$ playmidi ifionly.mid
Playmidi 2.4 Copyright (C) 1994-1997 Nathan I. Laredo, AWE32 by Takashi Iwai
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details please see the file COPYING.
open /dev/sequencer: No such device

Ummm...

$ ls -l /dev/sequencer
crw-rw----    1 root     audio     14,   1 Mar 14  2002 /dev/sequencer
$ groups
nelson adm proxy cdrom floppy audio src video

severity 191775 normal
tag 191775 wontfix
thanks

I demand that Brian Nelson may or may not have written...

[snip]
[snip]
to do so, I have to make sure that snd-seq-oss is unloaded, move away
/etc/modutils/alsa (so that update-modules won't see it), run update-modules,
recreate /dev/sequencer (I'm using devfs) then run playmidi.

Presumably you're using kernel modules for your sound hardware, in which case
they're either loaded while booting or on demand. If the latter, have you or
dpkg done anything in /etc/modutils recently? If you have, did you remember
to run update-modules?

If you're using the ALSA packages, alsa-base must be configured (or
/etc/alsa/alsa-base.conf must be edited) such that 'invoke-rc.d alsa restart'
(or similar) will load the OSS emulation layer.

Darren Salt <linux@youmustbejoking.demon.co.uk> writes:
Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P
snd-seq-oss            28736   0
snd-seq-midi-event      3016   0 [snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq                37904   2 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss            39364   0
snd-mixer-oss          13816   1 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-ymfpci             43104   1
snd-pcm                59232   0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-ymfpci]
snd-opl3-lib            6564   0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-hwdep               4256   0 [snd-opl3-lib]
snd-timer              10920   0 [snd-seq snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib]
snd-mpu401-uart         3104   0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-rawmidi            13344   0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device          4336   0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-opl3-lib snd-rawmidi]
snd-ac97-codec         33160   0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd                    31308   0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-ymfpci snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib snd-hwdep snd-timer snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec]

That's everything I need, right?  playmidi worked before on this
machine, and I don't think anything has changed other than the version
of playmidi.

I demand that Brian Nelson may or may not have written...
[snip]
[dependencies of listed modules removed]

That looks right.

Well... playmidi is definitely defaulting to FM (SBLive here, so I get "no
such device"). Given an OPL3 chipset, -f or -4 should work; do you by any
chance have a shell alias set up, specifying -a or -e?

'playmidi' worked fine when I used to run an ISA Soundblaster Pro card,
but after changing to a PCI SB CT4700, (ensoniq 1370), with alsa modules,
I too get this here bug #191775.

	% playmidi  Desktop/midi/Classical/m05.mid
	Playmidi 2.4 Copyright (C) 1994-1997 Nathan I. Laredo, AWE32 by Takashi Iwai
	This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
	For details please see the file COPYING.
	playmidi: No playback device found.

	% groups
	alfie dialout cdrom floppy audio dip gis

	% ls -l /dev/sequencer
	crw-rw----  1 root audio 14, 1 Jun 10 17:59 /dev/sequencer

	%lsmod | grep snd
	snd-seq-midi            3936   0 (autoclean)
	snd-seq-oss            29184   1 (autoclean)
	snd-seq-midi-event      3264   0 (autoclean) [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss]
	snd-seq                36720   2 (autoclean) [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
	snd-ens1370             8804   0 (autoclean)
	snd-pcm-oss            39464   0 (autoclean)
	snd-mixer-oss          13848   0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss]
	snd-pcm                61124   0 (autoclean) [snd-ens1370 snd-pcm-oss]
	snd-timer              14532   0 (autoclean) [snd-seq snd-pcm]
	snd-page-alloc          6392   0 (autoclean) [snd-ens1370 snd-pcm]
	gameport                1676   0 (autoclean) [snd-ens1370]
	snd-rawmidi            13504   0 (autoclean) [snd-seq-midi snd-ens1370]
	snd-seq-device          4160   0 (autoclean) [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-rawmidi]
	snd-ak4531-codec        4888   0 (autoclean) [snd-ens1370]
	snd                    33508   0 (autoclean) [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-ens1370 snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ak4531-codec]
	soundcore               3908   8 (autoclean) [snd]

So I tried it with 'strace', (see attached output file), and would
guess the trouble might be somewhere around here:

     32 write(1, "Playmidi 2.4 Copyright (C) 1994-"..., 169) = 169
     33 open("/dev/sequencer", O_WRONLY)        = 3
     34 ioctl(3, SNDCTL_SEQ_NRSYNTHS, 0x8054920) = 0
     35 ioctl(3, SNDCTL_SEQ_NRMIDIS, 0x80539e0) = 0
     36 write(2, "playmidi: No playback device fou"..., 36) = 36

Looking up the functions, 'man 2 open' says that the '3' returned
in line #33 above is a file descriptor, so that's probably OK.
Lines #34 & #35 return no errors.  Perhaps the error has some
other trigger then.

(If it matters, my current hardware can still play sounds with other
programs like 'xmms', 'timidity', etc.)


Hope this helps...

I demand that A Costa may or may not have written...
[snip]

[snip]
[snip; all relevant modules depend on snd]

According to a search which led me to
  <URL:http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/using-rosegarden/en/chapter2.html>
you need to load snd_virmidi and use a soft synth (timidity should work). The
Ensoniq 1370- or 1371-based cards apparently *don't* have on-board hardware
synths.

  $ cat /proc/asound/seq/oss

I expect that to list no synth devices and no MIDI devices (without
snd_virmidi). If it shows otherwise, we have a problem.

[snip]

That doesn't matter, although if the above command shows that there *are*
synth devices or MIDI devices and pmidi works...

alsa sequencer is supported in the 2.9 version in the git repository
on sourceforge.

A 3.0 release of playmidi is coming soon after nearly 15 years without
a release.