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Errors with espeak
I am getting an error using espeak. Audio comes out the head phone jack, but all of this stuff get written to the command line. I installed espeak
and alsa-utils. Any idea how to fix these errors?
[kevin@raspberrypi ~]$ sudo espeak "hello"
[sudo] password for kevin:
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.front
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround40
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround41
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround50
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround51
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround71
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.iec958
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.iec958
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.iec958
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.hdmi
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.hdmi
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.modem
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.modem
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.phoneline
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.phoneline
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:957:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback
stream
ALSA lib pcm_direct.c:877:(snd1_pcm_direct_initialize_slave) slave plugin does not
support mmap interleaved or mmap noninterleaved access
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1030:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to initialize 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
audio
edited Oct 30 '12 at 22:17
Jivings
11.9k 6 51 96
asked Oct 30 '12 at 22:15
kevin
429 1 5 14
What's the problem? You say it's working? Jivings Oct 30 '12 at 22:17


Yes, I get audio, however it typically is to have all of these warnings and errors printed to the command
line. I would like to fix this.
not normal
kevin Oct 30 '12 at 23:44


I am getting the same error messages but the audio is not normal. There is always a delay at the start of each
sentence. Can anyone help, please? user3475 Nov 28 '12 at 12:18
What do you mean "not normal"? kevin Dec 17 '12 at 22:53
4 Answers
Here is the short solution:
sudo espeak "hello" 2>/dev/null
Here is my explanation:
The output you're seeing is normal.
Jack is an audio server and the errors report that Jack is not installed. There's nothing wrong with
this, will just use a different audio engine such as or . In your case it looks like
it's using .
espeak ALSA Pulse
ALSA
The above command will just hide the output from you.
answered Oct 30 '12 at 23:55
Jivings
11.9k 6 51 96


Doesn't that mean espeak is being a bit too verbose and printing it out to stderr poorly? If it's not really an error,
anyway. Shurane Nov 6 '12 at 22:46
@Shurane Yes it is. Jivings Nov 7 '12 at 8:56
Is it possible to get audio output to HDMI and not to head phone jack? avra Dec 9 '12 at 21:29
1

@avra That should happen by default if your HDMI device supports it. If not then there should be something in the
espeak documentation. Jivings Dec 9 '12 at 21:36
Yes it does work after all. My mistake. avra Dec 17 '12 at 11:21
You can get rid of the annoying messages about jack by running the jack server with the following
command line:
jackd -r -m -p 8 -d dummy
I put this in my ~/.config/autostart/jackd.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=jackd
Exec=jackd -p 8 -r -m -d dummy > /dev/null 2>&1
StartupNotify=false
edited Feb 24 at 16:57
RPi Awesomeness
1,200 4 31
answered Feb 23 at 6:24
user13029
11 1
Found the answer for this here:
http://alexpb.com/notes/articles/2012/11/14/error-when-playing-audio-on-raspbian-on-a-
raspberry-pi/
in
/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf
change the line "pcm.front cards.pcm.front"
to "pcm.front cards.pcm.default"
worked for me. Can't tell if there is other better solution.
answered Jan 16 '13 at 18:02
mjk
1
Turns out pulseaudio ruins ALSA. For me, espeak worked with 'sudo' only. After apt-get --purge
remove pulseaudio, things got back to normal.
answered Sep 2 '13 at 18:36
Chris
1