logs. You could also start them in terminal with verbose output (--verbose or -vv or something like that).
But I guess it's more of a driver or codec problem. The problem could maybe better be solved on a freshly installed system (I wonder why you have VLC 2.0.1 but only Gnome-MPlayer 0.9.9 ...).
I don't know if there is a Debian/Mint which can boot to RAM (Ubuntu can). There you could try again.

Worst case is this is a drive firmware issue (which MS is able to compensate) in which case you had to update which is difficult at best ...