[Asterisk-Users] Console as extension problems

[David Carter]

On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 10:18:48AM -0600, David Carter wrote:
> I'm trying to set up the console as an extension (so I can set up overhead
> paging), but I can't seem to get it to work.  When I call my paging extension,
> I get an error that it can't open the device:
> 
>     -- Executing Ringing("Zap/9-1", "") in new stack
>     -- Executing Dial("Zap/9-1", "Console/dsp0|18|A(new/whistle)") in new stack
>  << Call placed to 'dsp0' on console >>
>  << Auto-answered >>
>     -- Called dsp0
>     -- OSS/dsp answered Zap/9-1
> Dec  6 10:08:29 WARNING[901141]: chan_oss.c:413 soundcard_setinput:     -- Remote UNIX connection disconnected
> Unable to re-open DSP device: Device or resource busy
> Dec  6 10:08:29 WARNING[901141]: chan_oss.c:572 oss_write: Unable to set device to input mode
> Dec  6 10:08:29 WARNING[901141]: file.c:550 ast_readaudio_callback: Failed to write frame
>     -- Playing 'new/whistle' (language 'en')
>  << Hangup on console >>
>   == Spawn extension (cmcm-internal, 6789, 2) exited non-zero on 'Zap/9-1'
>     -- Hungup 'Zap/9-1'

At this point, I'm guessing that the problem lies with my sound chip (nForce2
audio) which only supports stereo, not mono.  (Thus, the 'Unable to set device
to input mode' above.)  I'm in the process of compiling the ALSA driver to see
if it will do the conversion itself, as the OSS-compatible i810_audio driver
will not.  (Since AC97-compatible audio devices only do 2-channel 48KHz audio,
it doesn't surprise me that this is failing -- I doubt Asterisk does this
conversion internally right now.)

What tipped me off to this was playing a mono sound file with sox:

playing /usr/share/asterisk/sounds/new/whistle.wav
sox: Sound card appears to only support 2 channels.  Overriding format


If the ALSA driver doesn't work, I'll have to find an old, cheap sound card to
put in my server, but one which supports mono audio natively.

If anyone else has had experience using an AC97 audio chip as the Asterisk
console, I'd love to hear about it.  Otherwise, I'll have to find another card
(and use up a PCI slot) to get this working.

-- 
David Carter ** dcarter at sigfs.org ** dcarter at visi.com
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